This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Arm Balance Asanas gathers three postures of the hatha yoga repertoire, and every member is named for a bird and demands the same combination of arm strength, core engagement and balance rather than the hip flexibility that governs most seated postures.
Bakasana, Crow Pose, has the practitioner crouch forward, plant the hands on the ground and balance the shins against the upper arms while lifting the feet clear of the floor. Baka is the crow, and the name is for the compact, perched shape the body makes.
Kukkutasana is built out of the lotus. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika has the practitioner take padmasana, work the hands down between the thighs and calves until the palms reach the floor, and press up so the whole body lifts clear on the arms alone. Kukkuta means cockerel, for the look of the raised body on its two supports, and the text places it immediately before a stretched tortoise variant entered directly from it, one of the few classical postures the manual says demands strength rather than flexibility of the hips.
Mayurasana holds the whole body horizontal on the hands alone, palms on the ground, elbows planted against the sides of the navel, the body raised straight like a staff. Mayura is the peacock, the horizontal body its trunk and the raised legs its tail. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika makes its largest therapeutic claim of the whole posture chapter for this one, that it destroys disorders of the spleen and stomach and digests even food that is deadly; those are the text's own claims, reported here as such rather than as fact.