[Pose of the Week] How to Do Crow Pose Safely (Intermediate)
Having trouble getting into Crow Pose? Here are a few tips…
Crow Pose (Bakasana) is an intermediate yoga pose that will help build arm strength and prepare you for more challenging arm balance yoga poses.
Crow pose utilizes your entire body, so don’t think of it simply as an upper body exercise – though it certainly is challenging to your arms and shoulders. Crow pose will strengthen your hands, wrists, arms, shoulders, back, core, thighs, and more.
Balancing on your arms when you have limited upper body strength (as many women do – including myself) makes this a quite challenging pose for many of us.
Here are 3 tips for mastering this pose (see video here for how to get into Crow pose):
Hands
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When you are on all fours, lift the heel of one hand up so just the knuckles are pressing down. Then use your other hand to grab onto that forearm and pull up. Against the resistance of the pull up, slowly lower the heel of the hand back down. This little manoeuvre will help you activate the forearms and distribute the weight evenly into the hands and fingers…
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Cat Back
Your back is not flat in crow pose, it’s rounded. Practice finding this shape in positions such as cat pose. Use the core to scoop in and up strongly.
Core and Inner Legs Squeezing
Squeezing the inner thighs activates the adductors, which are the mainline to activating the transverse abdominis, your deepest abdominal layer. Find the midline. Squeeze the feet together, the knees into the arms, and presto, the core will start to light up. Finding levity in the upper body starts with strength in the lower body.
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