BellaOnline Forums Health and Fitness Yoga Yoga Postures Poll

Check as many poses as you have done! Or write what I have missed below...There are so many poses.

What Pose Can You Do? multiple choice
	Downward Dog
	Upward Dog
	Cobra
	Tree
	Plank
	Chatarunga
	Sideways Plank
	Wheel/Upward Bow
	Shoulder Stand
	Headstand
	Camel
	Crow
	Boat
	Locust
	Scorpion
	Pigeon
	Bridge
	Eagle
	Triangle and Side Angle
	Plow
Votes accepted starting: 06/28/08 05:54 PM You must vote before you can view the results of this poll.

Wow i didn't know there were so many, whats the easiest and whats the hardest pose. some poses don't look human ;o) How many can you do Jilly?

You have to understand, I'm a lot more comfortable with some of them than others. The tree is always a challenge for me, sometimes I have no problem and sometimes my balance is totally off. And I have only accomplished the upward bow twice in my life, but I keep trying! It took me a year to manage the eagle, and longer than that to do the pigeon without moaning. And the sideways plank is hard for me because I don't have a whole lot of arm strength, so there is considerable shaking going on.
You don't mention any of the seated forward folds; those took me several years to develop the flexibility to get my nose all the way down to my knee, but I had more than 65 years of spinal rigidity to overcome.
The reverse triangle took a while, too. Only recently have I been able to do that without falling over or hanging on to furniture.
Then there's the whole Warrior series. I can do Warrior 1 and 2 and sometimes 3 & 4, depending on the state of my balancing.
That's what is great about yoga, there's always more to learn and perfect.

I think the first half yes, the second half no except the eagle - and I only tried the eagle because you all were posting about it Interestingly I didn't have much problem with the eagle, but I am relatively thin and I think that's a big part of it. My boyfriend is thicker and his body parts just don't wrap like that.

The eagle has more to do with the state of your hip tendons than the size of your legs, although there's a limit there! My hips were very tight so it took a long time for them to loosen up enough for me to do the eagle and the pigeon with ease. For the same reason it has been taking me forever to do a straddle split wide enough to be able to touch the floor with the top of my head. Not there yet! And it is frustrating for me to watch one chubby little woman in my yoga class whose hips are SO flexible that she can fling her legs around in ways that I can still only dream of.

Okay, so for me, I can do all these poses except crow, handstand and scorpion.

I had a dream the other night that I did the handstand and that it was easy and fun. I really WANT to try it, but need a good space to do it and a spotter and want to be all warmed up first. I don't want to hurt myself. But it felt SO GOOD in my dream.

Scorpion looks the hardest of all. I see that someone here has been able to do it. Who is that? How did you work up to it? Don't you have to be able to do crow first?

I want to try crow but i think that one also needs a spotter. I have not really given it a decent try - a few halfhearted attempts.

I try to do an upward bow and some sideways planks once a week just to stay with it.

I know there are so many more poses, and that I did not add the forward bends and warrior poses, but one of the limitations of this poll is that you have to guess how many options you need and i guessed at 20. I should have picked 50!

Rosie, the easiest poses are corpse and mountain and most people can do cobra and child's pose.

The hardest ones, on this list at least, are handstand, scorpion, camel, wheel/upward bow, eagle, sideways planks, shoulder stand and plow. But really, it's hard to say. For balance-challenged people tree is hard. For strength-challenged the basic plank and chatarunga are difficult. So it's hard to give an absolute answer.

OK I *think* I can do pigeon. Like this?

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My favourite's not there: King Dancer

The pose I still haven't managed fully yet is hanumanasana - part of the pose involves full splits. And I find the strength based poses harder to do than the flexibility or balance poses. Sideways plank took a few sessions.

Oh this one?

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Scorpion has been one of the hardest poses for me, even though doing a hand stand I find is easy for me as I have been a gymnast for over 18 years. My arm strength, focus and natural ability to stay balanced upside down has been what makes scorpion a little bit easier but I still find the forearm starting point to be very difficult and I like to focus on poses I find challenging. Also pigeon or double pigeon is very hard for me as I hold a lot of emotional pain in my hips and find even in warrior II I must watch my hips and make sure they are square.

I can do bridge but not comfortably...I have never enjoyed bridge and even at times when I've worked on it, I don't like the straining I feel in my back, I guess I have weak back muscles or something, but either way, I listen to my body and it doesn't seem to like bridge at the moment. Anyone have any suggestions on how to build up back flexibility to get into bridge more comfortably? I do the beginner version with just hips raised and hand clasped underneath me...

Yeah the dancer one is fun!

About Scorpion - I am really impressed here that some folks can do that. It looks so very cool, like a real scorpion. I will have to work on my strength for that one.

I assume one needs to be able to do crow and headstand first?

Here is a great utube video about how to do scorpion:

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Yes, that's the one. The naming varies depending on where the outstretched arm is held. Queen Dancer has the arm parallel to the ground facing down, while King Dancer actually has the hand facing up and cupped as if holding something, with the elbow very slightly bent. If you look at that picture it should follow more in a curve from the leg being held through the body to the outstretched arm.

Hi Jill,

After doing yoga for more than ten years I too am impressed with the physical ability required of scorpion which is a deep balancing backbend so in addition to having arm strength, you need a lot of flexibility in your back and hip flexors. Also, this requires core strength so before attempting you need to know how to get out of it (lots of core strength).

So in addition to handstand, you will want to be able to do full bridge/wheel easily too.

I worked with a very flexible woman a couple of summers ago who was encouraged to do scorpion while attending class in NYC. She did it, but unfortunately didn't have the core strength to get out and injured herself very badly, so just be careful:-)

About Scorpion - I am not ready to try it yet. I will keep messing with elbow stand and move away from the wall at some point.

I am doing fine with full bridge and wheel. I probably have enough flexibility for Scorp, but not enough strength.

Any tips for getting my crow to work better?