For Beginners: Virabhadrasana II

Warrior Pose can teach you how to act with wisdom, courage, and unwavering focus.

By Shiva Rea

Let your left hip sink to draw you deeper into the lunge, but keep your right leg firm, inner thigh lifting, and outer edge of your right foot reaching into the ground. As your legs develop stamina and your hips open, you can begin to explore coming into a right angle with your front leg as if you are balancing something on your thigh.

Once you find the place where your weight is evenly distributed through your legs and hips, bring your awareness to your torso. Are you collapsing into your lower back? Find your vertical center by turning your tailbone toward the earth. Without tension, lift your lower belly, the seat of your power, towards the spine. This action will awaken your center, so you can begin to extend out of your lower back and spread your chest open. Now balance your rib cage directly over your pelvis. Is your torso turning towards the left leg? Draw your right side and the top of your right thigh back to feel yourself opening out from the center.

Keep scanning your body to feel where you are losing awareness and balance. Change sides and explore Virabhadrasana II to find that even flow of energy—north, south, east, and west—throughout the pose.

Face Your Fears

As a metaphor for living, yoga can help us see how unnecessary tension within our actions shifts us off-center. To maintain Warrior Pose, we often harden our eyes, hold our breath, or shrug our shoulders. Try Virabhadrasana II again on the left side, setting up your foundation from your center. Slowly raise your arms up to shoulder height, keeping your shoulder blades pressing into and down your back. Now, turn your gaze (drishti) to the middle finger of your left hand.

Like a Zen archer spotting a bull's-eye, who practices just holding a bow for two years before ever releasing an arrow, find balance within your focus by becoming inwardly detached.

Let the backs of your eyes look inside while you stay totally present. Feel the power of your energy radiating freely from your center. Find the balance between working to your full potential and completely relaxing, mirroring the effortless stillness of an eagle hovering over a current of wind.

As you explore this dance between being active and receptive, you can contemplate Krishna's paradoxical teaching, "One who can see action within inaction and inaction within action is the wisest among all beings."

As you look out from this still point and open your inner ears, you may hear your internal warrior teacher giving you insights to bring you into balance not only in this moment, but in your life as a whole. Like Arjuna as Krishna whispered over his shoulder, you may be given confidence to face your fears, courage to move forward, compassion to embrace another, and wisdom to surrender to the one who holds the reins.

Shiva Rea teaches flow-based (vinyasa) yoga integrating alignment and intuition, strength and fluidity, meditation and wisdom in action at Yoga Works in Santa Monica, California, and UCLA's World Arts and Cultures Program. She is the author of the home practice CD, Yoga Sanctuary, and leads workshops and adventure retreats worldwide. She can be contacted through www.yogadventures.com.

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