Half Moon Poseअर्ध चन्द्रासन
Ardha Candrāsana — an intermediate balance pose that works the gluteus medius, hamstrings, obliques.
20–45SECONDS HELD · EACH SIDE
One line on the timetable. Half Moon Pose is held 20–45 seconds each side, with the breath moving throughout — and it takes its place inside one of the practices posted on this site.
SOURCE·YogaPath sequence data — stay times as taught·one breath ≈ 5 s at an even pace·REVIEWED JUL 2026
How to do Half Moon Pose
Read all of it before starting, and read the cautions further down before starting at all.
From Triangle or a short lunge, place the lower hand on a block about a foot ahead of the front toes.
Shift your weight forward and lift the back leg to hip height.
Straighten the standing leg and stack the top hip over the bottom one.
Open the chest upward and reach the top arm to the ceiling.
Gaze forward or up, hold, then lower the back foot and change sides.
Hold: 20–45 seconds each side. Keep the breath moving throughout — if you are holding it, the pose is too much for today.
Muscles worked
Where the effort and the lengthening land. Primary groups do most of the work; secondary groups assist or are stretched.
What Half Moon Pose does
Described mechanically — what the movement does to muscle and joint. Not a list of conditions it treats, because a pose does not treat conditions.
- Loads the outer hip of the standing leg hard, which is where pelvic stability lives.
- Opens the hips and chest into rotation on a single-leg base.
- Trains the ankle to correct continuously under a rotated load.
Half Moon Pose is one of 31 balance poses in this library and one of 60 poses rated intermediate. Poses held on a reduced base — one foot, two hands, or the forearms.
Who should skip Half Moon Pose, or change it
- Ankle, knee or hip injury on the standing side.
- Low blood pressure or dizziness.
- Neck injury — keep the gaze forward.
- Balance loss: practise with the back against a wall.
General information only — not medical advice. Some asanas are unsuitable during pregnancy, injury or specific conditions. Learn from a qualified teacher and stop if anything hurts. If you are pregnant, recovering from surgery or managing any health condition, ask your doctor before starting a practice, and learn the pose itself from a qualified teacher who can see you move.
Common mistakes in Half Moon Pose
What tends to go wrong, and the specific correction — not "engage your core".
MistakeBottom hand placed too close to the foot, cramping the shape.
FixMove the block forward and slightly out from the little-toe side.
MistakeLifted leg dropping below hip height as the chest opens.
FixFlex the lifted foot and press it into an imaginary wall behind you.
How the energy figure on a yoga timetable is reached
- Nobody has measured a single asana in a metabolic cart, so no per-pose figure is published here — not by this site and not by anyone.
- The pose is matched to the nearest style of practice in the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities. Half Moon Pose sits at code 02175, yoga, Power, 4 MET.
- That MET value is put through the standard ACSM relationship for a stated reference adult of 70 kg.
- The result is the cost of a practice of that kind for as long as you practise — not the cost of holding this one shape.
- Scale it to yourself: the relationship is linear in body mass, so multiply by your own weight in kilograms and divide by 70.
kcal/min = MET × 3.5 × kg ÷ 200
= 4 × 3.5 × 70 ÷ 200
= 4.90 kcal per minute
The same practice, hour by hour
Read it the way you would read a timetable: pick the length of session you actually sit down for, and that is the figure.
| Time practising | 10 min | 20 min | 30 min | 45 min | 60 min |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calories | 49 | 98 | 147 | 221 | 294 |
SOURCE·2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities·code 02175 · 4 MET · 70 kg reference adult·REVIEWED JUL 2026
The whole activity dataset, including everything that is not yoga, is at BurnLab.
Asked before class
How do you do Half Moon Pose?
From Triangle or a short lunge, place the lower hand on a block about a foot ahead of the front toes. Shift your weight forward and lift the back leg to hip height. Straighten the standing leg and stack the top hip over the bottom one. Open the chest upward and reach the top arm to the ceiling. Gaze forward or up, hold, then lower the back foot and change sides. Hold for 20–45 seconds each side.
What does Half Moon Pose work?
Primarily the gluteus medius, hamstrings, obliques, with the quadriceps, shoulders, ankles assisting or lengthening. In mechanical terms: loads the outer hip of the standing leg hard, which is where pelvic stability lives.
Who should not do Half Moon Pose?
Ankle, knee or hip injury on the standing side. Low blood pressure or dizziness. Neck injury — keep the gaze forward. Balance loss: practise with the back against a wall. This is general information, not medical advice — if any of these apply to you, ask your doctor and learn the pose with a qualified teacher rather than from a page.
Is Half Moon Pose suitable for beginners?
Not as a first pose. Half Moon Pose is rated intermediate here: it assumes a working base of strength and range, and a teacher who has watched you move. Build up through the balance poses marked beginner first.
How many calories does Half Moon Pose burn?
The honest answer is that nobody has measured a single asana. The 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities publishes MET values for styles of yoga, not for individual poses. Half Moon Pose sits closest to Compendium code 02175, yoga, Power, at 4 MET — about 147 kcal for 30 minutes of that kind of practice for a 70 kg adult. Holding one pose for a minute is a rounding error either way.
Sequences that use Half Moon Pose
The rest of the balance poses on the wall
More balance poses — first at the same level, then the rest of the family.
Asana names are traditional. Every step, benefit and caution on this page is written for YogaPath rather than reproduced from any book, studio or other library — see how this site is written and what it is written from. General information only — not medical advice. Some asanas are unsuitable during pregnancy, injury or specific conditions. Learn from a qualified teacher and stop if anything hurts.
SOURCE·Published asana references·asana names, alignment and cautions as taught·REVIEWED JUL 2026
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