Why We Practice Warrior 1 Pose in Yoga

Yoga Journal’s archives series is a curated collection of articles originally published in past issues beginning in 1975. This article about Virabhadrasana I (Warrior 1 Pose) first appeared in the July-August 1977 issue of Yoga Journal. 

According to B.K.S. Iyengar’s Light on Yoga, the pose is named after Virabhadra, a powerful hero who sprang up from a matted lock of Siva’s hair. (Siva is the Lord of Destruction, one of the Hindu trinity gods.) Virabhadra was ordered to lead Siva’s army in retribution for the death of Sati, Siva’s wife.

Virabhadrasana 1, commonly known as Warrior 1 Pose, is aptly named after a warrior in that it is definitely a difficult, warming pose, as opposed to an asana which is cooling and which directs the mind more obviously inward, such as a forward bend. A standing pose, Virabhadrasana I develops the strength of the practitioner, both physically and mentally, as the concentration and tenacity necessary to hold it are considerable. Nevertheless, it is part of a beginning series as it develops those attributes in the student necessary for the study of yoga at any level.

Warrior 1 is a pose in the standing series of Ashtanga in which the arms are extended above the head and the trunk is facing toward the front leg, in the beginning of a twisting action. Physically, the asana stretches the calves and the hamstrings at the back of the upper thigh, and increases the strength in the upper arms and shoulders, as well as in the thigh of the front leg. The pose requires strength to hold and tends to speed up the heart and increase the rate of the breathing.

In the beginning, the pose can be practiced without bending the knee by concentrating on getting the correct and level turn of the hips and on keeping the knees straight. The student can then begin to practice the pose by bending the front knee to a right angle; the more the student descends the body by bending the knee, the more necessary is the lift in the arms. This helps to keep the back straight as well as to prevent too much weight from falling onto the joints of the lower back. This lifting up during the act of descending the trunk reflects the dynamic balance of yoga and makes a statement about balance within the body.

Alexander Lowen, author of Bioenergetics, writes, “Life is movement and balance at the same time, or balance in movement.” Nowhere is this statement more apparent than in the practice of this asana. The student must maintain the upward lift in order to keep the mind from moving downward, where the pull of the attention is drawn when the knee bends. Allowing the mind to be pulled downward is a superficial action; the discipline of yoga enters when the student can descend the body, but allow the spine and the spirit to feel as if they are soaring up. Then and only then will the pose reflect the dynamic balance that it can so beautifully express.

For this reason, the head can be tilted back in the final pose, as if the practitioner were saying that the soul is moving upward, even though the pull of gravity and of much of the mind is downward, symbolic of being pulled into darkness and away from the true Self.

The pose is part of a series of three Warrior postures, all named for the hero, Virabhadra. This one in particular, however, can be practiced with the benefit of a wall. The student presses the back heel against the wall in order not to lose the attention of the back leg and knee; it is also helpful to remind the student to focus his or her awareness in the past with the back leg as well as in the future with the front leg.

However, the more the student can keep the attention tuned equally to the front and back legs simultaneously, the more balanced the pose will be and the more balance and equanimity he or she will experience in the mind. With practice, this equanimity will exist even in the midst of the activating energy of the pose and, it is believed by yoga practitioners, in the midst of the disruptions in peace that come with the act of living. It is believed that as the student learns the dynamic balance of such poses as Virabhadrasana 1, that state of dynamic balance will become one’s way of being in the world and that yoga will become a continual moment-to-moment practice.