How do I keep my feet from rolling outwards while I'm trying to balance?

Hi Tani-Sue

Thanks! Isn’t it great to see and feel the evidence of your hard work?

There are several reasons why you find yourself supporting your weight on the outside of your feet when you are trying to balance. One of course is the fact that your hips are tight.;) During the one legged balancing poses you are trying to keep your feet facing directly onto the mirror which can be a challenge to say the least. It would certainly be much easier to balance (and wrong!) if you were to allow your foot to fan outwards. So good on you for trying to keep your alignment.

Probably the biggest reason why one’s weight is rolls to the outside of the foot is because most of the weight has been transferred to the standing (balancing) leg before or during the pose. Commonly teachers say, “Shift the weight to your (left or right) leg. Now, lift up your other leg”. Does that sound familiar? Try this: DON’T shift the weight, just lock that leg. Then just lift up the other one preserving square and even hips before and after you have locked the leg and lifted the other.

Another technique: You may have already tried this either consciously or unconsciously: trying to spread your toes to distribute the weight through the foot and to press your big toe into the floor. This brings the weight forward and more central. It stops you leaning into your hip.

You can also try to counterbalance your weight by not only pushing your foot and especially the big toe back down but by lifting up through the hips so that you avoid slumping into your standing leg. Share the weight evenly through both hips. In this way you are using your connective tissues, your musculature and not just your skeletal structure to support you.

It can take some months (and not just weeks) for the ankles to build sufficient strength to support you both steadily and centrally. As you get better and better at balance you will find less movement through your ankles (all those gross micro muscle corrections will be less obvious and become finer) and you will be able to direct and stack the weight vertically through your legs down through your ankle to the floor. And your foot will more willingly stay firmly planted and directly facing onto the mirror.

Your little problem is part of the journey towards better balance and a more open body.

Falling is learning how not to fall. And those movements through your ankle and foot are indicative of your progress to improve your core muscle strength as well as your balance.

You have not been doing the yoga for very long. Thinking back to my own experiences I can say that years of cooping up my toes in closed in shoes took MONTHS of practice to have them finally relax and open up (rather than being slightly clawed under) to feel grounded.

Finally, make sure that even if your big toe is pushed into the ground (as suggested above) that you don’t lean backward and that you make an effort to bring the weight centrally forward. With all the things you need to do in these standing balancing poses it is common to lean to the outside and back of the foot. Bring your weight forward over your foot, while pushing back through the back of your locked leg.

By the way, did you download the Free Complete-at-Home-Stretching-Guide? There are definitely exercises in there that will help you coax those tight muscles into a more open state.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi Tani-Sue

Just wondering about that pain in your knee…

What other poses does that happen in?

And, have you read the post called Lock the Knee. It may help explain the technique (should you need any assistance there, that is 😉 ).

Looking forward to your response when you get around to it.:lol:

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hello again!

I was just rereading your post, and was happy that you are using your body’s intelligence to get you through class. Pain is not the object of yoga. I hope you have resolved how to do that pose that you were experiencing pain in. If not, give me more details and together we will sort it out.

It is so funny that something as simple as ‘locking the knee’ can turn out to be so misunderstood. How have you gone with your latest mission?!

As for your last point: When we attempt a new pose we don’t always have the correct toolbox at our fingertips. What I mean is, that the newness may mean that we may unwittingly be doing it incorrectly, with less than optimal technique. None of these poses should be painful. And discomfort can be fine in the right context. It means we could be creating newness: new opening, new stretch and new strength. Will be happy to help on the finer points if things continue to bother you.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂