Suzanne Sterling's six-minute mini-workshop on Warrior 3, or Virabhadrasana III, is a short lesson in sequence: build the foundation in the legs first, then earn the lift through the torso and arms. Filmed at Wanderlust Squaw Valley in 2014 and published on the Wanderlust channel in January 2015, the video walks through a set of preparatory poses, the full balance, a set of options for students who need a gentler version, and the exit Sterling calls her favorite. Nothing about it is flashy. What makes it useful is its order, and the reasons she gives for that order, which together turn a difficult balance into something a student can actually approach step by step.
Warrior 3 is often taught as a single shape: one leg straight behind, torso and arms reaching forward, a single standing foot holding everything. Sterling treats it as the end of a conversation that begins in the floor of the feet. Her frame is simple and stated early, and it governs everything that follows.
Sterling opens by calling the pose her favorite, and she gives a reason that is more philosophical than mechanical. In her words, "to me this pose represents pure utter liberation of the soul but from a from Deep Roots from a deep grounding in the legs and in the earth" (Sterling, in the video, 0:01). The sentence sets up a relationship she returns to several times: lift depends on grounding.
She extends that idea into a general principle: "the idea that the deeper our roots go the more we can have freedom the more Liberation we can experience" (Sterling, in the video, 0:11). She also says she knows this to be true across her own life and expects it is true for viewers too. The teaching is less a claim about anatomy than a way of orienting attention. Before a student thinks about the arms or the heart, the question is what the legs are doing underneath.
That orientation shapes the structure of the whole workshop. Sterling says she will "walk you through some Preparatory poses and ways to really actually get into the legs before we get into the liberation of the heart and the back of the body" (Sterling, in the video, 0:36). The sequence is intentionally backward from how many students first experience the pose, in which the arms reach and the back leg lifts before the standing leg has been asked to do much of anything.
The first preparation is a low lunge, which Sterling uses to feel the legs working in opposite directions. The back leg presses through the floor while the front leg moves away from the body. From there she brings the sacrum down toward the earth and lifts the low belly, so that the student begins to feel the "strong core foundation in the hips and the legs" she says makes lift possible (Sterling, in the video, 0:51). The arms then lift up and out, and she describes the practice as "lifting from the heart first and then allowing any kind of back bend or opening to come from that heart opening and from that solid foundation" (Sterling, in the video, 0:56).
The sequence matters. The lunge is not simply a stretch. It sets the pelvis and tailbone in a position the rest of the pose will depend on, and it teaches the order of effort: foundation, then lift, then opening.
The second preparation is Crescent pose, which Sterling introduces at 1:36. The back foot lifts onto its ball, and from there she rocks the body: inhale, release forward, come up and straighten the back leg; inhale, release forward again, bend the back leg, come up and straighten. The repetition is the point. She describes it as practicing "the motion of standing in that strong front supporting leg that's going to become your supporting leg for the lift and the Liberation into the pose" (Sterling, in the video, 1:36). A student who has spent a minute pumping through Crescent has already rehearsed the balance on the standing leg before attempting to hold it.
"Practicing that motion of standing in that strong front supporting leg that's going to become your supporting leg for the lift and the Liberation into the pose." (Suzanne Sterling, Wanderlust mini-workshop, filmed Squaw Valley 2014)
Between the leg work and the full pose, Sterling inserts a movement that might look like a detour. She stands in tadasana, grabs the right wrist with the left hand, lifts up, and reaches over to the side. The purpose, in her description, is to "lengthen through the side body lengthen through the ribs so that I really have a sense of expansion and ease in the upper body" (Sterling, in the video, 2:17). She asks students to breathe through the intercostal muscles, the muscles between the ribs, so they "expand and lengthen," and she repeats the movement on the other side.
The logic is that a Warrior 3 arm reach asks the ribs to hold a long line. A student who arrives at the pose with a compressed side body will tend to collapse at the waist to get the arms forward. The side-body stretch is therefore a rehearsal for the length the balance will require, and it is done with breath rather than force.
Sterling then repeats the Crescent preparation on the other leg, adding the clasp: from the crescent she releases the arms behind her, clasps the hands, inhales and lifts the heart. She is explicit that this is "from before really finding the way to stand in that front leg" which is "about to take all your weight" (Sterling, in the video, 3:19). The preparation, in other words, is aimed at the moment of transfer.
The key instruction at the threshold is visualization. Sterling asks students to "begin to imagine taking all your weight on that front leg and lifting the back leg," first in the mind and then in practice (Sterling, in the video, 3:34). The emphasis is on "lifting and activating the whole core" before the weight moves, so that the body knows what it is about to do.
From there she offers a path forward. Students can take small steps toward the pose, shifting weight onto the front leg and letting the back leg follow. The description of the shape is precise: square off the hips, lift the back leg as high as possible, flex through the foot or point through the toes, then reach all the way forward and bring the arms in line with the body. She names a modification in the same breath: "if you have back problems you can lift the hands behind you" (Sterling, in the video, 4:00 region of the transcript). Hands on the hips or hands behind the back are both ways to keep the spine long without forcing the reach.
Once the pose is in place, Sterling does not ask students to freeze. She bends the supporting leg a little, opens the arms to the sides, and lifts the heart slightly. Then she says something that many teachers might leave out: "imagining I have wings, imagining that I can fly and just playing with the weight a little bit here" (Sterling, in the video, 4:25). She follows with a playful image, "imagining I'm a superhero super Warrior" (Sterling, in the video, 4:40). The imagery is not decoration. It asks the student to move the upper body in small dance-like arcs while keeping the standing leg engaged, which is the skill the pose actually tests.
Sterling is direct about the most common failure. "If you start to fall like that bring your energy back into your center, back into your belly" (Sterling, in the video, 4:50). Her corrective is the same as her opening instruction: lift the belly, lengthen through the supporting leg, hold, and breathe. The repair is not a new action but a return to the foundation, which is why the preparatory work mattered in the first place.
To leave the full pose, she bends the supporting leg gently, returns to Crescent, reaches the arms, and then exhales as the hands come down. The sequence is reversible, which is part of its value. Each shape the student enters can also be exited through a shape they have already practiced.
At around 5:24 Sterling introduces what she calls her favorite way out of the pose: "this is my favorite way to come out of this pose and I like to do it like this" (Sterling, in the video, 5:24). She starts again in Crescent, bends the back knee, lifts, straightens the back leg, and holds. Then she pictures the weight moving onto the front leg, lifts the back leg strongly, activates the back side of the body, and squares the hips. From that position she passes "right through tree pose," bringing the leg forward, holds briefly, and releases.
The exit is an advanced transition. It asks the student to move through a single-leg standing balance on the way out, not just on the way in. Sterling acknowledges that this route is "not for everyone," and offers the simpler alternative: "otherwise just come right back to Crescent pose, arms reach," and then the student is done (Sterling, in the video, 6:11 region). The choice between the two exits is a useful model for practice. The same pose can be left by the simplest available path, and a student can add the more demanding route only when the balance is steady.
The video's own description lists "variations to make the pose less challenging," and the transcript supplies three. The first is the hands-behind-the-back option for students with back problems. The second is the small-step entry, which lets the body find the weight shift gradually. The third is the bent supporting leg, which Sterling recommends whenever the standing leg needs more support.
Beyond those, the workshop suggests a rhythm. Begin with the lunge and the Crescent pumps, which take less than a minute and prepare the standing leg. Do the side-body stretch to give the ribs room. Enter the pose slowly, hold it briefly, and return to the foundation whenever the balance falters. The point is not to hold Warrior 3 perfectly on the first attempt but to make each stage legible enough that the student knows what is supposed to happen.
Watch the video once for the sequence, then a second time with a chair or a wall nearby, pausing at each preparatory pose. Focus on one idea per practice: first the feeling of the legs pressing in opposite directions, then the rocking Crescent, then the weight transfer onto the front leg. Sterling's central claim, that depth in the roots makes freedom possible, is easiest to test by noticing whether the standing leg is steady before you ask the arms to fly. The full mini-workshop is available on the Wanderlust Practice channel, and it rewards close attention to how much of Warrior 3 is really about the feet and the belly.
