Balance. It’s what yoga is all about. We seek out balance in our bodies, in our diets, our work, and our friendships. Many of us turn to yoga for lifestyle balance in the first place. Yoga is a place to recharge and turn off from our hectic lives. Finding balance, both physically in your asanas, as well as mentally and emotionally in your life off the mat is one of yoga’s greatest gifts to us. Some of the best ways to help yourself grow and develop as a yoga student and a person in general is to challenge yourself with balance poses.
Unfortunately, balance is also one of the things that can hinder us. Feeling too unsteady or unbalanced is often a reason why some people shy out of yoga practice. As a beginner, some of these poses may feel a little intimidating, especially when they seem to be so effortlessly done by other more advanced students. Fortunately, however, the fear of toppling over doesn’t have to keep us from our practices.
Most of us don’t spend our days trying to balance on one foot or our heads, so these balance poses are naturally difficult for beginners and take some practice. While there are some amazing ways to find your balance in yoga, there is no reason to feel like you need to dive into handstands or half-moons to get there. Check out these ten workouts you can do in the comfort of your own home to improve your balance and find confidence on your mat. Use them to familiarize yourself with balancing postures, then return to them over and over again to stabilize and anchor your practice.
Balancing Flow: Yoga With Adriene
Yoga With Adriene is a fantastic channel to start with as a beginner and to follow on throughout your development as a student of yoga. Adriene is down-to-earth, honest, accessible, and always throws in a little humor to her practice which helps remind us that yoga is meant to be fun. This balancing flow is a gentle introduction to practicing whole-body balance. This session is for anyone at any level of yoga practice and is great to use when you want to improve your balance, strengthen your yoga foundation, or focus on connecting and balancing the mind and body. Return to this workout whenever you feel like you are falling out of balance in life.
Yoga For Balance and Strength – Day 5: Yoga With AJ
This video is a segment of AJ’s awesome 13-day program for yoga beginners. The whole set is worth a watch for any beginner to develop a good foundation and understanding of yoga. But to build up your balance confidence, Day 5’s focus on strength and balance is perfect for us. AJ takes time to explain the importance of balance in a yoga practice, and where to find it anatomically in the different poses. She provides a good explanation of where to place your weight and how to align your body in these poses, which is crucial for mastering balance.
Beginner Balance: Beginner Yoga With Tara Stiles
Tara Stiles is a well-known yoga teacher with tons of information on her channel for any student, whether you are just starting out or have been practicing for years. Her style is relaxed and simple and offers straightforward, logical advice and workouts. This Beginner Balance sequence starts off with some key foundation poses, then builds to some tougher, yet attainable poses. A bit of Tara’s advice: There can be a lot of movement with some of these balance poses, so keep your body soft and allow for change. That’s a great concept to keep in mind for your yoga practice, as well as life in general.
Yoga For Balance: Abi Carver
Abi Carver’s Yoga For Balance workout is another fantastic set for beginners. It is simple, takes a slow and steady pace, and she provides thorough explanations for each pose in the sequence. This is a shorter session, so it is great to pair with your general yoga practice, a strengthening class, or perhaps another workout. Use this quick set in the mornings to prepare your mind for the day and bring your mind and body into balance.
Hatha Yoga For Beginners With Melissa Krieger: Better Balance
Melissa takes a great approach with this balance session by focusing on achieving our balance postures through mental balance. A calm mind and focused intention can make all the difference when attempting these balance poses. Melissa also leads us through a foundational warm-up that helps to strengthen the muscles that we need for better balance. Use this workout whenever you need an extra boost of power for your balance poses, or to help develop those core muscles needed for a strong and steady balance practice.
Move 123 Yoga Easy Basics: Balance Perfect for Beginners
Lisa Moore’s Yoga Easy Basics is another great workout for beginners to get started with yoga and engage their balance muscles. This is a general session with a strong focus on improving balance. One of the key features of this session is a tree pose flow that will leave you feeling more confident with one-leg balancing. The sequence ends with some arm-balance work and crow pose to help you develop full-body balance and strength.
Improve Your Balance Yoga Sequence: Brett Larkin Yoga
In this workout, Brett Larkin shares with us her favorite balance poses and encourages us to improve our balance for an overall better yoga practice. This session is great because Brett uses a flowing vinyasa style, but provides many opportunities for modification. Grab your blocks! Learning how to effectively modify our practice is extremely important for beginning students and allows for us to develop our yoga practice gently and sustainably.
8 Yoga Poses To Improve Balance: Tonic
If you are looking for a quick overview of some of the best balance poses to work on, this video by tonic is an excellent resource. Tonic provides a quick 7-minute practice that can be added to your general yoga sequence or can be practiced alone for a balance intensive sequence. These 8 postures are classic balance poses, but if you find any of them too difficult, like Wild Thing or the headstand at the end, just take it slow and work on the basics until you feel comfortable moving forward.
Beginner’s Yoga, Relaxing Balancing Routine: Mollie Psychetruth Austin ASMR
Mollie’s Relaxing Balancing Routine is a wonderful set to really focus on and improve your foundations. She takes the time to set up each pose thoroughly and draw your attention to your alignment and body awareness. Having an understanding of the body position and how it can best balance anatomically will improve your balance poses greatly. Mollie leads us through our total body alignment on even seemingly simple poses, like Mountain Pose, to fully appreciate our bodies and sense of self before moving on to more challenging sequences. Taking the time to slow down and really focus on how we are balancing can be just as important as working towards those challenging yoga postures. You might find that you learn a little more about yourself and your body when you stop to asses the balance you maintain throughout the day. Do you tend to favor one leg over another? Do you find yourself holding tension in a certain area when you take on simple postures such as Mountain Pose? Look into these little signs your body shows you and make changes to find a true sense of balance.
Yoga For Beginners – Balance and Stability: Yoga Merge
We wrap-up our tour of beginning balance yoga workouts with this easy and adaptable practice by Kim from Yoga Merge. This class is a great flow for beginners and focuses on helping you stabilize your balance poses. This set takes on all the classic balancing poses with added strengthening work and openers to develop your muscles in a well-rounded way. Kim also touches on how balancing postures are great for the brain and concentration. This workout is perfect on it’s own or as an add-on to your general practice.
All ten of these workouts provide a great foundation for building your confidence with balance poses. Balance is such an integral part of any yoga practice, there’s no need to shy away from it! Improving your balance on the mat will improve your balance outside of your yoga practice as well. It can help you become a steadier golfer, dancer, or skier. It can help you stay focused and become a deeper thinker. We could all use a little more balance in our lives, and using these workouts to train our bodies and minds is the perfect way to start embodying a balanced lifestyle.
Just remember, developing balance is a skill just like any other – it takes time, practice, and patience. In finding balance, we often have to fall down, lose focus, or bend. Some days you will balance like a pro and others you might need to put in a little more effort. The important thing to take away from it all is that yoga, like life, requires a focused mind, a bit of grounding, and the ability to sway with the changes.
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