Benefits: Improved balance. Strengthens hips. Boosts confidence, as long as you don’t fall over.

Suffering Scale 4 – 7 / 10: Adjustable. For more, plant your lifted foot higher on the standing leg. For less, plant your lifted foot lower.
 

Steps to do Tree Pose: 

1. Stand upright with your feet hip-width apart.

2. Shift your body weight onto one leg.

3. Bend the opposite leg and rotate it outward, placing the sole of that foot against the inside of the standing leg—either above or below the knee joint. Don’t press your foot against your ankle or knee joint on the standing leg; it’s bad to press against joints. I know the foot arch may appear to nestle perfectly into the knee like a jigsaw puzzle, but don’t fall for it.

4. Root down into the ground with your standing leg to help balance.
    

TIP: Connecting body parts can aid in balance. To get more stability, gently press the sole of your bent leg against the inside of your standing leg, while your standing leg gently presses back into the foot sole.

     When practicing Tree Pose in an outdoor class, instructors will sometimes cue students to extend their arms straight up or do cactus arms. Why are they doing this to us? Please, let us keep our hands together at heart center or at our sides, so we can be more discreet. Extending our arms will cause us to get twice the stares from the public and make us a more noticeable yoga oddity. Even the birds will be looking.