Tadasana (Mountain Pose) Tutorial

Tadasana is a powerful grounding pose in which we learn to stand firm and erect like a mountain. This foundational pose is easy to learn, but hard to master.

It increases our awareness of our body, and gives rise to our sense of firmness, strength, stillness, and steadiness.

Try it yourself:

• Come to a standing position with your feet together. Create a wide solid base by lifting your toes, letting them fan out, and then dropping them back down down.
• Feel the grounding effect of your feet as they root down into the floor. See if you can imagine a thin line bringing the energy from your grounded feet all the way to the top of your crown.
• Engage your thigh muscles allowing them to lift your knee caps. If possible, try to do this without hardening your lower belly.
• Rotate your thighs inward, and lengthen your tailbone towards the floor, lifting the pubis towards the navel.
• Moving up, widen your collar bones by pressing your shoulder blades into your back. To ease into this, you can first lift your shoulders towards your ears and then rotate them away and towards the back.
• Without pushing your lower front ribs forward, lift the top of your sternum and allow your arms to hang by your side.
• Keeping your neck long, with the chin parallel to the floor, balance the crown of the head directly over the center of your pelvis.
• Soften your gaze and enjoy!

Variations to Tadasana:

• If your ankles feel uncomfortable together you can separate the heels slightly.
• If you are having trouble finding your balance, separate your feet to about hip width to widen your stance.
• If you want to make it harder try it with eyes closed.

Tadasana is an important pose of the Sun Salutation sequences. Check out our tutorials on Sun Salutation A or on Sun Salutation B!