Working on crow twice a week for three months. I can get into the shape with knees on the upper arms and lift one foot and hold it. The second foot never comes — I either put the first one straight back down or fall forward onto my face. It feels like a strength problem but I cannot tell where the weakness actually is.
Try it with your feet on a block first. Starting higher means less forward shift is needed, and you get the sensation of both feet being off the ground, which is the thing your brain is currently refusing to do.
This is how I finally got it. Two months failing from the floor, one session from a block.
If you want the strength angle anyway, the specific quality is scapular protraction — pushing the floor away and rounding between the shoulder blades. Plank plus, where you push the ground away at the top of a plank and hold a couple of seconds, builds exactly that and it transferred directly for me.
Round the upper back deliberately rather than holding it flat. A flat back in crow means the shoulders are propping up a position they cannot sustain, and that is usually what collapses at exactly the moment the second foot comes off.
Three months twice a week is only about 24 attempts. It took me a year, for what that is worth.
@queenright_quin · 7mo ago · 3 replies
It is almost never strength, it is that you have not shifted enough weight forward and your body knows it. The second foot will not leave the floor while your centre of mass is still behind your hands, because from there lifting it means falling backwards. Two changes: get the knees higher up the arms, closer to the armpit than the elbow, and lean forward until you feel the heels start to lift on their own. Fear of face planting is what stops the lean, so put a cushion in front of your head — once the consequence is embarrassing rather than painful, most people find the pose within two sessions.
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@chalkbag_chen · 7mo ago
The cushion is embarrassingly effective. Got three seconds today.
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@queenright_quin · 7mo ago
That is the whole pose. From here it is only holding it longer and rounding the upper back more.
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