Welcome to your arm balances breakdown with Clara Roberts-Oss.
Challenging yourself and your students with arm balances boosts your strength and focus in body and mind. This tutorial provides key tips and techniques for achieving the three peak postures. Modifications for all levels are included to teach beginners and advanced practitioners.
Watch a teaser of the lecture or read the highlights below.
Hello and welcome to Advanced Poses: Arm Balances. In this post, we’ll cover how to prepare for arm balances, focusing on opening and strengthening the body. We’ll discuss key elements to include in both warmups and cooldowns, explore kramas (stages of entering the pose), and offer modifications to make these poses accessible for different bodies.
Arm balances can feel intimidating or challenging for us and our students. However, they offer an opportunity to explore movement with curiosity and inquiry:
Inversions and arm balances are not about achieving perfection. Instead, they’re about embracing new ways of being and finding excitement in the process. Approach these poses with openness and allow each attempt to be a learning experience.
These poses share similar preparatory movements, making them ideal for this sequence.
Strengthening and Opening: Key Focus Areas
To prepare for arm balances, we focus on strengthening and opening specific parts of the body. Here’s what to prioritize:
Strengthening:
Lengthening and Opening:
Designing a sequence around a peak pose is an excellent way to:
Think of the peak pose as the cherry on top. Focus on building the foundation underneath, with the final pose as the culmination of the practice.
While an overall body flow is valuable, sequences that progress toward a specific pose can make the experience more impactful.
Every body is unique, and how one person approaches a pose may differ greatly from another. Teaching and observing a wide variety of students over the years has been an incredible learning experience, deepening my understanding of how to offer these poses in a way that honours individual needs.
Arm balances are as much about the journey as the destination. Whether you’re practicing at home or teaching a class, bring curiosity, excitement, and a willingness to explore. These poses challenge us to step outside our comfort zones and discover new ways of moving and being.
Grab a pen and paper—you’ll reflect and jot down answers as we go. This is how we’d approach it in teacher training: with curiosity and trust in your knowledge.
What do the three peak poses—Dragonfly, Firefly, and Visvamitrasana—have in common? Write them down and reflect.
Key Similarities:
All are arm balances, requiring strength and balance in the hands.
They demand:
Deep groin and inner-thigh opening.
Engagement of outer glutes.
Rounded or concave upper body.
Asymmetry vs. Symmetry:
Dragonfly and Visvamitrasana are asymmetrical, involving different actions on each side.
Firefly is symmetrical, with both sides mirroring each other.
This distinction influences sequencing and flow in a yoga class.
Side Waist: Stretch with lateral bends, arm-overhead poses, and twists.
Inner Thighs & Hamstrings: Use triangle pose, Ardha Hanuman (half-split pose), and three-legged downward dog.
Upper Back: Incorporate concave poses and stretches for the back of the heart.
Wrists & Forearms: Include wrist circles, tabletop movements, and interlacing fingers overhead.
Core: Focus on plank pose, Navasana (boat pose), or Forrest-style core work.
Upper Arms: Include pushups, dolphin plank, or other weight-bearing poses.
Outer Hips: Combine opening poses like seated twists with strengthening poses like Warrior II.
Hamstrings: Engage them with locust pose, three-legged downward dog, or chair pose variations.
And now, I’d love to break down Firefly. Whenever you approach this pose—whether for yourself or in teaching—it’s helpful to come with curiosity and openness. Each body is unique, and our goal is to explore what’s possible within the pose, rather than forcing an ideal shape.
For most people, the biggest obstacle is getting the shoulders behind the knees.
While arm balances are often thought to require a strong upper body, the real key is understanding weight distribution. The more you can lean forward or backward with your upper body, the easier lifting your feet off the ground will be.
Your hand placement can vary depending on wrist mobility:
I always encourage people to try both. Because we’re all shaped very differently, we’ll draw from different parts of our bodies for both – so see which works.
Props & Modifications:
Use blocks for wrist support or shorter arms.
Blankets behind you provide a safety net.
Preparatory poses: pigeon variations, lizard pose (funky lizard)
Alternative: If shoulders don’t reach behind knees, Crow pose is a suitable substitute.
The second pose that I wanted to explore in this family of poses is Visvamitrasana. So, Visvamitrasana is also known as an architect’s pose. It is an asymmetrical pose, meaning the front leg does something very different from the back leg.
This pose requires a lot of prep and utilizes pretty much the whole body. Usually if you are coming into the full variation of the pose you would come into it from Warrior 2 or from side angle pose. What I have found for most peoples bodies is doing, what I like to call, a “dress rehearsal” first. We essentially run through it without the doing the full variation.
So, usually, there are three waves in a 90-minute or two-hour class. In the second wave, I would have taught the dress rehearsal of Visvamitrasana. So it’s like Ardha Visvamitrasana, meaning half, just the upper half.
When we enter the third wave, I’d have everybody sit down and show the two different ways. Then, I’d get people to choose. Especially with advanced poses, when things are intense in our bodies, it’s hard to listen and follow instructions.
Key Features:
Full-body engagement.
Typically transitions from Warrior II or side angle pose.
Often includes a preparatory “dress rehearsal” (Ardha Visvamitrasana).
This pose is both a hip opener and a twist. Essentially, it’s like a combination of flying pigeon and side crow. Working with the figure-4 shape throughout the sequence is helpful—starting from standing figure-4, transitioning into chair pose with forearms on thighs, then bringing hands to a block or the ground. Bow forward and work to straighten the legs.
Typically, at the top of the wave, we transition from toe stand down to seated. From there, we move into a seated number-4 pose, incorporating a twist by grabbing the foot. Next, we work the elbow into the arch of the foot, eventually bringing the armpit into the arch.
Since this pose deeply opens the hips, it’s nice to alternate between sides and neutralize between repetitions.
Preparatory poses:
figure-4 shapes, standing figure-4, lizard pose, funky pigeon.
Modifications:
Side crow or flying pigeon as alternatives.
Chair twists for a gentler variation.
Balance these intense poses with the following:
Backbends: Start with locust, then progress to bridge or wheel.
Outer-Hip Releases: Reclined twists, cow face pose.
Inner-Thigh Releases: Happy baby, half happy baby, or wide-legged poses.
Restorative Poses: Legs up the wall, Supta Baddha Konasana, or other calming shapes.
When planning a class, balance challenge with accessibility. Offer variations and include mindful counterposes to restore equilibrium. This ensures students leave feeling empowered, rejuvenated, and ready to bring their practice into daily life.
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