Feeling overwhelmed and need to ground?
Want to improve your posture and say bye-bye to the slouch?
Need a strengthening and toning pose you can do almost anywhere?

Make a Mountain!

Mountain Pose is like "home" in yoga. Our sun dance starts and ends in mountain pose, as do most balancing poses and movement sequences. It may seem simple but there is actually a lot going on in this one.

Practicing mountain balances and aligns our joints while strengthening the muscles of the feet, legs, hips and abdomen. It improves balance and focus while grounding and calming our energy.

Practice Mountain Pose with Children: Call & Response

Try a call and response and have children repeat each line:

I'm a mountain, straight and tall.
Strongest wind can't make me fall.
Blowing to the right
Blowing to the left
Blowing backwards
Blowing forwards
I’m a mountain, straight and tall.
Strongest wind can’t make me fall.

How To: Mountain Pose

Stand with feet together or hip distance apart
Keep your feet parallel to each other, like the number 11
Lift up through your inner arches, thighs and hips
Lengthen your tailbone down
Draw your navel in and relax your front ribs
Allow your chest to expand as you relax your shoulders down
Keep your neck in line with your spine, chin parallel to floor and gaze forward

Invite Us to Teach Mountain Pose in your Classroom

Tips for Mastering Mountain Pose:

Root down evenly through both feet. To find center, rock your weight from side to side and front to back. Notice how that makes the rest of your body feel. Gradually make the rocking smaller until you find yourself centered over your feet.
Imagine energy drawing upwards through the front of your body and downwards through the back body.
Keep your chin parallel while lengthening the crown of your head toward the ceiling.
Bring your awareness to your breathing and find calm and stillness as you work in this pose.

Try mountain pose at the start and end of our Yo Re Mi Sun Dance

Variations for Mountain Pose:

Experiment with different hand and arm positions when practicing mountain pose and see how each feels. Pressing hands together at your heart, for instance, may allow more expansion as you lift your chest into your thumbs. Arms overhead may help open shoulders and release neck and shoulder tension.

Relieve stress and tension even more by adding “tighten and release” to your mountain pose.

As you breathe in, tighten the muscles of your feet, legs, hips, belly, arms, shoulders, neck and face
Clench your hands into fists and SQUEEZE your shoulders toward your ears
Tighten as much as you can and hold.
Then release as you exhale through your mouth.

Try this 3-5 times making your breathing longer and fuller as you practice. Feel free to sigh out an audible “AHHHHHH” on the exhale.