Why is this pose so tough for us?

This is a warrior pose variation. I just found it while scanning some books. It looks easy first hand. Also, even most of my students can stay in the basic warrior balance (which is so tough) for very long, some people like Petros, Valerie, Sai, Mini, Sonya, Mayank, nowadays Murthy (whose balance has improved so much since the last few months) and a lot of others. That basic balance itself is rather challenging and its perfect execution -- a T-shape with the body -- is rather tough.. Then to hold it for a minute without topping off, is tough. So yes, it is a basic-tough pose I like to teach my students.  Yet this new one, which is just an extension of that, is giving so much trouble to my students. Most of them are unable to lift the back leg off the ground and it hangs timidly towards the floor. The other leg remains bent often. And the wobble factor is rather high:) However, that is the interesting thing about this pose -- though both versions have no hands to guide you or to give a sense of security, in this pose, just the fact that the hands have moved behind (from where it may take a fraction of a second longer to open it, to break a fall) is all that gives so much trouble. Suddenly, you realise that balancing is such a fine art and it becomes a fascinating study in itself.. and how much more the mind can leap, to conquer its fears that are deeply hidden and which we do not even know as fear!! That is what this pose teaches me.. and every pose, is a cleaning up of those things we do not need any more.. then, somewhere between the struggle in the body and mind, the mind becomes even more clean. That is why tough yoga is necessary, for the mind more than anything else. When you hold the pose over the wobble and inner chatter of your mind, including its screams,  then that white noise where everything stops and you touch base with a space you never reached in your own mind...chidakash!! Pure consciousness, perfect awareness, unjudging, complete, watching. .. Then, yoga happens to you:)

What you need in this pose?

• Constant practice of standing balancers, especially warrior and crane/crescent versions.
• A good group to practice in -- it can lift this pose really. .. that is called morphic reasonance... a synchornicity of energy... that still puzzles scientists but which seems to be how nature works...

Happy sadhana!!