The truth about standing postures is that they make the body bright. It can take discipline to get on the mat and do them but if you do you will be well rewarded.  Standings noticeably improve posture, strengthen arm muscles, leg muscles, improve the trunk, and they help with finding a sense of grounding and balance. Once you get going you will enjoy them even if it is a little hard at first.  Morning is a good time to incorporate 15-20 minutes of standings and I suggest finding your rhythm by holding each posture for five breaths.  When this becomes very manageable - and if you like - you can increase to ten breaths allowing the body to fill and empty slowly.

The sequence below begins with downward-facing dog (photograph 1 from the top) and ends in child pose (photograph 8).  

I am someone who has always loved seated postures in yoga - any movement where I am opening and close to the earth.  I can forward bend for England. Standing postures took me longer to embrace which is why they are especially good. My daily practice at the moment consists of all the asanas that for me are 'hard work'. I try to visit them every day and this includes standings. 

I am fascinated by the idea of the one-minute breath. I refer to this one blog earlier when I talk about the Reverse Adi Shakti kriya. How I approach the one-minute breath in standings is I give myself five breaths to completely relax and then on the sixth breath as I breathe in slowly I imagine every cell in my body receiving the breath.  I expand to fill and when my lungs feel full I leave that area of feeling and I visit the perimeters of myself. I put breath everywhere.  I don't let rudimentary anatomy hold me up.  I see the breath as an energy - which it is - and I let it pass through skin,organs, tissue.

On the exhale I go slow and I go in with my awareness so I see the exhale leave from my centre and I picture it falling back and back. This is a feeling of cosmos available to all - again do not worry too much about basic anatomy. My abdomen falls back in against the front of my spine and I follow my breath to the nub of me and then IN more. The same as having galaxies around us - literally, we also have galaxies within. If you are brave with this breathing - it can bring up discomfort and emotion - your body will feel enormously rinsed and cleared at the end.

Try Set A of these standings and do them regularly until they are smooth. Set B is coming...