Natarajasana (Dancer Pose)

Natarajasana, Dancer Pose, is a standing balance on one leg in which the other knee bends, the hand takes hold of that foot, and the thigh lifts backwards while the chest lifts forwards and up. Nataraja is Shiva as the lord of the dance, so the name refers to a specific figure and the pose is often called Lord of the Dance Pose in English.

It is the most demanding pose on this site's list, and it is worth being plain about why. It combines four separate abilities: standing balance on one leg, length in the front of the standing hip, an open chest and upper back, and a shoulder that will reach back over itself. Most adults have none of the four and a keen beginner has perhaps one. Combining them before they exist individually is how people hurt their lower backs, so the honest recommendation is three months on the simpler poses first.

It is not a pose about how high the foot goes. The photographs that circulate show the foot pulled up beside the head, which is a matter of extreme mobility in a small number of bodies and has nothing to do with what the pose does for you. The useful part is the front of the standing hip lengthening while the lower back stays long, and that happens in the first ten centimetres.

It is also, structurally, a standing version of Dhanurasana. The same instruction carries both: the leg kicks back into the hand and the arm is only an anchor, never a winch. If you pull the foot towards your head the arch folds into two joints at the base of the spine, and in this pose you also fall over, which is at least immediate feedback.

Where it belongs is at the end of the standing group, after the warriors and after the simpler balances such as Vrikshasana and Garudasana, in a thoroughly warm body.

Everything about doing this pose safely is contained in one sequence: press the front of the standing hip forward and drop the tailbone, then lift the thigh.

When the hip lengthens, the backbend spreads along the whole spine and the pose feels tall. When the hip stays short, the only way the thigh can rise is for the pelvis to tip and the lumbar spine to fold, and then the pose is held on two vertebrae at the base of the back. That is the version people feel the next morning.

• Tailbone down, front of the pelvis forward. Set this before the leg lifts, and keep setting it.
• Kick, do not pull. The shin pushes back into the hand or the belt. The arm holds.
• Knee pointing backwards. If it swings out to the side the hip has opened and the arch has moved into the back. Accept much less height and keep the knee behind you.
• Hips as level as they will go. Not perfectly level, because the lifted leg makes that impossible, but not visibly hitched either.
• Chin level. The head adds nothing.

The reason to be careful is not theoretical. The Cochrane review of twenty one trials and 2,223 participants in chronic low back pain found small improvements in back related function from yoga compared with no exercise, and found the most commonly reported harm to be increased back pain, with no serious side effects reported in any trial. An unsupported standing backbend held while balancing is the most likely single candidate for that reported harm in a general class, which is why the half version and the wall are the sensible defaults, and why anybody whose back is complaining today should read yoga for back pain and leave this pose alone.

Two props make this pose available to an ordinary body, and neither of them is a temporary measure.

The wall. Balance is trained by holding a steady position. A pose you fall out of four times in a minute trains nothing except frustration. One hand on a wall, or side on to it with the fingertips resting, and suddenly the legs and the chest can be worked on for five breaths. That is where the training happens. There is good reason to keep balance work in a practice: in a twelve week programme of standing poses for older adults, postural control, the timed up and go and fast walking speed all improved measurably, with the gait speed gain exceeding the clinically significant threshold. It is a small study, and the direction it points is the reason I do not let anybody skip the balance poses. Holding a wall in order to keep them is common sense.

The belt. Reaching back over the shoulder to take the foot asks for external rotation the great majority of adults do not have, and forcing it is a reliable way to irritate a shoulder. Loop a belt around the foot, hold it with the hand up near the shoulder and the elbow pointing towards the ceiling. Everything the pose is for is still there. The habit of arranging a pose around the body in front of you is the tradition set out on the Iyengar yoga page, and this is one of the poses that makes the case for it most obviously.

One more caution from the biomechanical work on standing yoga: single leg poses load the ankle joint noticeably, and anybody with ankle degeneration should keep a hand on something solid. In a pose where you are also arching backwards, that is not a small point.

Short holds. This pose is demanding in four directions at once, and a long hold buys nothing except a shaky finish.

Three or four days a week at most, and never as the first thing in a practice. The prerequisites matter more than the frequency: if Vrikshasana is not yet steady for thirty seconds and the half bow is not yet comfortable, spend the time there instead and this pose will arrive on its own.

Late in the standing group, in a warm body, after the simpler work. A sensible order is Tadasana, several rounds of Surya Namaskar, Warrior I, which lengthens the front of the back hip in exactly the way this pose needs, then Vrikshasana, then Garudasana, then this.

Warrior I is the real preparation, and it is worth saying so plainly. It teaches the front of the hip to lengthen while the tailbone drops, which is the same lesson this pose demands while you are also balancing. A student who can hold Warrior I with a long lower back for forty seconds is ready to think about the dancer. One who cannot is not, however good their balance is.

Afterwards, stand still. Tadasana for a full breath is the counter pose, and then a forward fold such as Uttanasana for five breaths to settle the lower back after the arch. Later in the practice, Balasana does the same job more thoroughly.

If you are building a practice and this pose is the goal, the honest route is through the ones that make it: Warrior I for the hip, the half bow for the kick, Ustrasana for the chest with the hands on the pelvis, and the tree for the standing foot. That is a six month project rather than a six week one, and it is worth doing in that order.

This is the pose on this site with the longest list of people who should simply not do it, and I would rather say so than be encouraging.

• Leave it out with vertigo or an inner ear problem, with uncontrolled high blood pressure or heart disease, with lower back pain, a disc problem, spondylolisthesis or sciatica, and in pregnancy. Also after any recent hip, back or shoulder surgery, until your surgeon says otherwise.
• Use the belt always, unless your shoulder reaches back easily without any strain.
• Use the wall for at least the first six months, and permanently with any ankle problem, since single leg poses load the ankle.
• Use the half version if the lower back pinches at all, and be content with it. The front of the hip lengthening is the whole benefit and it happens in the first few centimetres.
• Choose the wall quadriceps stretch instead if you want the front of the thigh and hip without a backbend or a balance. This is what I give to most students over sixty, and it is a good pose in its own right.

None of this is discouragement. It is simply that a pose which asks for four abilities at once is not a good place to discover that one of them is missing. If you would like somebody to tell you which of the four you have, that is exactly the sort of thing a class is for: come to a class and be looked at, or start with a first class, and you will get a straight answer.