beginner pose / soo-KHAH-sah-na
Sukhasana (Easy Seated Pose)
In one breath
Sukhasana, or Easy Seated Pose, is a beginner seated pose held for 2 to 15 minutes, or as long as the practice you are sitting for. It works mainly on hips, outer thighs, knees. Read the warnings below before you try it: it is not right for everybody.
On this page
- What Sukhasana is, and what it is not
- Sit higher than you think, and on the front edge
- The chair is a legitimate seat
- How long to sit, and how often
- Where it sits in a practice, and what to do before
- Who should modify it, or use a chair
- How to do it, step by step
- What it is good for
- Who should not do this
- What Vaithialingam sees people get wrong
- Easier and harder versions
- Questions people ask
What Sukhasana is, and what it is not
Sukhasana is the plain cross legged seat: shins crossed loosely in front, each foot under the opposite knee or shin, sitting up on something so the pelvis is upright. Sukha means ease, comfort or pleasantness, so the name is literally the comfortable posture, which tells you what to optimise for. It is not called the correct posture or the advanced posture. It is called the easy one.
It is not Padmasana and it is not on the way to it. The lotus folds each foot high onto the opposite thigh, which asks for a great deal of outward rotation at the hip joint, and for many knees it is genuinely unsuitable however long a person practises. Sukhasana is the seat used instead, by the great majority of adults, permanently. There is no benefit of a breathing practice or a meditation that depends on where your feet are.
It is also not a stretch. Nothing in it should be pulling. If your hips are pulling, sit higher and put a cushion under each knee, because the pose is a place to sit for ten minutes and a place you are stretching is not that. The hip lengthening it does produce comes from time rather than effort, which is why it happens without being aimed at.
What it actually is, is the position everything seated is done from. Anulom Vilom, Bhramari, Nadi Shodhana and any sitting meditation all need somewhere to sit, and in my experience the single commonest reason a beginner gives up on a breathing practice is not the breathing. It is that they were sitting on a hard floor with their knees above their hips and their lower back collapsed, and after four minutes they could not think about anything else.
Sit higher than you think, and on the front edge
This section is the whole page, so it is worth reading even if you skip the rest.
When you sit flat on the floor with your legs crossed, look at where your knees are. In most adults who have spent their lives in chairs, the knees end up higher than the hips. From that position the pelvis has tipped backwards, the lower back has rounded, and the only ways to be upright are to arch hard or to hold yourself up with the back muscles for the entire practice. Both are tiring and neither is comfortable, which is a strange state for a pose whose name means comfortable.
The fix is height. One folded blanket, two, three, or a firm bolster: enough that the knees are level with or lower than the hips. And sit on the front edge of it, not in the middle, so that only the back half of the sitting bones is supported and the pelvis tips slightly forward. Then the lower back finds its own curve and the spine stacks up with almost no muscular effort.
- Both sitting bones evenly weighted. Rock a little to find them.
- Knees level with the hips or lower. Not negotiable.
- Cushion under each outer thigh if the legs hang and pull.
- Front ribs down and in, not pushed forward.
- Head back over the shoulders, chin level.
- Change the crossing of the legs halfway through, every time.
How much height you need is not a measure of anything except how your hips are shaped and how much you have sat in chairs. I have students who have used three blankets for a decade and their practice is better than that of people who insist on the floor. Arranging the seat around the body rather than the other way round is exactly the tradition described on the Iyengar yoga page.
The chair is a legitimate seat
I want to be unambiguous about this, because a good number of people have been made to feel otherwise.
Sitting forward on a firm chair with both feet flat on the floor, knees at a right angle, hands in the lap, spine long and head over the shoulders, is a completely proper seat for any breathing practice or meditation on this site. Not a compromise, not a beginner's version. A seat. Anybody with an arthritic knee, a hip replacement, a disc problem, a large abdomen, or simply eighty years of a life that did not involve sitting on floors, should use one without apologising to anybody, including themselves.
What matters about a seat is not the arrangement of the legs. It is four things: that the pelvis is upright so the lower back is neither rounded nor arched, that the ribs are free so the diaphragm can move, that the head is over the shoulders so the neck is not working, and that you can stay there for the length of the practice without thinking about it. A chair delivers all four more reliably than a floor does for most adults over sixty.
This matters in practice at the hall, where a fair number of my students are in their seventies. If the seat rules out half the room, the breathing practice rules out half the room, and the breathing practice is the part I would least like anybody to miss. The wider argument about adapting a practice to the body you have is on yoga for beginners over 40, and it applies to sitting more than to anything else.
How long to sit, and how often
The duration is set by the practice you are sitting for, not by the pose. What follows is how long a seat is comfortable at each stage.
| Stage | Sit for | Support | Breath | Stop if |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First month | 2 to 5 minutes | Two or three blankets, back to a wall | Ordinary | The lower back rounds and stays rounded |
| After three months | 5 to 10 minutes | One or two blankets, no wall | Exhalation a little longer | Any pins and needles in the feet |
| Long practice | 10 to 15 minutes | Whatever height you need | Left to the practice | A knee complains at all |
| On a chair | Any length | Firm chair, feet flat | Left to the practice | Nothing, this one is very safe |
Daily, and twice a day if you like. There is no load on anything, so the only real limits are the knees and the circulation in the legs. Change the crossing of the legs at the halfway point of every sit, without exception, and stretch the legs out in front for a few breaths before you stand up.
Where it sits in a practice, and what to do before
Sukhasana usually comes at the end of the moving part of a practice and at the beginning of the seated part, which is to say it is the hinge between the two. Do the standing poses and the floor work, then sit, then breathe.
What makes sitting comfortable is done beforehand. Three or four minutes of hip work transforms a seat: Baddha Konasana for the inner thigh, Gomukhasana or a lying crossed leg position for the outer hip, and Ardha Matsyendrasana to leave the spine long. Sit down after those and you will need less height than you did ten minutes earlier.
The counter pose is Dandasana: legs straight out in front, spine long, for a few breaths, which lets the hips and knees return to neutral before you stand. It is a small thing and it prevents the stiff hobble that follows a long sit.
Afterwards, if the practice is finished, lie down. A few minutes of Savasana, or Makarasana if lying on your back is uncomfortable, is the proper end. And if you are building a first home practice, the order in how to start yoga at home puts the sitting where it belongs, which is late.
Who should modify it, or use a chair
Everybody should modify it, in the sense that almost nobody should sit flat on the floor. Beyond that:
- Knees. Cushion under each thigh, or a chair. A meniscus problem, an arthritic knee or a replacement should not be asked to sit turned out for fifteen minutes, even loosely.
- Hips. After a hip replacement, ask your surgeon about crossed leg positions and use a chair until you have an answer.
- Lower back. Sit much higher, or use a chair with the feet flat. A lower back rounded for ten minutes is the thing to avoid, and it is also the thing that happens by default. Anybody in the middle of a back complaint should read yoga for back pain.
- Ankles. A folded towel under the ankles where they cross, or a chair.
- Pregnancy. A wide seat or a chair, and both are more comfortable than a tight cross.
- Pins and needles. Come out, stretch the legs, go back. Every time. This is not something to sit through.
And if you would like somebody to tell you how many blankets you need, that takes about ten seconds to see from the outside. Come to a class and be looked at, or start with a first class, and you will leave knowing your own height, which is a surprisingly useful thing to know.
How to do it, step by step
Read all of it once before you start. Hold for 2 to 15 minutes, or as long as the practice you are sitting for, and come out while the pose is still steady rather than when it gives way.
Step 1. Put a firm folded blanket or a cushion on the floor and sit on the front edge of it, not in the middle. Sitting on the front edge tips the pelvis forward, which is the whole trick of a comfortable seat.
Step 2. Cross the shins loosely in front of you so each foot is under the opposite knee or shin rather than tucked into the groin. This is a simple cross legged sit and nothing needs to be folded tightly.
Step 3. Check the height of your seat. If the knees are higher than the hips, the blanket is too low, and the lower back will round for the whole practice. Add another blanket, or two, or sit on a bolster.
Step 4. Support the knees if they hang uncomfortably: a cushion under each outer thigh means the leg rests rather than pulls, and the hip stops fighting you.
Step 5. Feel for the two sitting bones and take the weight evenly on both. Rock slightly forward and back until you find the point where the pelvis is upright and the lower back has its natural curve.
Step 6. Let the spine lengthen upwards from there, ribs coming down and in rather than pushing forward, and the shoulders rolling back and down.
Step 7. Bring the head over the shoulders with the chin level and the back of the neck long. Most people need to slide the head back a few centimetres.
Step 8. Rest the hands on the knees or in the lap, whichever lets the shoulders drop. Nothing in the arms should be held up.
Step 9. Breathe normally and sit. Change the crossing of the legs at the halfway point so the same leg is not always on top, because a seat held one way for ten minutes is a lopsided one.
Step 10. Come out by uncrossing the legs and stretching them out in front for a few breaths before you stand. Legs that have been folded for ten minutes need a moment.
What it is good for
- It is the seat almost everybody can use, which matters more than it sounds: a breathing practice or a meditation only happens if there is somewhere comfortable to do it from.
- It is the alternative to Padmasana rather than a lesser version of it. The lotus asks for a great deal of outward rotation at the hip and is genuinely unsuitable for many knees, and there is no benefit of a seated practice that depends on having your feet in your groin.
- Sitting upright with the ribs free is what lets the diaphragm move properly. In forty years of classes the commonest reason a beginner cannot follow a breathing practice is not the breathing at all, it is that they are sitting collapsed on the floor with their knees above their hips.
- It belongs to the practices with measured effects. Long seated and supported practice appears throughout the restorative and breathing literature, and one systematic review and meta analysis of nineteen randomised trials in 1,832 women with sleep problems found yoga improved sleep quality on the Pittsburgh scale, with no serious adverse events reported. Source
- It gently lengthens the outer hips and the muscles at the back of the pelvis over a long hold, without any load and without any stretching effort at all.
- It trains sitting itself, which is a skill that fades. Students who spend five minutes a day here stop needing a wall behind them within a couple of months, and after that a long practice becomes possible.
Who should not do this
- Knee injury, meniscus damage or a knee replacement: even a loose cross legged position turns the knee outwards. Support each thigh on a cushion, or sit on a chair, which is a perfectly good seat for any practice.
- Recent hip surgery or a hip replacement: crossed leg positions are often outside the permitted range for months. Ask your surgeon, and use a chair in the meantime.
- Sciatica or a disc problem: a rounded lower back held for ten minutes can aggravate it. Sit much higher, or use a chair with the feet flat on the floor.
- Sacroiliac joint pain: sit high, with both sitting bones evenly weighted, and change the crossing of the legs regularly.
- Ankle injury or pain across the top of the foot: put a folded towel under the ankles, or sit on a chair.
- Late pregnancy: a wide seat is usually more comfortable, and a chair more comfortable still. Nothing is lost by using one.
- Pins and needles or numbness in the feet or legs: come out and stretch the legs. Numbness is a circulation message and not something to sit through.
If any of these apply to you, say so before your first class. There is almost always a version of the pose that is safe for you, and it is the teacher's job to find it, not yours.
What Vaithialingam sees people get wrong
What the teacher corrects most often in this pose, on the left, and what to do instead, on the right.
Sitting flat on the floor with the knees higher than the hips and the lower back rounded.
The fix. Sit on one, two or three folded blankets, on the front edge, until the knees are level with or below the hips. This one change makes a comfortable seat available to almost everybody, and without it nothing else works.
Sitting in the middle of a cushion rather than on its front edge.
The fix. Move forward so only the back half of the sitting bones is supported. The pelvis then tips forward slightly and the lower back finds its own curve instead of collapsing.
Trying to force the feet into the groin, as in the lotus.
The fix. Leave each foot under the opposite knee or shin. Sukhasana means the comfortable pose and there is nothing to fold tightly. If you want the lotus, that is a separate pose with a separate set of cautions.
Pushing the chest forward and arching the lower back to look upright.
The fix. Draw the front ribs down and in and lengthen upwards through the sides of the waist instead. Upright is a stack, not a display.
Keeping the same leg on top for the whole practice.
The fix. Change the crossing at the halfway point, every time. Ten minutes with the same leg in front, five days a week, is a lopsided habit built one session at a time.
Sitting through numbness because the practice is not finished.
The fix. Come out, stretch the legs, and go back in. A leg that has gone to sleep is not being trained. Nobody's practice has ever been improved by a numb foot.
Easier and harder versions
On two or three folded blankets
Stack the blankets until the knees are level with or below the hips, and sit on the front edge. This is the standard version for most adults in a chair using society, and there is no stage at which you are supposed to stop needing it.
Against a wall
Sit with the back of the pelvis and the shoulder blades against a wall, still up on blankets. The wall does the holding, so a fifteen minute breathing practice becomes possible long before the back could manage it alone.
Cushions under the knees
A folded blanket or a cushion under each outer thigh so the legs rest rather than hang. A resting leg lets go, and it is the difference between a hip that softens over ten minutes and one that grips for ten minutes.
Chair sitting
Sit forward on a firm chair with both feet flat on the floor, the knees at a right angle and the hands in the lap. This is a completely legitimate seat for any breathing practice or meditation. Nothing about pranayama requires the floor, and I say so to every new student who apologises for using a chair.
Vajrasana instead
Kneel and sit back on the heels, with a folded blanket between the calves and the thighs if needed. Some people find kneeling far more comfortable than crossed legs, and it is worth discovering which of the two suits you before deciding you cannot sit on the floor.
Where these claims come from
Anything on this page stated as a fact about the body is sourced below. Anything not sourced is written plainly as what the teacher has seen in his own classes, and is labelled that way in the text.
From Vaithialingam's class
I spend the first ten minutes of a beginners' course on nothing but how to sit, and every year somebody thinks that is a waste of their time. Then we start the breathing practice, and the people who are sitting up on three folded blankets with their knees below their hips can follow it, and the people who insisted on sitting flat on the floor start shifting about at minute four and have stopped listening by minute six. What I say now, to everybody, is that the number of blankets under you is not a score. It is a measurement of your hips and of how many years you have spent in chairs, and neither of those is a moral matter. Sit high enough and the practice becomes possible. That is all the pose is for.
This is what he sees in class, not a medical claim. Where this page states what a practice does for a condition, the evidence is in the sources cited on the page.
Vaithialingam, founder and teacher, 40 years of teaching.
Questions people ask
How long should you sit in Sukhasana?
Two to five minutes in the first month, five to ten minutes after three months, and ten to fifteen minutes in a long practice, though really the duration is set by whatever breathing practice or meditation you are sitting for. It can be practised daily and twice a day, since nothing is loaded. Change the crossing of the legs at the halfway point of every sit, and stretch the legs out in front for a few breaths before you stand.
Who should not do Sukhasana?
Anyone with a knee injury, meniscus damage, an arthritic knee or a knee replacement should support each thigh on a cushion or sit on a chair instead. Ask your surgeon about crossed leg positions after a hip replacement or recent hip surgery. With sciatica, a disc problem or active lower back pain, sit much higher or use a chair with the feet flat on the floor. Use a folded towel under the ankles with ankle pain. In late pregnancy a wide seat or a chair is more comfortable. And anybody who gets pins and needles should come out and stretch the legs rather than sitting through it.
What muscles does Sukhasana work?
Very little works, which is the aim. The erector spinae and the deep muscles along the spine hold you upright, and the deep neck muscles hold the head over the shoulders. What lengthens slowly over a long sit is the outer hips and the gluteals, the muscles at the back of the pelvis, and the inner thigh a little. If the back muscles are working hard, the seat is too low: sitting high enough that the knees are below the hips means the spine stacks up with very little effort.
What is the difference between Sukhasana and Padmasana?
Sukhasana crosses the shins loosely in front with each foot under the opposite knee or shin. Padmasana, the lotus, folds each foot high onto the opposite thigh, which asks for a great deal of outward rotation at the hip and is genuinely unsuitable for many knees however long a person practises. Sukhasana is not a stage on the way to the lotus. It is the seat that the great majority of adults use permanently, and no benefit of a seated practice depends on where the feet are.
Why does my back hurt when I sit cross legged?
Almost certainly because you are sitting too low. Look at your knees: if they are higher than your hips, the pelvis has tipped backwards, the lower back has rounded, and the only ways to be upright are to arch hard or to hold yourself up with the back muscles for the whole practice. Sit on one, two or three folded blankets, on the front edge rather than the middle, until the knees are level with or below the hips. Nearly everybody who tells me they cannot sit cross legged is simply sitting on the floor.
Can I do pranayama sitting on a chair?
Yes, entirely. Sit forward on a firm chair with both feet flat on the floor, the knees at a right angle, the hands in the lap, the spine long and the head over the shoulders. That is a proper seat and not a compromise. What a seat has to deliver is an upright pelvis, free ribs so the diaphragm can move, a head that is not held up by the neck, and the ability to stay for the length of the practice without thinking about it. For most adults over sixty a chair delivers all four more reliably than a floor does. Anulom Vilom works just as well from one.
Why do my feet go to sleep in Sukhasana?
Because the legs are folded and the crossing presses on the tissue at the back of the knee or the ankle for a long time. It is common and it is a message rather than a test of your resolve. Come out, stretch the legs in front of you for a few breaths, and then go back in with the crossing the other way round, or sit higher, or put a folded towel under the ankles. If it happens within two or three minutes every time, use a chair.
What is the meaning of Sukhasana?
Sukha means ease, comfort or pleasantness, and asana means seat or posture, so the name is literally the comfortable posture. That is worth taking seriously as an instruction rather than as a description: the pose is named after the quality you are meant to arrange for, which means that a version of it that is not comfortable is not the pose. In English it is usually called Easy Pose, and in some schools simply the cross legged seat. The vocabulary is collected in the yoga glossary.
Practise in the hall, in person
In a hall in north Bangalore, in a small group, with hands-on correction. The hall is within a short ride of MSR Nagar, Mathikere, Malleshwaram, Yeshwanthpur and further out.
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