Garudasana (Sanskrit:गरुडासन;IAST:Garuḍāsana) orEagle Pose^[1] is a standing balancingasana in modernyoga as exercise. The name was used in medievalhatha yoga for a different pose.

The name comes from the Sanskrit wordsgaruda (गरुड) meaning "eagle", andasana (आसन) meaning "posture" or "seat".^[2]

InHindu mythology,Garuda is known as the king of birds. He is thevahana (mount) of the GodVishnu^[3] and is eager to help humanity fight against demons. The word is usually rendered into English as "eagle", though the name literally means "devourer", because Garuda was originally identified with the "all-consuming fire of the sun's rays".^[4]

The name is used for a different pose in the late 17th-centuryGheranda Samhita, verse 2.37, which has the legs and thighs on the ground, and the hands on the knees.^[5]

A one-legged balancing pose named Garudasana but closer toVrikshasana is described and illustrated in the 19th centurySritattvanidhi.^[6] The modern pose is described inLight on Yoga.^[7]

Garudasana is anasymmetric position in which one leg, say the right, is crossed over the left, while the arm on the opposite side, say the left, is crossed over the right, and the palms are pressed together. Like all poses on one leg, it demands, and may help to build, balance and concentration.^[8] According toSatyananda Saraswati, the two palms pressed together resemble the eagle's beak. The gaze is directed at a fixed point in front.^[9]

A kneeling variant of the pose is Vātāyanāsana, Horse Pose.^[10]

The actressMariel Hemingway's 2002 autobiographyFinding My Balance: A Memoir with Yoga describes how she used yoga to recover balance in her life after a dysfunctional upbringing. Each chapter is titled after an asana, the last being "Eagle Pose, orGarudasana", in each case with some life lesson related to the pose. She describes it as "a balancing posture with the arms and legs intricately intertwined [that] requires some flexibility, a lot of trust, and most of all, balance". The chapter recounts how she, her husband and her daughters all came close to drowning in canoes offKauai, Hawaii. Doing the asana now "reminds me of the unconscious balance I achieved when I began successfully working my way through the surf without fighting. I spread my toes and pull up on the calf muscle."^[11]

• List of asanas

• Iyengar, B. K. S. (1979) [1966].Light on Yoga: Yoga Dipika. Thorsons.ISBN 978-1855381667.
• Saraswati, Swami Satyananda (2003).Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha. Nesma Books India.ISBN 978-81-86336-14-4.

Wikimedia Commons has media related toGarudasana.

• Instruction

• One-legged asanas
• Hip-opening asanas
• Asymmetric asanas

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles containing Sanskrit-language text
• Commons category link is on Wikidata