Find your balance as you launch into Airplane Pose – a great pose for strength, stability, and focus…

Airplane Pose (Dekasana) is a beginner-to-intermediate level pose that helps to strengthen the spine, legs, and core, creating stability throughout the body and improving balance and posture. Some students may find this pose a bit easier than Warrior III Pose, so it is often used as a transition pose to help you stabilize before moving into Warrior III. Those with shoulder or neck issues may also practice this pose as an alternative to Warrior III.

This standing balance pose is a great pose for building better balance and body awareness, and it also helps prepare the body for more challenging balance poses. It is also good to do this one after spending a lot of time sitting in a car or at a desk, as it helps lengthen the body, activate muscles that may have checked out for a while, and improve posture. Regular practice of Airplane Pose also encourages the use of the chest muscles and diaphram for improved lung health and breath control, tones the arms, shoulders and abdominal muscles, and is believed to improve digestion, focus, and concentration.

This is considered an energy-boosting pose, and is believed to channel energy through the body and stimulate the Third Eye chakra.

If you have trouble balancing, you may wish to do this pose near a wall or a chair where you can place your hand for balance. Those with chronic back issues should use caution when doing this pose, and if you have high blood pressure, skip this one.

How to Do Airplane Pose:

• From Tadasana, transfer your weight into your right leg, extend your left leg back and up as you tip your torso forward.
• Press the big toe of the supporting foot into the floor as you simultaneously lift the arch of the foot. This will help you to balance. You will also find balancing easier if you engage all the muscles of the lifted leg. Press back through the ball of the lifted foot.
• Keep the hips level by rolling your left hip down and reaching the inside thigh of the left leg toward the sky.
• Press the back of the heart forward to create an opening through the chest. You can also do this by externally rotating the arms in the shoulder sockets. Reach the arms back, extending through the fingertips, like airplane wings.
• Gaze a few feet in front of you on the ground to help you balance and keep the back of the neck long.
• Remain here for several deep breaths, then slowly release the raised foot to the floor while returning your torso to an upright position.
• Stand a moment in Tadasana, then repeat on the opposite side.

Learn more at ShadesofYoga.com…