Eagle

Benefits:
  • Improves balance
  • Develops body awareness
  • Increases shoulder and hip mobility
  • Strengthens feet, ankles, quads, glutes, core and shoulders
  • Improves focus
Cues:
  • Start in mountain pose
  • On an inhale extend your arms up and out to the sides and then overhead
  • On an exhale bring your right arm under your left
  • Start to bring the forearms towards each other with the full expression of the pose being where you are crossing your wrists and wrapping your hands with the palms facing each other
  • On an exhale sit back into about a 1/4 of a chair
  • On an inhale cross your right thigh over your left
  • Keep your upper body erect and your spine long
  • ​The full expression of this pose is where you wrap your left foot behind the calves of your right leg
Common Errors:
  • The standing knee is not pointed straight forward
  • The standing foot is not properly grounded
  • Shrugging the shoulders
  • Clenching the fingers
Modifications:
  • To lessen the intensity of the pose you can:
    • Have the forearms further away from each other
    • Stay with both feet on the ground and lower into chair pose
    • Cross the thighs without placing the foot behind the calves
Cautions:
  • Pain in the:
    • Feet
    • Ankles
    • Hips
    • Spine
    • Shoulders
Alternate Poses: