Staff Poseदण्डासन
Daṇḍāsana — a beginner seated pose that works the quadriceps, spinal erectors, hip flexors.
30–60SECONDS HELD
One line on the timetable. Staff Pose is held 30–60 seconds, with the breath moving throughout — and it takes its place inside 2 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 Staff Pose
Read all of it before starting, and read the cautions further down before starting at all.
Sit with both legs straight out in front, feet hip-width apart or together.
Roll the flesh of the buttocks out sideways so you are sitting directly on the sitting bones.
Sit on a folded blanket if the low back rounds the moment the legs straighten.
Flex the feet, press the backs of the thighs down, and firm the quadriceps.
Place the hands beside the hips, lengthen the spine upwards, and hold.
Hold: 30–60 seconds. 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 Staff 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.
- Trains the quadriceps to hold the knees straight while the hips are at ninety degrees.
- Loads the spinal erectors to keep the trunk vertical with no leg support behind.
- Establishes the pelvic position every seated forward bend is built from.
Staff Pose is one of 29 seated poses in this library and one of 88 poses rated beginner. Poses taken on the floor, where the pelvis is the base and the spine works above it.
Who should skip Staff Pose, or change it
- Hamstring strain, which straight legs load immediately — bend the knees slightly.
- Low back injury: sit on a higher folded blanket or against a wall.
- Wrist pain if pressing hard into the hands beside the hips.
- Sacroiliac pain, where a very upright seated position can be aggravating.
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 Staff Pose
What tends to go wrong, and the specific correction — not "engage your core".
MistakeSitting flat on the floor with the pelvis rolled back and the chest collapsed.
FixSit up on a blanket and let the pelvis tip slightly forward.
MistakeLocking the knees hard so the joint takes the load.
FixKeep a hair of bend and hold the legs straight with the thigh muscle instead.
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. Staff Pose sits at code 02150, yoga, Hatha, 2.5 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
= 2.5 × 3.5 × 70 ÷ 200
= 3.06 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 | 31 | 61 | 92 | 138 | 184 |
SOURCE·2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities·code 02150 · 2.5 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 Staff Pose?
Sit with both legs straight out in front, feet hip-width apart or together. Roll the flesh of the buttocks out sideways so you are sitting directly on the sitting bones. Sit on a folded blanket if the low back rounds the moment the legs straighten. Flex the feet, press the backs of the thighs down, and firm the quadriceps. Place the hands beside the hips, lengthen the spine upwards, and hold. Hold for 30–60 seconds.
What does Staff Pose work?
Primarily the quadriceps, spinal erectors, hip flexors, with the abdominals, ankles, shoulders assisting or lengthening. In mechanical terms: trains the quadriceps to hold the knees straight while the hips are at ninety degrees.
Who should not do Staff Pose?
Hamstring strain, which straight legs load immediately — bend the knees slightly. Low back injury: sit on a higher folded blanket or against a wall. Wrist pain if pressing hard into the hands beside the hips. Sacroiliac pain, where a very upright seated position can be aggravating. 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 Staff Pose suitable for beginners?
Yes. Staff Pose is a beginner-level pose on this site, which means it is learnable in a first class and has a version that works for most bodies. The cautions above still apply.
How many calories does Staff 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. Staff Pose sits closest to Compendium code 02150, yoga, Hatha, at 2.5 MET — about 92 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 Staff Pose
The rest of the seated poses on the wall
More seated 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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