One Year of Progress In Crow Pose

Crow, Jan 2015

Crow, July 2014

Crow, Jan 2014

Crow Pose is one of the first arm balances we learn. It is deceptively challenging, especially once we try to achieve the "floating" nature of the posture instead of resting and balancing the legs upon the arms.

To the left are three pictures of my Crow Posture over the course of the last year. The top is the most recent, taken last month. The bottom is the oldest, taken last January shortly after returning from training with Tony Sanchez.

Before getting into the details of the posture, I need to say how challenging this posture has been for me. It is the one posture that I was singled out for by Tony. "Scott, why are your knees outside of your arms? We talked about this," Tony said. I felt so baffled. I was trying very hard but still could not execute the posture correctly. So I made it my mission to learn the posture properly and practice it until I could do it right.

Starting with the oldest picture, the one on the bottom, you can see what Tony was talking about. I didn't have the strength to hold up my legs and torso, so my knees rested on my upper arms. I didn't have any trouble balancing, but my legs and torso would gradually slip down and out as I fatigued. This is the way we begin to learn Crow Pose, by bending the elbows and resting the weight on the arms, but it becomes important to move past this stage as we progress.

The first step forward for me was lifting my knees up into my armpits. It sounds easy, but keeping them up after lifting the feet is quite a challenge. It requires a lot of strength in the legs, hips and abdomen to hold the knees high in the armpits. You can see this in the middle picture from July. My entire focus for months was keeping the legs as high as possible for as long as possible. Admittedly, it doesn't make for a very pretty posture, but it's progress.

The next step forward was in the arms and wrists. Ideally, Crow Posture is done with straight arms with the torso and lower body floating off the ground. As you can see in the lower two pictures, my arms were bent until very recently. Bent arms help by creating a shelf on which to rest the knees. They also reduce the flexion necessary in the wrists. The picture on the bottom left (Jan 2014) is a perfect example of this. Elbows are bent, allowing me to get my weight forward enough to balance without my wrists being at even 90 degrees. 

As the arms straighten, the wrists have to flex more in order to keep the center of gravity far enough forward to balance. In the most recent picture at the top, my arms are straight and you can see how deeply the wrists must flex. It is a long and occasionally painful process. You can also see the fruits of practicing lifting my knees. Even as my elbows straighten, I have the strength to hold the knees high in the armpits, creating a posture that "floats."

I still have plenty to work on, namely lifting the knees higher and tighter into the torso. And then finding stillness and ease once in the posture.

Happy practicing!