Standing Yoga Poses oga Tree Pose



Another challenging balancing posture is Tree Pose, Vrksasana. If you're starting out, you can use a chair, kitchen chair, and folding chair, whatever you need. What you'll do is find that nice grounded position, feet about hip width apart. There are three ways you can approach Tree Pose. You can either have your foot, toes touching the ground, and foot right at the ankle. You can have it on your shin, or above the knee. So you find that nice position, never on the knee because the knee joint can be delicate. And with the pressure from your foot, you can damage the ligaments around the knee. So what you do, find where you'll feel best. Either, there or up there. A good way to think of this to balance is thinking of; to go back briefly, think of pushing your hands together, and that energy from your hands pushing together. You want to have that same energy from your supporting leg and your standing leg, pushing the foot into the leg and the leg into the foot. So taking that foot up, I'm going to go in the middle, to find the middle point, push the thigh bone back which will make the thigh feel like its spiraling inward and then push this thigh out so you have a nice energy exchange in your muscles, pushing your leg and your foot together. Bring your hands to your heart center, try not to lift that hip up too much, or sit into this hip too much. So find a nice evenness through your hips. If you need to use a chair, it's okay. And then in the fullest expression, whether your foot's here or down on the floor or up on your thigh, you can bring your hands up towards the ceiling like tree branches growing. Then bring them back to your heart center. Turn your knee in and bring it down. And then you repeat that to the other side. And that's introduction to Tree Pose or Vrksasana.