FIND YOUR INNER WARRIOR

Warrior I Essence Being present

Focus The traditional foot position of warrior I can make it difficult to keep your hips square. If needed, instead of turning your back foot out 45°, keep your feet parallel.

Benefits This pose says: ‘I’m here, I’m strong, I’m willing to show up and be visible with all my strength and all my vulnerability’. This is a valuable quality to cultivate, as it means you don’t have to give up if you fail, and don’t need to harden yourself to succeed.

Warrior II Essence Getting focused

Focus Distribute your weight evenly between both feet. Engage your core, then draw on its strength, imagining you are gathering it up the body and along your arms. Gaze beyond your front hand, channelling energy out through your middle finger.

Benefits Warrior II helps you gather inner resources for a task and build a solid determination to see it through. By being grounded, you can look at a situation with inner calm and outer strength.

Warrior III Essence Finding balance

Focus From Warrior I, transfer your weight to your front leg as you raise your back leg, keeping your torso and raised leg in a straight line. To aid your balance, extend your raised leg and arms in opposite directions.

Benefits This pose requires focus, trust and concentration. Courage requires all of these, as well as seeing both sides of a picture, and accepting different aspects of yourself, such as a desire to succeed and fear of success.

Reverse warrior Essence Being open

Focus Allow your energy to travel from just below the navel down both legs and through the balls of your feet. Feel the connection to the earth, root though your feet and lengthen and open the chest as your raise your arm and gaze up.

Benefits Reverse warrior opens the heart area, enabling you to draw back and look at a situation from a more neutral perspective before deciding what action, if any, you would like to take.

Humble warrior Essence Looking inwards

Focus Maintain an open chest as you fold forwards, reaching your arms upwards and backwards. If you have a tendency for excessive introspection, move out of the pose as soon as your thoughts veer on negativity.

Benefits This pose calms the nervous system and enables you to turn inwards. It invites you to see and accept yourself as you really are and be willing to receive support or guidance from another with an open mind.