How to Practice Child's Pose in Your Yoga Routine

Practicing yoga can yield a number of positive benefits for anyone regardless of weight, fitness, flexibility, age, gender, and so forth. Yoga can serve to strengthen muscles even as it increases flexibility. It can help practitioners to relax and find inner calm and space, or it can invigorate and replenish one's energy. Yoga also helps the body to rest and can even assist in the healing of injuries. For whatever reasons an individual chooses to learn yoga, the possibilities for personal improvement are vast. One element remains true for all yoga practices -- from the greenest beginner to the most flexible yogini, every practitioner can always learn more about each individual pose, leading to a deeper and safe experience on the mat. Cultivate a better foundation for your yoga practice, whether it is studio- or home-based, by honing this key resting pose, Child's Pose.

What is Child's Pose?

Child's Pose, or Balasana in the Sanskrit (pronounced bah-LAHS-anna), is an essential pose for any yoga practice. A foundational resting position, this pose yields a gentle stretch through the quadriceps as well as the hamstrings, gluteals, and, to a lesser extent, the ankles. As we focus on filling up our backs with breath in this forward bending position, we allow that breath to also calm our thoughts and ease tiredness and stress.

How to Move into Child's Pose

Begin kneeling on all fours, with the hands and wrists spread directly beneath the shoulders and the knees directly in line with the hips. Toes are relaxed and untucked, and the spine is in a neutral position.

Allow your toes to move together so that the big toes meet, touching lightly. The knees move apart slightly, pointing toward the sides of your mat.

On the exhalation, slowly sink your hips back towards your heels, lowering the torso forward to lay between the thighs. Rest the sit bones in your buttocks on your heels and ankles. Allow your forehead to touch the floor in front of your knees, chin slightly tucked.

Arms can stay reaching forward for Extended Child's Pose, fingers pointing away from the crown of the head, hands relaxed palms-down on the mat. For full Child's Pose, bring the arms alongside the body, with the palms resting face-up outside of the heels.

Inhale, filling the back up with breath so that you can feel your tailbone lift slightly with the inhalation. Exhale and release all tension from your shoulders, feeling the fronts of your shoulders lower toward the floor, widening the shoulder blades across your back.

Continue to breathe here. Rest and relax, releasing any tension with each exhalation. Feel the back puff up slightly with every inhalation.

Check in with your body. Are you tight in the hips? Through the back? Do you feel any pain? Adjust to relieve pain (this pose should be completely relaxing and restorative -- it should not cause you to feel any pain) and accept your body as it is, whether your joints are tight or flexible. Use any of the modifications below to make this pose most comfortable for you.

Stay in Child's Pose for at least 5 full breaths. Feel free to rest here longer. To come out of the pose, bring the hands back to the front in Extended Child's Pose (if they are not already there), then exhale and roll up the spine one vertebrae at a time. Feel free to use your arms to support your torso as you slowly rise.

Modifications

In addition to the options of Extended Child's Pose versus the full Child's Pose with hands resting outside the ankles, there are a couple of other variations of this pose that we can take advantage of to deepen the stretch, make the position more comfortable if we have tighter joints, or to protect any injuries that we may be healing.

To protect the knees, roll up a blanket and place it behind the knees to reduce flexion there.

Tuck the toes under or place a rolled-up blanket beneath the ankles to reduce any discomfort caused by the increased angle between the ankle and toes when the feet are placed with toenails against the mat (as in standard Child's Pose position).

To ease lower back discomfort, stack your fists on top of each other and rest your head on them.

To create a deeper stretch through the hips or to provide more space for the body between the thighs, separate your knees wider to the sides of the mat. This is an excellent option for larger yoga practitioners.

In general, anyone with knee injuries should practice Child's Pose under the supervision of a trained instructor. If you have a home-based practice, be very careful when coming into this pose for the first time -- listen to your body.

Also, as with any form of exercise, pregnant women should be careful about practicing child's pose, especially during the third trimester. If you are pregnant, consult your doctor and practice under the supervision of a trained prenatal yoga instructor or by using a prenatal yoga DVD as a guide.

Child's Pose is an incredibly therapeutic pose. It allows us to relax, unwind, and release stress and fatigue even while improving hip and knee flexion. Child's Pose is also very versatile and can both precede and follow just about any other pose in a practice. Move into Child's Pose as part of a gentle and flowing practice, or as a resting pose during a more vigorous session. You can even reap all of this posture's benefits by folding into it for a quick break during the day while at home, at the office, or anywhere else! Enjoy this restorative yoga pose and the relaxation and flexibility that it offers.