Learn to Land with Eagle Pose

I wasn’t taught to cross my legs in a jump until I was 13 and started training in a different city. My first coaches were good-hearted people with a love for skating whose techniques had come from a different era. I was learning to jump like Sonia Henie. 

I am a daughter of teachers, so I always see things from the teacher’s point of view, and I wanted to trust my coach. But I watched a lot of skating on TV in the 80s and paid attention to the good skaters, so something didn’t seem right. When the technique didn’t make sense, I knew there was deeper instruction to be found. 

Once I began crossing my legs, it was like a whole world of possibilities opened up. I actually started to land some jumps!

Maybe this is why I love exercises that work on back spins and crossed legs so much. They bring me back to that light bulb moment when my skating world changed forever.

Yoga Can Help You Land Jumps

If you’ve read any of my other posts, I talk about how yoga is excellent for mental training, building a positive training environment, breathwork, stamina, balance, flexibility, and strength. 

For jumps, yoga is helpful in developing balance, proprioceptive awareness, flexibility, and strength. 

For example, many poses strengthen the posterior chain muscles needed to withstand a landing (we land with the force of approximately 8 x our body weight), while nearly all poses focus on core strength. 

Who doesn’t need a strong posterior chain and core to land a jump? 

You might get away with some weakness on singles when you are young, but not once you get older, and definitely not if you are jumping doubles or triples. 

When we get into the nitty-gritty of it, some yoga poses give you more bang for your buck because they mimic specific skating positions. Garudasana, Eagle Pose, is one of those poses.

The position a skater takes right after the moment of impact when they begin the check-out process is sometimes called a “trap” because it helps trap the jump landing. Well, that position is Garudasana. 

Practicing Garudasana off-ice without the support of the skating boot absolutely can help you learn to land. Or, as Christy Krall teaches, Garudasana can help you learn the “language of landing”. 

Skater practicing a skating-specific variation of Eagle Pose

Eagle is the Best Pose for Learning to Land

Some skaters and coaches focus obsessively on the “landing position”, or the beautiful follow-through after a landing. And, of course, you want to practice this position–it is very pretty and the judges reward it with solid GOE’s. (Not to mention that, when done correctly, it is the same position as pretty much an open forward stroke) 

Demonstrating an excellent landing position

Sometimes, though, the focus is too much on kicking the leg high and not on pelvic stability or alignment. In other words, the emphasis is on appearance, and this can put excessive strain on the lumbar spine. 
 
Eagle pose is quite the opposite–the intention is alignment and stability, rather than flashiness. It mimics this moment of impact with crossed legs and a bent standing knee, and when regularly practiced with intention, can develop muscle memory for this crucial position. 

Eagle pose tones the ankles, knees, thighs, glutes, core, back, and shoulders. 

​It enhances awareness of proper alignment and develops the sensation of opposing forces required to land. 

The glutes squeeze towards each other in the back while the inner thighs, shins, and arms are doing the same in the front body. The standing leg roots into the mat, while the elbows and torso rise up tall–just like the “third UP” of a jump. 

And when practiced on the mat, you can really notice the feet working to maintain stability. 

How to Do Eagle Pose - Step-by-Step

The instructions below are how I usually teach Eagle with traditional yoga instructions. In the next section, I will offer some variations and different options for making the pose even more skating-specific. 

1. Stand tall with the feet together.
   
2. Grounding down through the feet, bend the knees and ankles deeply, allowing the sit bones to stick out slightly behind you–a little less than the pelvic tilt of a sit spin. 
3. Take the arms out to a T position (out to the sides at shoulder level).
4. Cross the right leg over the right, high up on the thigh, squeezing the inner thighs and glutes together. The right foot can wrap behind the left calf or ankle, or you can squeeze it to the side of the lower leg, or rest the toes on a block like a kickstand. 
5. Cross the arms in front, reaching the hands to opposite shoulders–like giving yourself a hug. Then, squeezing the legs, glutes, and core even more, lift the forearms and press either the backs of the hands or the palms of the hands together. 
6. If appropriate for your shoulders, you may lift the elbows slightly
7. Find an unmoving spot to gaze at ( a dristhi) to help with focus and balance. 
8. Breathe fully and deeply through the rib cage (this allows the core to stay strong) for 5 breaths.  
9. NOTE: You won’t breathe on the ice in your jump but since we are holding here for several seconds, the breath is crucial. The steadiness of the breath also helps you gauge how hard you are working! If you lose the steadiness of breath, you should not work so hard.  (If you aren’t familiar with rib-cage breathing, here’s a previous post I did about it.)
10. Do the other side. Repeat each leg, if you like, to begin to bring more awareness to the pose.

Practicing Eagle Pose off-ice with deep focus

Land Like a Pro with Eagle Pose Variations

The instructions above are for a standard Garudasana (Eagle Pose). Below are are some skating-specific variations to try after you’ve gotten the hang of the basic posture.

1. Twist: Instead of wrapping arms into a hug, place the forearms in a genie position. Once settled in the posture with the legs, twist the torso and head in the direction of the standing leg, aiming to line up the opposite elbow with the standing knee. This twisted eagle most closely mimics the crucial moment right between the moment of impact and the beginning of the checkout process. My colleague and former student Chase is demonstrating this variation in the first picture above.  
2. From a d: Here’s a different way to enter Eagle that feels like it’s coming from a rotating position. Set the arms up first–either in the wrapped position described above, in a hug, or in a genie position. Take a ‘d’ position, with the standing leg straight, legs tightly crossed, and ankles together. Mindfully bend and straighten the knee and ankle to enter and exit Eagle pose. Try a couple of times, first sitting slowly, then sitting quickly, and holding. You have probably done this one in an off-ice jumps class. I find the attention to the awareness that is inherent in a well-taught yoga class helps this pose be even more effective in yoga practice than in a jumps class. 
3. With a hop: Take an Eagle pose as described above and hop. Notice how strength is required to land steadily. You can also take a ‘d’ position as described in #2 and hop into the Eagle.  Adding a hop not only strengthens the core and legs, but most importantly, it strengthens the foot and ankle, which are often neglected in skaters due to the stiffness of skating boots. 
4. Arm variation: Try practicing the ‘d’ to Eagle described in #2 with arms overhead, either hands pressing together or in a traditional overhead jumping position with a wrist grab. Notice how this feels different in every phase of the pose. 

To summarize, Garudasana is very helpful in learning to land because it tones the posterior chain, core, feet, and ankles and develops balance and proprioceptive awareness. In addition, when practiced with some of the above variations, it very closely mimics the crucial trap position in the jump landing process.

It’s always a great practice to take the ice out of the equation when learning skills because doing so allows us to bring awareness to deeper aspects of the skill. And while strength and conditioning are also crucial elements of off-ice training, often the focus of an S&C session is on intensity, power, or quickness.

​The mindfulness and breathwork that is inherent in yoga can bring a much deeper level of awareness to the body and the skill, helping skaters in a different, very important, and effective way. 

Want to know more about how yoga can directly help you in your skating journey? Check out my  Peak Performance Package for Skaters. It has some short practices to help guide you along your skating and yoga journey and beat performance anxiety. And it’s free!