Warrior Pose is one of the asanas most people learn first. It’s one of my favourites, largely because you get so STRONG doing lunges like this. All of us need to learn to stand properly on our feet, and distribute our weight through our legs and pelvis effectively, before we start doing fancy things like arm balances. Even Down Dog is an arm balance of sorts.
Warrior can be adjusted so pretty much anyone can do it.
A wider, shorter stance makes it easier to balance and to keep from twisting your pelvis & injuring your SI Joints. It’s great for beginners and for many women (we have broader pelvises than men asa rule, and if we place our feet in line with our hip bones we get ‘cleaner’ alignment).
While a longer, narrower stance, the classic heel-arch alignment, requires more open hips, more strength, and might never be suitable for some people (like me, with my broad pelvis & unstable sacroiliac joints.)
As you practice your Warrior Pose, ask yourself:
- Do I feel like my hips are twisting or my knees are doing strange things?
- What happens if I move my feet, wider, narrower, longer step, shorter step?
- Is there a foot position where I feel like I can really bear even weight between my front leg and my back leg?
- What is happening in my pelvis? Is it tilting forward? If it is, does the tilt decrease if I shorten my stance?
Happy exploring – I’d love to hear your thoughts on this most fundamental of yoga poses!
Moving from Stability: Understanding the Pelvis in Posture (Online workshop)
Light Up Your Life
I do, I think, a sort of hybrid version of what you illustrate here: My stance is wide but also long. The wide stance is better for my hips; the long stance is better for my front knee. Otherwise, it wants to overshoot, which — not good.
Nice variation. Tori. And I KNOW you know what you are doing, lunge wise.
Ah Leanne, you crack me up!
Nadine…..I’ll be trying this today. Thanks!
I’d love to know how you find the different feet
You already saw it, but officially, I’m giving you the One Lovely Blog Award
http://thefoodyogiblog.com/2012/05/19/one-lovely-blog-award/ because I think your blog/website is awesome! Can’t wait to check out your new video!
Food yogi~ Aww, again with the thank you & you are awesome! xo
I love this pose too but only after I started taking the wider stance a few years back. The result; happy SIJ and super stable stance, finally understood the whole ‘fierce warrior’ thing. I’ve also been playing with drawing energy from earth into pelvis (imagine trying to move front heel toward back foot and back foot toward front heel as your pelvis anchors towards ground). Turns adductors on and helps to make SIJ feel extra stable and pelvis strong. I’m curious if anyone else experiences that when they try it. Anyway, thanks for voting 1 for wide stance, you rock.
Kate, I’ve learned (and teach) the instruction ‘imagine you are squeezing your inner thighs together’ but I just tried yours out & I think it works better!
Such a contentious pose! I almost got into biffo with a teacher the other week who insisted that I should ‘correct’ my stance to be more like the very narrow ideal example that she demonstrated with her tiny size-6 hips. Why? Because “that’s how I’ve always been taught”, she said, which of course means that it should be an unquestioned absolute – of course! What? You’re body isn’t the same shape as mine? What’s the problem?? So I stood my [much more stable] ground and persisted with my favoured wide-feet variation because, if [like me & Nadine] you’re a mama with hoochie-ass child-bearing hips then the narrow option just feels like you’re walking a fricken tightrope and turns the whole thing into a precarious balance rather than the strength pose that it’s supposed to be.
I made it clear to the teacher that I was “a woman not a pre-pubescent boy” and that I needed more space, dammit (I internalised the ‘dammit’ but verbalised the bit about the boy..).
In retrospect I guess I was really in touch with my own ‘inner-warrior’ in that moment (back off bitch!).
Nadine, you’re always awesome at demonstrating how to stand your ground on the mat (and to not get bullied into on-mat be-littling and humiliation).
Tread your own path yogis!
x
I love you and your hoochie ass! Go yoga mama warrior, dammit!
Oooh, I lurve this pose. Thanks for the tips – I will certainly be thinking about them next time I do the pose. I’m much more stable on one side than the other. But I’ve realised recently I often forget about shifting some of my weight to my back leg, when I do this I feel a lot more secure in the pose.
Yup, two legs holding you up is definitely more secure! I’m also more stable on one side than the other.
I went to a class today and we did some warrior. The teacher had us transition from low lunge with forearms down before shortening stance/lifting upper body. I was surprised at how solid I felt once I got into position.
Nice! I like. It’s fascinating, isn’t it, how the little things like that can make all the difference? x