When practicing Birds of Paradise, one should should be rooted down on one foot; balancing and binding.
Elegance, refinement and composure are all vital ingredients to flying your bird. This pose is very challenging and as you can see, I am still working on straightening my leg and even my back and torso areas for that matter.
That’s why they call yoga a practice!
The rooted strength of the standing leg will thrive from an open torso. The flexibility of straitening your upward leg will come from the breath. Exploring these opposite actions will deepen and define your meaning of the pose.
With Birds of Paradise, balance and tranquility come from all different parts of the body. There’s an element about this pose that’s extremely uncomfortable as you are negotiating a relationship between strength and flexibility. Allowing these challenges to coexist is part of achieving the posture.
With enough practice, hopefully my birds of paradise will look like this:
