The Benefits of Crow Pose + Variations for Kids
/Feeling sluggish and unfocused?
Want to tap into your inner strength, courage and fearlessness?
Need to break free of things weighing you down?
Fly High in Crow Pose!
Crow pose, sometimes also called frog-stand, is a super fun and challenging arm-balance that is great for beginner yogis. The benefits of Crow pose are plentiful: Crow yoga pose builds tremendous strength and focus while creating foundational body awareness and gross motor skills.
Crow is all about our core and practicing this pose can build a lot of internal heat. Let’s fire up and fly into crow pose!
The Benefits of Crow Pose for Kids
Crow yoga pose not only builds and tones the core, it also strengthens the arms, wrists and upper back. This is the perfect pose to practice as we build up to other arm balances like Handstand and Firefly poses.
Practicing crow also improves balance and deepens concentration and focus, while opening the hips. Starting with Squat Pose (also called malasana) opens up the hips and groins and prepares the body to take flight in crow!
Elevate Your Curriculum
Did you know Yo Re Mi offers an array of children's musical yoga and mindfulness resources for your school? You can:
- Request a professional development workshop
- Join a 30-hour certified kids yoga teacher training
- Download our app for exclusive videos and sequences -- with no ads!
- Inquire about brining the Yo Re Mi program to your school
How To: Crow Pose
Start in a deep squat, with arms between the legs and a long spine
Place hands on the floor shoulder-width apart
Hop feet together, keeping knees and thighs wide
Place knees on the triceps (backs of the upper arms)
Lean forward bending elbows to create a shelf with the upper arms
Shift weight forward into the hands, lifting feet off the ground
Lengthen chest forward and gaze slightly beyond the fingertips
Engage core, hug inner thighs and draw outer arms inward while lifting heels close to hips
Stay here or press into hands to straighten elbows
Stay for 3-5 breaths and then lower feet gently and return to squat
Tips for Mastering Crow Yoga Pose
If you are new to crow pose it can be a bit scary - we all want to avoid the faceplant! However, that edge is exactly where we will feel the weightlessness of this pose.
Pro Tip: Put some pillows or padding on the floor in front of you and play with falling forward to build your fearlessness.
Practice the weight exchange by rocking forward and back as you build up wrist and core strength.
Try lifting one foot at a time or place your feet on a yoga block to experience the feeling of the pose with a bit of support.
Hug everything in and up - to feel the lift in this pose. Especially focus on drawing in the elbows and inner thighs and make sure that the elbows are directly over the wrists.
Kid-friendly Crow Pose Variations
Starting in squat and gently rocking the weight forward and back between the hands and feet is a great way to build the strength and body awareness for the full balance. You can also combine squatting with a forward fold which helps children with this transition.
Pretend you are a duck squatting and paddling under the water.
Dive down deep to catch a fish!
Come back to squat and keep swimming.
This fun sequence both the physical and mental flexibility needed to eventually transition the squat into the arm balance!
Crow pose does require a ton of wrist, upper body and core strength.
We can work up to this pose by practicing strengthening poses like Plank pose and Downward Facing Dog as well as partner poses like Wheelbarrow.
Once you have mastered a beginner arm balance like crow, it opens up a world of fun arm balance poses to add to your practice. Best of all, it helps us tap into the inner strength and courage to try them!
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