Balasana, aka: Child’s Pose

Take a break in this beautiful resting pose and focus on the breath.

Do not do this pose if you are pregnant, or have knee or hip injury.

This posture is mainly used as a resting pose, it can be used in a supported restorative fashion or between poses during a faster paced class. One can stay in this pose for 30 seconds or for a few minutes. It is a good way for beginner’s to begin to explore forward folds, as the heart rests and the belly touches the thighs.

Getting there:

1. Kneel on your mat with your big toes touching and the tops of the feet flat. Use a blanket to cushion underneath you if needed, but make sure all lines are smoothed out. Start to sit on your heels and then start to separate your knees about mat distance apart or as wide as your hips. (Note: if this creates too deep a forward fold bring the knees back together)

2. As you release the breath law the torso down towards the earth in between or on top of the thighs. If the knees are mat distance the forward fold will be deeper. Try and think of widening or broadening the sacrum across the back of the pelvis, below the hips and square your hips to the front of the room trying to narrow the points of the hips to the naval so that you can feel the hip bones as the nestle down and rest on the inner thighs. (Note: this may take time, multiple breaths or multiple weeks of practice to achieve) As you move towards the front of your mat lengthen your tailbone away from the back of the pelvis and lift the base of the skull away from the neck. Make yourself long and tall.

3. Lay your hands on the floor beside you, walking them forward lay your chest down towards the earth. Many options for the hands: one can keep them reaching forward, with relaxed palms and open the upper back. One can bring the hands back behind them, placing the hands beside the feet on the mat with the palms facing up. This allows the arms to grow heavy and the shoulder heads to face down, and the practitioner finds release in the traps and rhomboid. Finally, a third option is to take the hands together in prayer behind the head, resting the elbows into the mat, and stretching the triceps.

4. Notice if you are clenching your jaw once you lower. Release the biting surfaces of the teeth and drop the tongue into the lower part of the mouth. Release the mind, close the eyes and clear your heart. Focus on your breath and enjoy your child’s pose trying to release holding, or tense muscles with each exhale.

The pose can also be supported with a bolster under the chest, as well as a rolled up blanket under the feet and knees to prevent holding muscle tension. If you have difficulty sitting on your knees you can take another blanket, thickly folded between your back thighs and calves so you have something to rest the gluts into.

The benefits of this pose include the gentle stretching of the hips, thighs and ankles. It calms the brain and helps to relieve fatigue and stress and helps to relieve back and neck pain. The posture elongates the entire back body along both sides of the spine, and the knees can be brought together to support the low back more firmly. We usually do not breath into the full length of our back and balasana provides us with the opportunity to do just that. As we breathe into the length of the spine we are able to turn out awareness to tense areas up the torso, noting whether tension resides in the lower, middle, or upper back. One can visualize the “doming” of the back body as the breath fills it up, gently pushing the spine towards the ceiling and try to feel the widening and lengthening in the spine. Then on your exhale feel yourself drop into the support of the thighs or the bolster, releasing trapped energy and tension and ultimately releasing the practitioner deeper into the fold.

This pose symbolizes surrender and through surrender we are opened up. Releasing the things that no longer serve us, as well as releasing trapped energy in the body allows us to take this new found sense of openness and share it with the world – both giving and receiving.