Birds of Paradise pose (Svarga Dvijasana) is a beautiful pose that looks more like something you might see from a dancer or gymnast than a traditional yoga student. It’s a fun and challenging balancing posture that takes your whole body and mind participation to get into. Follow these steps to try Birds of Paradise pose yourself.

This is not a pose you want to attempt before warming your body up. Think of this as more of a peak pose to do towards the end of your yoga practice. You’ll want to do several chest and shoulder openers, warm up your hamstrings, and practice a balance pose such as Tree or Hand to Big Toe Pose before attempting Birds of Paradise.

Follow this step-by-step process to try Birds of Paradise Pose

Let’s have some fun:

Start in Side Angle (Utthita Parsvakonasana) Pose:

• From Warrior 2 (Virabhadrasana II) on your right side, bring your right hand down to the ground or a block
• Extend your left arm toward the ceiling
• Find alignment by creating a line with your arms
• Rotate your chest open to the side by trying to stack your left ribs over your right

Add a Bind

• Rotate the entire left arm in your shoulder socket until your thumb points to your foot and your palm faces behind you
• Bend your left arm, slide it behind your back, and reach your hand below your bent right leg
• Reach your right arm underneath your right leg, and reach for your left hand
• Try to bind around your thigh, not your groin

Step Forward

• Keep the bind with your arms
• Gaze towards the ground to help maintain your balance
• Shift all of your weight into your right leg
• Moving in small steps, bring your left leg forward until you are in a lopsided bound forward fold

Stand Up

• Keeping the bind with your arms, shift your weight into your left leg
• Lift your right heel off the mat
• Stabilize here until you feel balanced and steady
• Moving slowly with control, begin to lift your chest and stand up
• Once standing, lengthen through your chest
• Check-in with your hips: having your right hip hitched up higher than the left will make it more challenging to find balance
• Point or floint (pointed foot with flexed toes) your right foot
• Find one spot to gaze at to help with stability

Extend leg into Birds of Paradise

• Once steady, you have the option to straighten your bound leg
• Extend the right leg, bringing it as close to straight as possible for your body
• If you’re feeling feisty, you can challenge your balance by looking to the left

Return How You Came In

• Exiting the pose is just as important as getting into it
• Slowly bend your right leg
• Bring your right foot back to the ground
• Step your left foot back and return through Side Angle Pose
• Release the arm bind
• Return to Warrior 2
• Celebrate! Dance a jig, high-five your friend, whatever you want. This is one challenging pose that deserves a moment of joy and laughter

Use a Belt

• If the bind isn’t comfortable for you, try using a yoga strap to help
• Hold the strap in your left arm when in Side Angle and allow it to hang down behind your back
• When you reach your right arm underneath your right leg for the bind, grab the strap instead of your hand

Learn about range of motion, flexibility, and mobility in this blog. 

Notes and Tips

• Once standing, think about bringing your leg up towards your chest rather than your chest to your leg; it’s very hard to maintain balance while slouched over to force a bind
• Wobbles are very typical in this pose! You may find yourself doing some fancy footwork while standing up or extending the leg
• Try this pose with your back against the wall for additional support
• Keep the foot of the lifted leg active in a point or floint; this helps to make sure the entire leg is active and participating in the pose
• Hamstring flexibility may prevent you from straightening your leg completely; you’re still in Birds of Paradise even if your lifted leg stays bent
• Bind around your leg, not your groin.
• Before moving into the bind, ensure your arms are extended in line with your shoulders. Binding too low can make it very difficult to stand, and you may find yourself stuck when trying to stand up
• You can also do this pose from a bound forward fold; I like to teach it from the side angle as it helps to create length in the chest and spine, which helps when transitioning to stand
• Hip flexor strength helps to hold your bound leg steady in the air. If that leg feels wobbly or like it’s pulling you down, spend some time targeting and strengthening your hip flexors to help you stand steady in this pose

Modified Birds of Paradise

If you’re not a fan of binds or don’t have super flexible hamstrings, try this Modified Birds of Paradise to challenge your balance and coordination.

Start in a wide-knee Chair Pose

• Stand with your feet hips width apart or a little wider
• Keeping your spine long, bend your knees deeply like you were sitting down in a chair
• Drop your hips a bit lower than you would in a traditional Chair Pose

Place Arms

• Bring your hands to prayer over your chest
• Lean forward and rotate slightly to place your right elbow on the inside of your right thigh close to but not pressing on the knee
• Hinge and the hips as you lean rather than rounding the spine

Stand Up

• Shift your weight into your left foot
• Lift your right heel off the ground
• Once you have your balance, stand up, keeping the connection between your right elbow and right leg
• Try to stand up tall and straighten your spine
• One way to help find your balance here is to actively press your leg into your arm, and your arm back into your leg
• You can keep the right leg bent, or extend it out strait
  Extending it without the bind is challenging, so don’t be surprised!

Stinted Bird of Paradise

Try this variation for something a bit different:

• Start in a Yogi Squat (Malasana Squat)
• Reach your right hand to the ground in front of your right leg
• Extend your left arm up towards the sky
• Rotate the entire left arm in your shoulder socket until your palm faces behind you
• Bend the left arm and slide it behind your back
• Reach your right arm around your bent right leg, wrapping it around both your shin and thigh
• Bind your hands behind you, or use a strap to give you some extra reach
• Lift your hips to create some room, then waddle and shimmy your feet closer to each other
• Shift your weight into your left leg
• Lift your right heel off the mat
• Stand up – trying to keep the bent right leg bound between your arms as you do so
• Once standing, lengthen your spine, point your right knee up, and point your toes to the ground
• Gaze ahead to help with balance

Poses like Birds of Paraside are meant to be fun and challenging. They test your coordination, balance, flexibility, and mind-body connection. It doesn’t have to look pretty to be beneficial. The point is to try something new and get out of your comfort zone, not to create a shape worthy of an Instagram post.

So embrace all the wobbles and falls, smile as you try a few times, and return to Childs Pose when you’re done with a heart full of gratitude for a body that bends and moves and a spirit that is willing to take on challenging things.

Try this quick class on my YouTube channel to help open your shoulders.