“Why is my balance not improving?”: Seven ways to troubleshoot your balance training

One concern that I hear often from yoga practitioners is: I keep working on my balance, but it doesn’t seem to be improving. If that’s the case, we need to take a closer look at what you are doing in your yoga practice and your daily life to see if you need a bit of course correction.

Here are some of the things that we can troubleshoot in our yoga practice:

1. Do at least a couple of balancing poses every time you practice. This is pretty obvious – if we want to improve our balance, we need to practice balancing. This particularly applies to Gentle yoga-type practices – sometimes, the teachers are so concerned about their older or less-capable students’ abilities that they spend most of the yoga practice close to the ground. However, those are the same populations that benefit the most from balance training, so we need to make sure to include some simple balancing poses for them every time.

2. Make sure to hold balance poses longer. Aim for at least six full deep breaths in each pose and try to work it up to 10. This will give your body and brain a better chance of learning.

3. Pick easier poses so that you could actually focus on the balancing aspect of the pose instead of the bazillion other things that are required in more difficult ones. Tadasana is an excellent example. There are so many things you can do with the balancing versions of this one pose.

4. Simplify more difficult poses to make them more manageable. There is no need to attempt the most difficult version of the pose if it makes you fall out of it every time. Start with a modified adaptation and, over time, continue to move toward a more challenging version (if appropriate).

5. Choose proper adaptations. I often see students leaning against the wall or other objects in their effort to tackle a yoga pose. The problem is that in leaning, you are changing the weight distribution throughout your body, which doesn’t help your body learn how to balance properly. Instead, try keeping your fingertips on the wall. Start with all of them, then see if you can do it with two fingers of each hand, then one finger, then none, while maintaining proper body alignment.

Quick note – it’s perfectly fine to use the wall in your yoga practice to support yourself in more challenging poses. But we usually do that to work on OTHER aspects of the pose, not the balancing aspect. For example, doing a Half Moon pose with your back against the wall is perfectly acceptable if you are working on the hip and leg strength, axial extension of the spine, etc., but it will NOT help you improve your balance. But if you do Half Moon pose, barely touching your toes to the wall, then you will add the balance training element, as well. Be mindful of how your pose modifications affect your balance training.

6. Train your dynamic balance, not just static. As we discussed a couple of weeks ago, dynamic balance training is necessary to prepare our bodies and brains for the challenges of everyday living. Make sure that you include dynamic elements in your balance training, such as moving in and out of the balance pose, moving within the balance pose, and moving between two or more balance poses.

7. Focus. Do your best to drop the inner talk that often arises when we do balance poses. Many emotions can come bubbling up to the surface, ranging from fear to frustration to disappointment. There are different strategies that we can employ here, but the simplest one is to focus on counting the length of your breath. Once you get into the pose, focus on inhaling for 6 seconds and exhaling for 6 seconds; next time, inhale for 7 seconds and exhale for 7 seconds, and so on. This gives our inner voice something to do rather than pointing out our balancing inadequacies.

These are some of the ideas that you can implement in your yoga practice to see whether or not they will have a positive impact on your balance.

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