How To Do Child’s Pose

Physical, Mental and Emotional Benefits

• Cooling
• Draws awareness inward
• Soothes the nervous system
• Encourages breath in the back body
• Opens the back gate of the heart
• Releases glutes, hips, hamstrings and muscles around the knees

Thoughtful Sequencing

Child’s Pose (Balasana), Spread fingers and walk hands to top of mat, activating muscles of arms and hands. Walk hands to the right, pause for 3-5 breaths, walk hands to the left, pause 3-5 breaths, come back to center. Bring fingers to touch, elbows wide and rest.

A Few Notes

Child’s pose is widely known as a resting pose. The action of bowing to the earth and lowering the forehead and torso to the ground has a calming effect on the mind and the body. This can be a restful way to begin a yoga practice, especially first thing in the morning.

The easiest way to come into child’s pose is to kneel and sit on your heels, with your big toes together, and open your knees wider than your hips. This may already start to stretch your hips, thighs, and ankles. Then begin to stretch your arms forward, leaving your buttocks and tailbone heavy to the heels, lowering your chest, and forehead to the floor at the top of your yoga mat. Having the knees wide stretches the hips and thighs generously.

As this is a resting pose, you want to ensure your shoulders are as comfortable as possible, whether this is with your arms stretched out forwards to the top of your mat, finding length in the right side and left side of the torso, or with your hands reaching behind, towards the ankles, with your shoulders resting on top of your knees, allowing the shoulder blades to fully soften.

If you prefer to have the arms stretched out in front of you, have your palms facing downwards and grounded to the floor, however, if you prefer the arms by the sides of your legs, have your palms facing upwards, to allow a generous inwards rotation of the shoulders.

Ideally, you want to have your forehead on the floor, so that you can fully relax the neck, allowing the spine to release and relax too. When you are able to relax the weight of the head, you can release tension and neck pain and allow the breath to aid in finding length and space in the spine and the torso. If this is unattainable, you can use props such as a block, cushion, or even just your forearms.

If you suffer from lower back pain, child’s pose can help ease these symptoms.

However, child’s pose isn’t a deliciously, comfortable yoga pose for every person. There are a few modifications. If you get pain in the knees when trying to ground your buttocks to your feet, one way to ease this is to place a rolled-up blanket behind the backs of your knees, to decrease the angle at which they are bending. You can also adjust the position of the knees, by bringing them closer, adjust the position of the arms, or perhaps bending the elbows, and using props under the head if it doesn’t reach the floor.

In Yin yoga classes, you may stay in child’s pose for up to 5-10 minutes. One variation of child’s pose to make it even more comfortable is to straddle a bolster and rest your head and torso along the top. This gives you full support to let go and release the front and sides of the torso. This can be incredibly soothing, allowing the mind and body to be still, a bit like a cozy meditation.

In more yang styles of yoga classes, child’s pose may be used as a pause, a ‘break’, before continuing with a yoga flow.