How to Side Crow: Hard Yoga Poses Made Easy

Side Crow: Where twisting meets arm balancing (and fun is had) In the ‘Hard Yoga Poses Made Easy’ series, we focus on a particular yoga pose or skill that seems (or is) very difficult and we make it a lot easier by breaking it down into actionable, realistic, and sequential steps. Side crow is a fun pose to teach because it’s more accessible than a lot of other arm balancing poses and it also has a lot of elements coming together to make the pose happen. There is a bit of a ‘cheat’ in this pose and, sadly, the cheat has become a pretty common way for people to get into this pose for the first time. Many teachers will offer the option to “create a shelf” with both elbows, allowing you to rest your body weight on your elbows instead of getting the full experience of the pose. In this tutorial and progression, we won’t cheat. Instead, we’ll begin with simpler versions of the pose, master them, and then earn the ability to do the pose the right way. For athletes, this is an amaz