Yoga for Balance: It’s Not Just for Ballerinas!

Have you ever woken up one morning and felt like your body was falling apart? Sadly, as we age, that can happen. In addition to losing strength and mobility, our balance also wanes. Unless you work on it regularly, one day, you’ll find yourself falling. It creeps up on you slowly. The best time to start working on balance is 20 years ago. The next best time is today!

Whether you realize it or not, we balance every day. You balance when you walk or take stairs, shifting your weight from one foot to the other. You balance going from sitting to standing and vice versa, as well as getting in and out of a car. Any time you shift from one position to the next, your body adjusts through its ability to balance.

You can lose your balance when you aren’t paying attention to what you are doing. Balance is always more challenging on uneven surfaces, like when hiking in the woods or walking on uneven sidewalks.

Being able to feel your foot against the floor makes it easier to balance. Many modern sneakers, while giving your foot “high tech” support, make it difficult to feel the ground beneath you. Even some yoga mats, while squishier for your knees, can make it harder to balance due to their thickness.

There are many fitness tools out there that challenge your balance, thereby training you to manage those uneven surfaces, but you need to start at the beginning with your feet. If you can’t feel your foot on the floor, trying to stand on a wobble board or Bosu will be impossible.

Build your foundation

I find balance is best built from the ground, upward. Feeling your feet against the ground secures your balance. The more of your foot that touches the floor, the better. Spreading your toes creates space and allows for more width in your foot.

Your toes might not spread easily, it takes practice, but it’s worth the effort. After years of being crammed into tight shoes, you might have toes that overlap or aim in all sorts of directions. The sooner you start working on your toe alignment, the easier it is to manipulate your toes to do what you want them to do.

Feel the four points of each foot pressing into the floor: the inner and outer ball of the foot and the inner and outer heel. When you press your feet firmly into the floor, you’ll engage more of the legs, especially the quads and glutes. These muscles also support your balance. Read more about all of this here:

Moving From Two Feet To One: Building Balance

Yoga for balance

Yoga helps improve your balance in many ways. Balance isn’t just static, it’s employed during all shifts of weight. While training yourself to be able to stand on one leg helps, it’s the shifting weight that gives us what we need during daily activities.

Balance is found through your ability to adapt to shifts in weight, whether standing on one leg, or moving through space. If you hold yourself rigidly, you are less adaptable. Finding the balance between strength and ease makes you more adaptable.

Benefits of being barefoot

I have spent the majority of my life barefoot, whether I was dancing, teaching swimming, or practicing yoga. Shoes, while creating support, can impair your ability to touch and feel the floor. As I mentioned earlier, they can also squash your toes together. When you can’t spread your toes, you won’t get the same base on which to stand that you would if you had space between your toes.

It’s the difference between walking on a balance beam vs standing on the floor. When you have more surface to stand on, it’s easier to balance. When your toes are crammed together, you have less surface to stand on.

Being barefoot also creates strength in your feet. There are many muscles in the feet and lower legs that help us walk, stand, and move. When these muscles weaken, you are more likely to fall, have pain in your feet, or both. Supportive shoes or orthotics place you in the correct position without building the strength you need to sustain that position.

Walking barefoot, consciously and intentionally, can build strength in your feet and lower legs, giving you better support and stability. Strengthening your feet and legs should be a priority when you work on your balance. When you practice yoga, you practice barefoot, so it helps you build strength in your feet and legs.

We need balance in many orientations

Learning to balance when upright, like in Tree pose/Vrksasana is a great place to start, but we’re not always upright in daily life. Sometimes we lean over, twist, or move in awkward ways. Practicing poses that challenge your balance through these different orientations prepares you for life’s movements.

Using Tree pose as a starting point, play with where you place your upper body. You can hinge forward into a flat back, side bend toward the bent leg, arch the upper back into a backward bend, or twist. Each of these variations offers a new challenge to your ability to balance, especially when you shift your Drishti/Gaze/the place of your visual focus.

Seeing helps balance

When I was in college, I wore glasses to see the board, but took them off when I danced. Eventually my sight was bad enough that I got contact lenses. I couldn’t believe how much better my pirouettes got when I wore them. Not only could I see what I was spotting, but I could balance better too.

Sight is important for balance. While it’s possible to stand on one leg with your eyes closed, it’s much harder. Give it a try, it’s not so easy. Focusing your Dristi, or Gaze, on one spot helps maintain your balance. Moving your Gaze while standing on one leg will challenge your balance, like moving it from forward to upward.

Your brain is used to your eyes being horizontal. If you can balance while sideways, it improves your proprioception and ability to balance in all different orientations. The more you practice balancing when your eyes aren’t horizontal, the more adaptable you’ll be.

Shifting your weight

You shift your weight all day long: sitting to standing, one leg to the other while walking or climbing stairs, rolling out of bed, etc. If you are moving, you are shifting your weight. Each time you move from one foot to the other, it requires a moment of balance before the other foot finds the floor.

Small shifts of weight are easier, like walking. Larger shifts can be more challenging, like when you race after a ball when playing tennis or volleyball. Feeling solid on your feet, regardless of where your weight is, is something you can practice.

When I teach yoga, I like to have my students practice moving from two feet to one foot, like moving from Warrior 1 to Tree pose, or Crescent Lunge to Airplane pose. When you can move your weight easily from two feet to one, especially from a wide stance, you have better control over shifting your weight in general. Anything you practice gets easier over time.

Mindfulness

Learning mindfulness is the biggest benefit that comes from practicing yoga to improve your balance. When you bring your full attention to what you are doing, right now, it’s much less likely that you will fall. Concentrating fully on using the correct muscles to support your body gives you the best chance to balance.

This isn’t fool proof, of course you can still fall over, but improving your focus improves your chances of keeping your balance. In daily life, most falls happen when you’re not paying attention to what you are doing. Rarely do you slip and fall when you are paying attention. Of course it’s possible, but less common.

Yoga teaches you to focus your attention on what you are doing, right now, at this moment. Feel your foot on the ground. Engage your quads and glutes. Breathe. Notice how your body feels. This is the biggest strength of yoga when it comes to balance, being fully where you are.

Meet me on the mat!

In June I am running a special online program in honor of the Summer Solstice: Sun Salutations for the Summer Solstice!

Every Tuesday and Thursday morning I will teach a 15 minute class which focuses on a few of the poses that make up Sun Salutations. Over the three weeks you’ll learn more and more poses so that by the time we get to the Summer Solstice, you’ll be able to follow along for the full Sun Salutations flow.

This experience will give you a taste of what Vinyasa yoga is all about. Learn a few poses at a time then put it all together at the end in one seamless flow. Build strength, increase mobility, and cultivate balance! Finish the three weeks feeling more connected to your body, grounded, and accomplished.

Click the button below for more information. All levels of experience are welcome!