Yoga for Balance
- Liquid Yoga
- Jun 28
- 8 min read
Yoga could just be your go-to practice when it comes to balance.
Find out why it's so good and encompasses so much more than just physical steadiness.
I have always been wobbly. As a kid I was never good at gymnastics and I've always had awkward legs and ankles, let alone a lack of upper body strength. I vividly remember a PT session a few years ago when I struggled (valiantly, I thought) with balance when instructed to do walking lunges, whilst my PT struggled with knowing how to correct it.
These days things are quite different, mainly I would say thanks to ongoing yoga practice. Not everything that's improved it is 'yoga' per se- by which I mean traditional yoga postures- but ultimately I thank my yoga practice for enabling the mindful changes which have resulted in a steadier body, mind and life.
Yoga for Balance: Physical Strength
Many people (myself included) come to yoga as a movement practice because sports or exercise classes aren't a good fit for their needs.
Whether it's down to physical challenges that aren't catered for easily in a fast-paced class, co-ordination issues or sensory needs that don't sit well in a traditional gym or on a playing field, or perhaps it's that yoga is considered a 'gentle' entry into physical fitness, people who are not 'sporty' often end up on the yoga mat.
Just because you're not sporty doesn't mean you don't want to be a bit stronger or have good balance (I mean, doesn't everyone?) and whilst yoga is often associated with flexibility in popular culture, strength is the other side of the coin that's needed for a sustainable practice.
Yoga's balance of flexibility and strength has appeal for people who tend to one rather than the other (I'm looking at you, fellow hypermobile folks 👀) as we can build the one we struggle with alongside working with the one we feel 'good at'.
Yoga has a lot of strength work sneaked in. Utkatasana (chair pose) is a squat hold and Chataranga Dandasana is a press up. Downward facing dog targets shoulder strength and Warrior II targets thigh and glute strength. Don't get me started on bridge pose, we could be here all day.
Whether you are born wobbly or developed it somewhere along life's journey, the strength work in yoga needs build the body enough to support the flexibility aspect, otherwise there is the risk of overstretching and injury. So yoga for balance MUST be about physical strength to some degree. If it's all stretching and little muscle engagement, it is unlikely to help your balance.
Yoga for Balance: Developing Better Balance
Across the different yoga classes, ages, demographics and levels of experience that I have seen as a teacher, a really common question is "how can I improve my balance?"
This particularly struck me, as a wobbly person myself with many years of yoga experience behind me. It's pretty universal.
I have had a few insights through the years in terms of immediate and long term strategies to improve things (including barefoot shoes which I now would not be without) and I've distilled these into a couple of workshops which I can now share.
At the crux of it though it's all about practice. Balance more to have better balance! Cultivate your balancing skills, and when you feel you have mastered a pose, do it some more, then do something you can't do so well too. There are SO many yoga balance poses to try which support all areas of your yoga practice - from strength to flexbility, focus, ability to work through challenge or know when to stop, when it's safe to push yourself or when you need to find more support.
Having an encouraging teacher or teachers and a safe space (both physically and psychologically) in which to try out your balances are truly important, as you will inevitably wobble and fall over many times. This is part of the process, and the amount of times you fail will not be the same as anyone else and neither is it a measure of how 'good' you are at yoga. Physical yoga is a great way of developing better physical balance, but even the wobbliest of sessions may turn out to be a great yoga practice in many ways.
Yoga for Balance: Flexibility
This is the biggie in terms of perceptions of yoga practice. And it's true, yoga as a flexibility practice really brings balance to other activities which stiffen us up. Runners, cyclists, weightlifters and rugby players can all benefit from yoga for flexibility because our bodies work best when we can move them in a wide variety of different ways, rather than purely in one intense type of movement. This also helps to prevent injury, which is particularly useful if your sport or activity is a big part of your lifestyle.
Within yoga practices as well it's worth noting that some approaches or sessions are more flexibility focussed and others more strength focussed. For people whose main exercise is physical yoga, a mixture of different approaches is super helpful to maintain balance in the practice overall. There was a time when I practiced ashtanga or power yoga every day, which I did really enjoy and find a lot of progression with. However, the addition of a regular yin yoga (ie passive stretching) practice has given me more capacity to move in certain poses and an insight into why my body locks up or doesn't feel safe in others, meaning that I can work more safely and intelligently in a strength based practice too.
Many folks who don't feel like they are the flexible type but need it as a balance will be put off yoga because they can't touch their toes or comfortably sit cross legged, and I can completely understand this. There are many benefits to an adapted yoga practice which give the option to move as your body can rather than be ashamed of how your body can't. As a yoga teacher I always try hard to create the former in my classes.
Yoga for Balance: Calming your Nervous System
Many people also come to yoga for the relaxation benefits. It's one of the top reasons I get when people come to work with me, mostly I think because it's SO hard to find a space to 'switch off' in life right now.
So often we are in the state of 'go' and feel the need to always do more, give more, achieve more. Sometimes even when you have completed a prestigious project or longed-for accomplishment it may result in a feeling of relief or exhaustion rather than celebration. One of the great gifts of yoga practice is to provide a space that doesn't need to be part of that dynamic.
Showing up regularly for yoga practice, I notice that there is an ebb and flow of experience rather than pure incremental progression towards stronger and more flexible body or calmer mind. Over time there are setbacks, injuries, life events that affect how I practice and it's very helpful to notice yoga as a space for practice rather than another area where I'm getting frustrated at my inability to focus or perform physically.
In this way, yoga offers us a space to 'be' rather than 'do' or 'achieve', we can slow down as much as we need to and observe ourselves rather than demonstrate anything. As one of my students put it "Whatever you do, whatever feels comfortable, that is enough."
Having this in our lives promotes balance of the autonomic nervous system, giving enough time and space to enter the parasympathetic or 'rest and digest' state and feel calmer, less stressed and more at home with ourselves.
Yoga for Balance: Steadiness amongst Chaos
Life is often chaotic and seems to be going at a million miles an hour. It's a real juggling act for most of us managing family, social, career and health demands and wondering how everyone else seems to be doing it so smoothly!
Yoga practice not only gives us the opportunity to take a well earned breather from it all, but it gives us a sort of laboratory in which to test out and better understand how we can work our way through the chaos of everyday life. Whether you keep practicing Garudasana (eagle pose) but you keep falling out of the balance, or you feel really accomplished in Warrior II but then the teacher gives you an adjustment (I always fall for this one...) or you get totally bored of a pose because you feel like you've mastered it ages ago, in the yoga lab you can observe what happens with each of these feelings and experiences. How you treat yourself, speak with yourself or react when different things come up, whether they are good, bad or indifferent.
Out there in life, it's rare to have the chance to pause, step back and see how you reacted before plunging headlong into wherever that reaction leads you. The good news is that the more we can do this on the yoga mat, the more we are able to do it in normal life. We can respond rather than react, treat ourselves with understanding and compassion, feel steadier and more in control of our lives.
Some of my favourite yoga practices for creating a personal 'yoga lab' are at the opposite end of the pose spectrum. I have spent many years training handstands which has been a study of patience, sudden and steady breakthroughs, boredom, frustration, distraction and willingness to ultimately fail. How would I treat myself if all my efforts and clever training came to nothing? Am I ashamed of being a yoga teacher who can't master this pose? Am I having more fun when I think I'm getting closer to holding the balance longer or when I let go of the goal? Is it about fun?
Alternatively I also make an ongoing effort with Tadasana (mountain pose) which is simply standing. It's so easy to rush through Tadasana into a more complicated postion, but the effort of really staying and observing simple standing has given many insights into body, mind and spirit over the years. When I can't stand it because I want to 'get through' my practice as I am stressed about having lots of work to do. When I actually notice the small but unnatural feeling of adjustments I have to make around my knee injury to stand evenly, and the well of memories and worries that this observation taps into.
Practicing long held postures in yin yoga gives space for breath and tension release to change the way that I hold the pose and the things that I notice about it. There are yin poses that I can't hold for as long as my students can. I have a good relationship with not pushing too far these days, but there is still an inner voice that tells me I should try harder. Without the little laboratory of my yoga practice I would still find this or a comparable situation a real source of inner friction.
Fancy trying some new balance poses this summer? I've put together a 2hr workshop session in North Leeds to get you trying and feeling more confident with further balances including headstands and arm balances! Click below for more info and to book.
Want to create more balance for yourself through yoga? You can work with me 1-1 both online and in person in Leeds. Together we will create a tailored practice to give you the balance you need!
Comments