Let’s play in Warrior Three together!
Warrior three is a fun standing balance pose that usually comes after standing poses like High Lunge or Warrior 1.
This pose makes you feel like you are flying and is often called airplane pose in kids yoga.
Adding Warrior Three to your yoga practice will give a creative challenge to your Vinyasa Sequences.
Balance and Focus
Our goals in Warrior three are to improve our balance, increase spine strength, and mental focus.
Lengthening the breaths and focusing on your drishti will actually increase your stay time in this pose.
Focusing on your “drishti” is when you find a non moving object to keep your eyes fixed on.
You want your eyes to send out imaginary laser beams towards your project.
Focus on your breath to go feel the pose from the inside out, instead of being outward and worrying about what it looks like.
Observe your Stance
Observe how the standing foot plants itself on the floor. This will inform you of the errors you might be making in your normal foot stance and foot strike.
I often notice that my habit is to put more weight onto the outer edge of my right foot when I am standing or walking. This stems from my scoliosis. In this case press down the big toe. This will balance the standing leg and activate the inner and outer leg muscles.
In Warrior Three the standing foot should be pointing straight forward, towards the front of your mat, with the big toe rooting down.
The inner arch of the standing foot is lifting, as the ball foot and heel of the foot grounds towards the earth. For the floating foot, press through the heel, imagining you are pushing that foot into a wall behind you.
As you develop a stronger practice in this pose, you will eventually guide the floating toes to point towards the ground.
Extending your Upper Back
Place your hands on your hips for balance or take a chance and explore hands in anjali mudra, (prayer at heart center) or hands reaching forward.
Keep the back of your neck long reaching through the crown of your head. Guide your heart forward and draw the shoulders away from the ears.
Extend through your upper back, breath, dristi and fly!
By practicing a few rounds of locust and cobra pose beforehand, you will prepare the upper back and spine for this pose.
Warrior Three will improve balance, and strengthen legs, ankles, back, shoulders, and core.
Watch this video and we will explore Warrior Three pose together.
Take your time, be kind, and breath!
Namaste beautiful friends!
I bet your core is very stable. Pretty nice to know that in such simple poses, it affects many parts already
I need to better my balance, I will try these poses later on today.
These are great exercises to be doing at home, especially while we are quarantined. Thanks for sharing.. this is something I could totally incorporate into my daily routine.
Thanks for this! I’m trying to get back into working out regularly and hoooopefully will be doing more yoga as well! Fingers crossed!
I love warrior 3 always makes me feel strong. Funny how some days it can be so challenging
This is a good reminder to me to practice this pose more frequently. I’ve been changing my routine, but this pose is golden.
Oh I’ll definitely be doing some of these during the quarantine!
Balance is important to do yoga well I will try this poses thanks for sharing.
How I wish I could achieve that exercise post.
Okay. I watched the video and you have just convinced me to try out the warrior airplane pose. Namaste. 👍👍👏
I love all the variations of the warrior pose! Your lines are so neat.
Hi, The video is captivating, I am a beginner and I don’t have a great balance, are any poses which are simple to start from?
I was just thinking about improving my balance as I did yoga earlier today, so glad to stumble upon this blog post.
I definitely will do this stance as we need to stay at home and do something for our self to be physically fit and healthy at times like this.
I can’t wait for the day that I will be able to actually do this.
I love this pose! It is actually very relaxing once you get a hang of it!
I don’t think I would be able to stand long in that kind of position 🙂
I have learned the warrior pose during my body balance classes, a while ago. It’s a great pose for balance and strength. I remember it took me some time to master it.
That post is super difficult for me to do I had a surgery in my right leg and it has been difficult for me to balance from that leg ever since
I really struggle with balance. You have some great tips here for me. I appreciate you sharing your wisdom.
Yes, I am also back with my yoga. It feels good especially during these crazy times. Yoga helps me relax.
Yes, Balance is more important in doing yoga. Thanks for sharing I will definitely going to try some of these poses
Indeed YOGA is beneficial for every one.
This is difficult for me but I shall try to improve my balance under your given guidelines.
I really love yoga. Been doing yoga daily in this lockdown period in India
I love warrior 3 pose in my yoga time, it works every muscle and balance is key.
I am new to yoga so I find these posts very useful. Thank you for sharing.
You’re welcome. We appreciate that. We’re so happy that you are finding our posts useful.
It’s helpful if you and your partners are similar in height. They should hold the ends of the pole