BALASANA
Child’s Pose
Technical note: there are two Sanskrit words spelled b-a-l-a, one with a short first “a,” the other with a long first “a.” The latter is transliterated into Roman letters with a short horizontal line, called a macron, over it. Child’s Pose is spelled with the long “a” and is pronounced baa-laa-suh-nuh.
There doesn’t seem to be any precedent for Balasana, the pose in which the buttocks sit on the heels, the torso rests on the thighs and the head on the floor, in the traditional literature. I searched through the 425-page Encyclopedia of Traditional Asanas, which includes 900 poses, and found three that approximate Balasana. One is called Ardha Kurmasana, Half Tortoise, in which the forearms are placed on the floor with the elbows squeezed between the knees, the other is its companion, Kurmasana, in which the thumbs are hooked into the armpits and the elbows spread to the sides. The third is Catakasana, the Sparrow Pose, in which the forearms are placed on the floor and the head lifted to look forward.
Balasana can be performed passively or actively. Like Makarasana, Balasana is an excellent way to learn to breathe into your back torso.
1. For both versions, bring your big toes to touch, sit on your heels, and separate your knees at least as wide as the sticky mat, at least wide enough to allow the hip points to snug down into the inner thighs so the front pelvis can narrow and the back widen. Lay your torso down on the thighs and rest your forehead on the floor.
2. Passive version: simply bring your arms alongside your torso and lay the backs of your hands on the floor beside your feet. Allow your shoulders to release.
3. Active version: stretch your arms forward toward the front edge of your mat. Then lift your sit bones an inch or two off your heels and reach your hands even farther forward. Press your palms firmly against the floor, and think of the heads of the upper arm bones (humerus) lifting up into their sockets so your armpits seem to deepen.
4. Push the hands away from your crown and release your sit bones back to your heels, feeling the stretch lengthen along the sides of your torso and into your armpits. Continue pushing away with your hands, and use that pressure to draw your inner groins back into the pelvis. Then without bending your elbows, scrub your hands back toward your crown and lengthen your front torso along the thighs. Continue working with the hands to deepen the inner groins and lengthen the front torso.
5. Imagine your outer arms sliding away from the sides of the torso through your little fingers. Imagine these two digits reaching away from your hands and lengthening along the floor. At the same time, imagine your tail bone reaching along the floor away from your pelvis. Feel the V-shape formed by the tail and the two little fingers. Imagine the legs of the V stretching more and more.
6. Now, whether active or passive, direct your inhales into the space between your shoulder blades (scapula). Expand that space with each inhale, with each exhale allow your torso to rest more fully on your thighs. As a simple rest-release, stay 30 seconds to a minute. To work with your breath in the back torso, stay 2-3 minutes.
7. When you’re ready to exit, imagine your tail bone tugging on your back torso, lengthen the front torso through the top of the sternum, and slowly lift with an inhale.
TIPS
If your head doesn’t rest comfortably on the floor, support it on a block or thickly folded blanket. If your buttocks don’t rest comfortably on your heels, put a folded blanket between your thighs and calves. If your shoulders don’t easily release in the passive version, support them on blocks.
Photo by Alexandra Tran on Unsplash