How to Do Compass Pose: Proper Form, Variations, and Common Mistakes

Woman practicing compass yoga pose

 Verywell / Ben Goldstein

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Also Known As: Revolved sundial pose

Targets: Hamstrings, hips, and shoulders

Level: Advanced

Yoga poses are typically considered advanced when they require a combination of skills like flexibility, strength, and balance that take time and experience to build. Compass pose qualifies as an advanced pose by virtue of the extreme openness of hamstrings and shoulders that are necessary for the full expression of the movement.

If you're not there yet, you don't have to worry. You can practice this pose with a bent leg as long as you take care to avoid rolling your weight to your tailbone, which causes the spine to round forward.

As with most yoga poses, compass pose is typically incorporated into a series of poses, or a flow. While there's not a specific flow unique to compass pose, it's important that the selection of poses preceding compass helps warm you up and prepare your body for the extreme hamstring stretch.

It's always a good idea to get warm with a series of sun salutations, then incorporate hamstring, hip, and shoulder-openers, including poses like standing crescent, lizard lunge, wide-legged standing forward folds, fire log pose, and gate pose. Here is what you need to know about compass pose.

How to Do Compass Pose

Other than a yoga mat, you don't need any specific equipment to perform compass pose. Here is how the compass pose is performed.

  1. Sit in a comfortable, cross-legged position.
  2. Breathe in and bend your right knee, hugging it into your chest. You may leave your left leg bent or straighten it in front of you.
  3. Lift your right leg with your left hand. Thread your right arm underneath your right knee, bringing the right fingertips to the floor outside of your right hip.
  4. Breathe slowly and steadily as you focus on sitting tall, lengthening your spine and staying upright as you move into this position.
  5. Use your left hand to position your right knee as high up on the right arm as possible. The goal is to get the right knee to align behind the right shoulder with your right leg straight.
  6. Bring your left hand to the outside edge of your right foot.
  7. Begin to straighten your right leg as you stretch your left arm back behind your head.
  8. Look up toward your left arm, keeping your spine upright.
  9. Take three to five deep breaths here as you hold the pose.
  10. Release the pose carefully, exhaling as you guide your right leg back down slowly with your left hand before repeating to the other side.

Benefits of Compass Pose

Compass is an excellent pose for more advanced yoga practitioners to continue to deepen hip, hamstring, and shoulder flexibility. Maintaining and increasing flexibility through the hips and hamstrings helps increase overall agility, making daily activities, like squatting down, easier to perform.

Also, because the pose requires an overhead reach and stretch through the obliques—commonly referred to as the "side body" in yoga—the pose helps strengthen and lengthen the stabilizing muscles of your spine, maintaining spinal mobility.

Done regularly, the lengthening, strengthening, and stretching that takes place from your hamstrings to your shoulders can result in better overall posture and alignment. Ultimately, good posture and well-balanced alignment can help prevent injuries and pain, particularly of the low back.

Other Variations of Compass Pose

Mix up your compass pose to either modify the move or to increase its difficulty. Here are some variations you may want to try to help improve compass pose.

Practice Heron Pose

Verywell / Ben Goldstein

Tight hamstrings may be the primary reason you can't move into compass pose. Try heron pose as a way to develop the hamstring flexibility that's similar to what's required for compass pose.

  1. Sit tall in a comfortable cross-legged position.
  2. Bring your left knee to your chest and grasp your left foot with both hands.
  3. Maintain good posture and lean back slightly to sit tall as you simultaneously begin extending your left knee, pointing your foot toward the ceiling.
  4. Extend your knee, but only go as far as you can until you feel a stretch through your hamstring.
  5. Hold the position for 20 to 30 seconds and repeat.

Elevate to Eight Angle Pose

Woman on yoga mat in eight angle pose

Verywell / Ben Goldstein

If you want to add a challenge to your practice, consider eight angle pose (Astavakrasana). This advanced posture requires core strength, flexibility, and balance. To perform this pose, start in a seated position.

  1. Bend your right knee and bring the sole of your right foot to the floor close to your right buttock.
  2. Lift your right foot off the floor, bringing your shin roughly parallel to the floor.
  3. Thread your right arm under your right knee.
  4. Try to get your right knee as high as possible on the right arm, maybe even bringing the knee over the right shoulder. It may take several adjustments to get the knee to its highest position.
  5. Plant both palms on the floor on the higher side of your hips and straighten your left leg.
  6. Press into your palms to lift your body, including your left leg and foot, off the floor. This is Eka Hasta Bhujasana. Your left leg needs to be engaged with the foot flexed for this to be possible. Your right leg needs to be actively hugging your right arm.
  7. Bend that leg and bring the foot toward your body to hook your left ankle around your right ankle once you have the left leg lifted.
  8. Bend your arms to 90 degrees to shift the weight of your torso forward, towards parallel to the floor. At the same time, move both legs over to the right, parallel to the front of your mat.
  9. Straighten both legs as much as possible, squeezing your right arm.
  10. Lift your head but don't crank your neck.
  11. Straighten your arms and shift your weight back to lower to your butt with control, to come out of the pose.
  12. Repeat the pose on the other side.

Common Mistakes

Because the compass pose is an advanced pose, it is common for people to try to push too far too soon. Be sure to listen to your body and stop if you feel pain.

Be patient with yourself and allow time for you to master this pose. With perseverance and practice, you will get there. Just don't try to force it too soon. Here is what you need to know about the most common mistakes.

Rolling Your Weight Backward to Achieve the Pose

It's a common mistake to try to "make room" or to sneak your knee behind your shoulder by rolling your weight back onto your tailbone, causing your spine to round forward. This throws your body out of alignment and counteracts the positive impact the pose is designed to have on your posture and alignment.

This mistake occurs when you haven't developed enough flexibility through your hamstring, hips, and shoulders. Back off of the pose and try something similar designed to improve hip and hamstring flexibility, like heron pose.

Forcing the Pose

It's good to challenge yourself during your yoga practice, but it's never a good idea to push your body past its current ability level. Forcing the pose—pushing past the feeling of a stretch to a feeling of pain or discomfort—is a good way to end up injured.

When attempting the pose, push yourself to the point of a light stretch, but if you can't hold the stretch comfortably, you're going too far. Bend your knee or grab a yoga strap to modify the pose effectively.

Safety and Precautions

The main thing to remember about advanced yoga poses like compass pose is that it takes time and practice to find success. Progress slowly and give your body time to develop the flexibility necessary to achieve the full expression of the pose.

Forcing your body past its current level of ability is a surefire way to end up injured. If you can't hold a stretch for longer than 1 second or so without it causing pain, you're pushing too far. Back off and use the modifications necessary to work your way up to the pose carefully.

Try It Out

Incorporate this move and similar ones into one of these popular workouts:

3 Sources
Verywell Fit uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
  1. Iwata M, Yamamoto A, Matsuo S, et al. Dynamic stretching has sustained effects on range of motion and passive stiffness of the hamstring muscles. J Sports Sci Med. 2019;18(1):13-20. PMID:30787647

  2. Wakimoto K, Dakeshita T, Wakimoto J, et al. Effects of triple-treatment trunk stretching on physical fitness and curvature of the spine. Heliyon. 2018;4(12):e00985. doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2018.e00985

  3. Kim D, Cho M, Park Y, Yang Y. Effect of an exercise program for posture correction on musculoskeletal pain. Journal of Physical Therapy Science. 2015;27(6):1791-1794. doi:10.1589/jpts.27.1791

By Ann Pizer, RYT
Ann Pizer is a writer and registered yoga instructor who teaches vinyasa/flow and prenatal yoga classes.