After a tumultuous 2020, let’s kick off the year with a fast, refreshing flow of yoga poses to practise at home.
Virabhadrasana, or ‘warrior pose’, is a standing yoga lunge that takes after the mythical warrior, Virabhadra; its phonetic similarity with ‘wira’ ─ the Malay term for warrior ─ helps me remember the name with relative ease.
As the energy you exude is truly magical, I always tell my students to feel strong and proud when they are in their warrior pose.
Whenever I perform these poses, I feel like Aishwarya Rai ─ regal, tall, beautiful and mesmerising ─ and yes, I do feel like I’m all that!
Since my self-practice is ashtanga yoga, warrior poses are abundant in the flow.
In my first few months of practice, I would hesitate to perform these poses because my knees would hurt every single time. Since I didn’t want to appear non-heroic in my classes, I would suffer in complete silence.
I finally did master all five different warrior poses after I learnt the following: to point my knee towards the second toe, to avoid arching my back by tucking in my tailbone, to look forward at my third finger of my front hand, to centre my upper body, lengthen my arms and to focus on the different drishtis paired with the different poses.
In order to align myself just right whenever I perform these poses, I learned to be patient, to take my time and avoid looking like a warrior in a hurry.
The five warrior poses are as follows:
Warrior I / Virabhadrasana I.
Warrior II / Virabhadrasana II.
Warrior III / Virabhadrasana III.
Reverse Warrior / Viparita Virabhadrasana.
Humble Warrior / Baddha Virabhadrasana.
These great standing poses not only strengthen your arms, legs, back and ankles, they help prevent lung congestion, tight hips and chests as well as improve your stability, focus and balance; I also believe that it can be therapeutic for your sciatica.
What I love most about a warrior pose is its symbolism ─ the fierce warrior Virabhadra, who is said to exemplify our ability to overcome ego and ignorance.
The warrior pose challenges and tests us, but in doing so, brings us strength, focus, confidence and courage. I will be sharing all five warrior poses this week so check out my following video.
Let us all be warriors today! ─ The Vibes, 6 December, 2021
