Introduction to Headstand

Hello, everyone. Welcome. So on the agenda for today, we have an inversions focused practice. Shirshasna, headstand in particular. Inversions are a key, a fundamental component of a anger yoga practice. It's typically incorporated into most of our practices.

So what I thought we would do is a little bit of an action plan, step by step, how to get you towards sheer Asana towards ultimately doing your headstand, okay, to begin, stand in Tarasana, and stand with your feet, hip distance apart. Okay? So a little bit of space here. Lift your kneecaps, lift your thighs, straighten your legs, Lyft your chest, reach your arms down. Okay. From here, interlace your fingers, and Place your hands on the top of your head, and then push your thumbs together. Okay? We're gonna take Ervabedanguliasna.

As you press your thumbs together, just feel that rotation that comes around the upper arm, right, in this in this direction. So from here, knuckles are on the top of your head here. Push the thumbs together. Broaden your upper back and find that rotation through the upper arms. Now leading with the wedge of your thumb and index finger Extend your arms up.

Press your heels strongly down and reach up into your wrists. Push the thumbs, revolve the upper arms in that manner. And now move your arms back behind the line of your ears. And then release, lower your arms down, taasana. K. Let's go for round 2.

This time when you change when you cross your fingers, just change the crossing. So you're gonna take it down a notch, again, turn the palms inside out. Rest the knuckles on the top of your head and push your thumbs together to remind yourself of the rotation of the upper arm. Hey. Notice as well when you press your thumbs together, that broadening that comes through the upper back, and you may also feel, you know, a little bit of strength, right, a certain sensation there in the upper back, maintain that connection, And then leading from the thumb and index finger, reach your arms up, up, up, Like, you're pushing up against some resistance. And from your wrists, lift the sides of your body up.

Lift up there. Rotate those upper arms and move your arms back, lift higher, go back more. At the same time, press your thighs back. Arms back, chest open, and then release. Lower your arms down.

Hey. Now, if you feel stable, everything feels good. Join your legs. Bring your legs right together. And let's repeat the danguliasna, but add in the parsva variation. So sideways variation.

K. Come to where we left off here. Push the thumbs together, raise your arms up. Okay. Rotate those upper arms, extend up, and move the arms back. Now from here, parsva sideways hinge to the right side hinge to the right side. Now lengthen the underside of your body and the top side.

Move the arms back. Sometimes your right elbow likes to go soft in this. So draw the elbow in Move the arms back again. Inhale. Come back up and second side hinge to the left. Lengthen.

You can feel a natural stretch probably on the top side, but what can you do here to lengthen also as best as you're able? The underside of the body. Squeeze your elbows in, move your arms back, and ever so slightly, turn your abdomen to the right. And then come back up, lower your arms down, and stand in Tatasana. Stabilize, steady yourself, breathe. Okay. So as you know, we're on this journey towards sheer Dasna.

And clearly, obviously, head and neck and shoulders are a big component of preparing yourself for sheer chasnas. We're gonna do a little bit more work just to get into that upper back, and we'll start we'll go next for Gomu Casna. And here in Goma Casna, you may wanna use a strap. Okay. So you can decide and see if if you feel you need it. I'll just show you how it's used.

In case. Okay. You're gonna place the strap over your left shoulder. And it's there if you need it. If you decide you don't wanna use it, you'll easily be able to just ignore it. Okay? And then extend your right arm to the side. Like so, have the the wrist a little lower than shoulder height. So you're not way up here, but here, and turn the thumb down.

Roll the shoulder forward and now swing this arm up your back. And then once it's there, you can use your free hand and maneuver that palm even higher up your back and really try to get the hand in the center of your back. Okay. Now this is the part that I find is the hardest, most challenging, is now this collarbone. Broaden the collarbone and roll the corner of the shoulder back. See if you can expose here the side chest.

Roll that shoulder corner back. Okay? Now on the other side, raise your left arm up. Lift and lengthen, turn the palm towards your face and back, and then bend at the elbow. And here, this is where you can take hold of the strap, or if you can manage, you take hold of your fingers. Okay? Now if you're holding the strap, remember that the idea is to walk your hands closer and closer towards each other on the strap. So avoid the tendency to pull out like that. Okay?

Now reach up through your upper elbow up to the ceiling, hug the side of your face with your arm. On the lower arm, reach down through that elbow, and draw both elbows into the midline. Now press your hands into your back. Open your chest. While you're at it, lift your kneecaps. Lift your thighs.

Press your thighs back, buttock forward. Just stop and open. Good. Release and do yourself. Turn your palms forward facing spread your fingers and just work it out here for a moment and then release.

Okay. Gomukasna, second side, if you found this drop, helpful, useful. You can place it on the other side, although One caveat here, the two sides may be very different. So whether you need it or not needed a strap on one side may not tell you whether you wanna use it for the other side. Alright. Extend the left arm. And again, lower than shoulder height, turn the thumb forward, thumb down, roll the shoulder forward, and swing that arm up your back. Okay. Use your free hand and work it even more into position and now broaden this collarbone and roll that shoulder back.

Expose the side chest. Roll the shoulder back more. Okay? Reach your right arm up. And from the wrist, lift the whole side of the body. Turn the palm towards you, move the arm back, bend at the elbow, and take hold of yourself or your strap.

Or if you don't have a strap, you can even hold your t shirt. Just get a grip on something. Reach your upper elbow up, lower elbow down, draw both elbows into the midline, and then press your hands into your back, open your chest. Find your breath. Good. And then release undo yourself.

Extend into your fingers. And then Tatas now. Okay. Strap can go to the side for now and make sure you've got space space to the side here to be able to extend your arms. You're gonna stand.

Give yourself a little space between your legs. So feet a little bit apart, and we'll take next a slightly different action in the shoulders. And work through garudasna arms. Okay? So extend the arms to the side, and we'll go into it, in a dynamic way. Okay? So from here, open the palm, spread the fingers, and just do this motion, okay, with absolutely straight arms, cross your arms. And every time you cross your arms, see can you cross a little closer to the body? So higher and higher above the elbow.

K. Couple more. Get that movement, that mobility, and then the next time your left arm is on top, pause there. Now bend your elbows and Clap your hands. Okay. Lift your elbows up. Move your wrists away from your face.

Drop your shoulders and from the underside of your arm, extend into your elbow points. Garo Dessna. Observe the sensation here in your upper back. Right? Feel what's going on. Lift the elbows up, push the wrists away from your face, drop the shoulders, and again, underside of the arm reach towards the elbows.

Okay. And then release Just let the arms float up and then relax. Okay. Second side, again, extend the arms to the side and cross. Cross. Keep crossing. Every time you cross, cross a little closer to the body.

High your up. And then right arm on top, pause there, bend at the elbow. And once again, Clap your hands. Lift the elbows up. Push your wrists away from your face.

Right? Feel the response. When you press your hands away from your face, feel that spreading that comes across the upper back. And then, again, drop the shoulders if they've lifted. And from the underside of your arm, reach towards the elbow. Maintain this. Hold this.

Elbows up. Push the wrists away. Shoulders down. Extend into the elbows. Garudasna. Okay. And then release Nbn taasna.

Okay. Moving along on our sheer, Shasta journey, we're gonna move next into Chattaranga Dundasna. Okay. We'll start with a variation of Chattaranga Dundasna at the wall. And so what I'd like you to do here is place your forehead on the wall stand relatively close to the wall and then place your palms at about armpit height k. Something something like so. Okay.

Now really spread your hands. I've mentioned the thumb and index finger wedge previously. And when I tell you next to press into the wall, want you to almost imagine like a a dial. Right? So if you guys are the wall here, is like I'm turning a dial almost like I wanna lift the thumb side of each hand a little bit up. Okay? Let's let's try this. So again, position yourself, forehead on the wall.

Lift your kneecaps. Lift your thighs. K. So avoid kinda leaning into the wall. Be firm on those legs. Press the thighs back, but buttock forward.

That's gonna give you that firmness. And then big broad palms. Take your thumbs off the wall and really spread the thumbs away from the index finger. And then as if you could, lift the wall up off the floor and turn that dial slightly. Okay? Immediately observe the response in your upper back, your neck, your shoulder region. And even the texture of your upper arms as you do this.

Okay? Continue to press the wall with your hands here. And now as a plank, in one one piece, push the wall and lift your head, your body off the wall. K? Then lower down. Down to me is at the wall. Lower yourself towards the wall.

And then again, push from that thumb and index finger wedge, lift turn the dial and push back. Come back to the wall. And again, couple more times. You can find your own rhythm with this. But do understand that we're working the arm action, the response. We're looking to to translate the dialogue, the communication in the upper body.

If you're really feeling it down here, then it just means the legs aren't quite engaged. So big broad feet, kneecaps up, thighs up, and mid buttock forward. K. Couple more. Chandra. Really understanding the shape of the upper back in this pose. Okay.

Finish up And now let's turn it around and take it to the floor. Okay? So now what I want you to do is lay down and position yourself so that your toes are tucked under, but your heels are on the on the wall. On the wall. Okay. And then just like you did at the wall, place your forehead on the floor, like so. And then open up your palm.

So it's, again, it's exactly the same action. Open the palm, spread the thumbs, and draw those elbows in towards you. And now it's like you're you're turning the dial, you're sliding the floor forward. Press your knees up, thighs up, and now this is what's really important. Keep your head on the floor. Push the floor and just lift the body.

Reach the heels into the wall. Press your thighs up. Mid buttock down and then lower yourself back down. Okay. The head is really heavy. So we're taking it out of the equation.

Keep the head on the ground, and let's do this a couple more times. K. Press your knees up. Thighs up. Middle of the buttocks pushes down. And then big broad palms, draw the elbows in, slide the floor away, and just lift the body.

Head stays down. Hold it. Lower yourself down. Okay. Now on this lot on this next one, we can lift the head. But it's the absolute last thing to lift.

Okay. So it'll look like this. You'll come to where we left off, and then look forward. That's it. Chaturanga, Dandasna, and lower down. Okay? Give it a go. We'll go for a couple rounds, toes tucked under, forehead supported, palms down.

Okay. Now press your knees up. You wanna have that width for the back, back of your thighs, buttocks as well, broaden there. K. Then pressurize your palms into the floor. Spread those thumbs. Draw the elbows in.

Lift the body and then look forward. From your back waist to your heels, push the wall, and from your pubic area to your breast bone, reach forward. And then release. Let go. Rest for a moment. Chaturanga Dundas now.

Okay. In Chaturanga, Dandasna, there's like this is really beautiful, equal, and opposite actions. So the back back body, the back of the legs, buttocks to the legs is moving in this direction. And then the front body is moving like this. And when I sort I feel like when you connect with that, there is an ease. An ease, it's a challenging but an ease that comes to the us now.

K? If you're still struggling to get up, A couple I have a couple suggestions. One is to work with your head on the floor for some time. Just work on getting the body up. It's really, it's a great stepping stone. Okay? The other thing you can do you can try is adding a couple of bricks and giving yourself some height underneath the palms, some people find that that can really, help things out quite a lot.

So it'll show you what that looks like and go ahead and give yourself 1 or 2 more attempts here of your Chaturanga Dendeskna. K. The technique is the same. Press your knees up. Thighs up mid buttock down, and then open your palms. And with your forehead supported, lift the body up.

You press your thighs up, but don't let the mid buttock, the buttock there lift. Buttock goes down even though the thighs are up. And then just look forward. From your back waist to the heels, pound your heels into the wall, and then extend forward through the front body. And then release.

Okay. Last one here. Work through it, knees up, thighs up, buttock down, lift the body. Head up. Elbows in, reach your chest forward, push the wall with your heels. M and release.

Alright. Lower yourself down. You can just shift a little bit away from the wall. And rest for a moment with your head down. Okay. Alright.

Next up. K. Moving along with this journey. We've we've been working on the Chaturanga Dandasna gives you that it's a great preparation for sheer Chasna. Because it really drives home the strengths that's needed in the upper back, area. K? But there's also a need for, penetration of the spine moving that thoracic area here into the body. Okay? So we'll work a little bit more now on that. And To do that, still have your two bricks, place one brick like so, and then the second brick a little bit in front like this.

Okay. And then be, kneeling, kneeling like so, and position your arms. So right now I've got my palms up facing up And the reason why I'm turning the palms up is so that right here, this is the inner elbow. I'm connecting the inner elbow to this first brick. And this will be familiar, this rotation here of the upper arm. K? So do that.

Connect the inner elbow to the first brick and then maintain the inner elbow connection, but just turn your palms to face downward. Like so. K? Grip the break between your inner elbows. Squeeze it tight. And now lift the brick up. Okay. You wanna see that your hips are sort of over your knees and now squeeze the brick between your elbows wrap those upper arms, turn them, lower the break down.

Lift the break up, lower the break down. K. Lift the brick up, lower the brick down, and see if you can maintain this. Even if the brick doesn't come like all the way down. That's totally fine. Where do you have control?

Okay. And to make it even just that extra little bit of challenge, see if you can go through this sequence, not moving the hips back and forth. Right? This is not the idea. But to the degree possible, can you stabilize the hips and make it truly about the upper back. K. Go for a couple more rounds there. Up and down. And then rest, pause. Okay.

Now depending on where you landed with that, if that felt really, really challenging, then I recommend that you repeat that. Go for 1 more 1 more round. If you wanna take it to one other step here, then we can add the the legs as well, sort of like an, combination. Okay. And this is what that will look like. K. Connect the inner elbows towards the first brick and then palms down.

You're gonna start coming to where we left off here. You lift the break up. Then from here, tuck the toes under and lift up into an position. Okay? Now squeeze the brick with your inner elbows and see can you lower the brick down? Lift the brick up.

Lower the brick down. Up and down. Don't drop it. Rotate those upper arms and lift and lower your brick. Lift and lower your brick. Couple more.

And then release. Hey. Rest for a moment. K. What I love about this presentation, this sequence is just how, strongly it drives home. The need for this rotation in the upper arms. And this is exactly where we're going in the positioning of the arms for sheer shots now.

Okay. So speaking about the arms for sure, Shasta, let's let's look at those. Okay. When you place, we're still we're not quite putting our head down. We're gonna do a standing up variation, but you interlace your fingers. Okay. Interlace your fingers, and it's right down to the webbing. When you take shirshasna, your head goes inside your hand.

So you always wanna have this shape. Right? There's a softness, a shape in there. K. This is not how we do. There's an opening like this, and you can receive your head there. Okay? Then what you'll do and this is how we'll we'll place it. We'll do we'll use the wall.

So you'll interlace your fingers Place your forearms on the wall, and then that same action that we just worked on, the outer elbow is gonna turn. The outer upper arm is gonna turn as if you were trying to get your inner elbow to come towards an imaginary brick. Right? Like so. And you then reach your hips back in, like, an Arta Otonasana position. Something like like this. Okay. Lift your kneecaps up.

Lift your thighs up. Press your thighs back and reach your hips back. Now press your forearms into the wall. From the underside of your arm, push the elbows into the wall. K. Rotate those upper arms out.

And from your hips, reach back. Just let your head be neutral, neck neutral, between your upper arms. Hey, Arta Otonasna here. Preparing for Salamba Shearasna. Okay. And then release.

Bend your knees carefully. Walk forward. Just stand facing the wall here and take a moment in Tatasna. K. We're round 2. You'll change the crossing of the fingers.

And if you're thinking, I don't remember what finger I just crossed last time, don't worry. Just cross your fingers. You'll always do it the same and then look and just take it down a notch. Okay. It is nice to keep a little bit of evenness. It's a good practice to get into once headstand becomes part of your regular practice to just switch it every every other time. Okay. So, again, mindfully place your arms on the wall.

And adjust them. So lift the elbow just slightly away from the wall. Externally rotate your upper arm. And hook that outer elbow skin. K. Go for both sides. And, again, it's like this idea that you're, connecting the inner elbow towards that imaginary brick. Okay? And then reach your hips back and see if you can get yourself into an arta otanasana position.

Okay. The whole a big intention here between behind this presentation is to work to open up this side chest. So in terms of determining how low down the wall you should be with your elbows and forearms, can sort of be a function of how stiff you are up in here. Right? If you go a little higher, you may feel a little more open, but of course. You don't wanna overdo as well. So see see what you can manage there. And then strongly press your forearms into the wall. K. Roll the hands, keeping that space between the palms, roll the hand slightly towards you, towards you.

And from the underside of your upper arms push into your elbows. Neck is soft. Just neutral. Free. No tension. Reach the hips back and, again, push into your elbows, lengthen through your side trunk.

Okay. Release, bend your knees, walk forward, and stand in Okay. And then release. Let's take it. In the other orientation, change our perspective here. You'll place your forearms on the ground Don't worry. We're not kicking up just yet.

We're not going all the way up. A little bit more preparation here. Okay? So the same care, the same level of attention to detail as you place your arms, interlace, keep that space between the palms and then place your forearms down. Okay. Lift the elbow, externally rotate your upper arm, catch the outer elbow skin. Both sides, And here, this is the underside of the wrist.

Do you wanna keep that nice and long? So sometimes I just like this, right, extend the underside of the wrist and roll the head the hands towards the head in that in that direction. As opposed to letting the wrists collapse when it lengthen lengthen the underside of the wrist and get a firm connection there. Okay. Now from here, stay looking just beyond your knuckles. Just beyond your knuckles. Tuck the toes under.

And now lift your knees and hips up and back. Up and back. So I mentioned earlier about the need to penetrate the upper back into the body. Okay. So from letting it fall out to penetrating it in. Okay. And so let's go back and forth here. Do a little bit of pumping, see if we can soften, that area a little bit. Just penetrate into it.

Bring your chin beyond your hands. Cress those forearms down, lift up, and back. Forward and back all the way forward, all the way back. K? Find your rhythm with it. And the whole time you're doing this, press those forearms strongly down. K? You may notice that, like, one elbow likes to slip wants to slip. So that gives you some feedback about what's happening on that side of the neck, the shoulders, that side may just need to do a little bit more yoga than the other side.

Okay. And then release, pause here. Take a moment. And then when you feel ready, You can change the crossing of your fingers and then readjust your base. K. Whenever you're ready here, lift up and back and go for a few more rounds of pumping. In order to penetrate that upper back.

Okay. And sometimes, you know, you can come a little forward and back. But challenge yourself, see, can you come all the way forward? All the way back? Press those arms strongly down. Lift your shoulders up as you go back.

Okay. And then once you feel even, You've done a few rounds. Just lower your legs down and take a moment. Yeah. You can put your head down. Find your breath. Okay.

We're moving along. Next up is Artashirshasna, half Sheershasna, So we'll take the full positioning here, but we are not actually lifting both feet off the ground. Okay? So now the head is going to be placed on the ground. So you may find that you want a little bit of softness depending on the thickness of your mat or what you're using. Sometimes if I have a thinner mat, I might fold it in half and then in half again just to create that softness.

Alternatively, you can open up a blanket and place the blanket on your mat. Something that looks like this. I would keep it, wide. You want your whole, your head, and the full forearm and elbow to be planted on the setup. Okay. And then From here, let's go again, interlace the fingers, keep the space between your palms, and rotate those upper arms out. Okay. Now from here, lift your knees and hips up and keep the head still looking just beyond the knuckles.

Lift up and back penetrate that upper back into the body. Now walk in walk in. Lower your head to neutral. Lower your head down. Walk in. Walk in and then place your head down. But lift those shoulders up.

Roll your hands into your head and lift those shoulders strongly up. This is Artashirshasna. Press your forearms down. Lift your shoulders up. Right? Roll the hands into the head, lift the shoulders up, and pause here.

And then slowly release. Bend your knees. Wait here. K? You can change the crossing of your fingers, reestablish your base, and then go up again. Look beyond your knuckles.

And then tuck the toes, knees, and hips up, up and back. It's not just about putting the head down. But lift the shoulders, lift the hips, walk in, walk in, lower your head to a neutral position, And with those shoulders lifted, lower the head down, then roll your hands into your head, lift the shoulders again. Okay. Now here, try acapada art to share shots now. Walk your feet together. And then from here, raise your right leg up.

Lift your shoulders. Lift your leg. Lift your shoulders. Lift your leg. And then lower the leg down and raise the other leg up.

Press your forearms down, lift the shoulders, reach into the leg. Find some levelness of the hips. It's not it's not to distort. Right? So inner leg lifts. And then release and then lower down.

And, again, Admoca Verasna. Okay. Push yourself up. And now let's shift ourselves towards the wall. Hey. You'll take your blanket here like this and have 2 bricks because now I wanna give you a little bit of support for that thoracic region.

So you'll stack your bricks like this, and you wanna create a setup here where there's an overhang. Okay? So this part of the brick here is going to penetrate into your upper back. And then just have the blanket right up against your bricks here. And then you'll interlace your fingers and the knuckles are coming right up against this lower brick. Okay? And now I'm gonna show you a few variations so you can figure out, you know, what bus stop do I wanna get off at today.

K. You'll prepare yourself as before interlace, knuckles against the brick, and rotate those upper arms. Roll the hands towards the head, towards yourself, to lengthen the underside of the wrist. K? And then lift your knees, lift your hips, you're still looking up, lift up, and back. Alright. Walk in. Walk in. As you walk in, you can just let the head dangle.

Walk in. And then slowly lower your head down and walk in until your back touches the bricks. K? Roll your hands into your head and lift the shelf of your shoulders up. Now some of you may wanna just stay here. And this is a lovely place to work. You press your forearms down, lift your shoulders up, and pause here.

You can join your feet. You can work on lifting one leg up, a, Artashir Shahasna. And keep switching between these 2 options. Another option here is to bring your back towards the brick as we've done. And then press your forms down and then really challenge yourself to push up and back again.

And then you can bend, walk in, walk in, head down again, straighten the legs, spend some time here, and then again push back. Right? So there's lots that can be done. And then those of you who wanna kick all the way up from here, gonna raise one leg up, bend the leg that's on the floor, and jump. Jump. Feet can come all the way towards the wall and then scrub your heels up the wall.

Press your forearm strongly down, lift your shoulders up, and then reach from your buttocks from your back waist to your heels. K. Join your legs. And then those of you who want to can also come right off the wall. You still have that little bit of support for your upper back. Turn the front of your thighs slightly in.

Back of your thighs ever so slightly open. Move the mid buttock into the body, thighs back, and then every so often go back to your base and press those forearms strongly down. Keep your face soft, eyes soft, throat soft, and breathe. Okay. And then reach back for the wall again. Maintain a strong lift to the shoulders as you come down. So press the forearms down, shoulders up, lower one leg, and then just let the other leg follow.

And then recover yourself in. Pause. Be here. Breeze. And then slowly push yourself upward. K. This is one way to work with the bricks.

There are many, many different variations of brick sheer. But this is one option for you to play with. K. We're gonna conclude the practice now with Viparita Cranny. And I think because we have these two bricks right here, let's take a simple setup for this Viparita Cranny, using one brick, you'll lay yourself down with your legs up the wall. Like so, have the brick within reach.

And then lift your hips up, place the brick broad under the sacrum. And then extend your legs to straight. From here, roll your shoulders under. So you're getting this dome shape in the chest, and then extend the arms. Hey, in Ayangarioga, we always follow shirshasna, with something in the Sarvangasna, in the Shoulder's Dan family.

So Vibrita Karani, in this case, satisfies that. And typically, we would stay in our Sarvangasna poses for as long as we've stayed in the Shershasna poses. Okay. That's one of the sequencing roles that we we, abide by in Ayangar yoga. K. So just be here, settle into this Viparita Karani, Beebreidocrani is translated as inverted lake. And the inverted lake in this position is your abdomen.

So with each exhalation, just let the abdomen soften. And recede back and down. Let go of any tension in your face. Allow all the facial expression to simply dissolve right off your face. This brings us to the end of today's session, but you can stay in that vibrator cranny for a little bit longer.

Until you feel, sort of a natural end. And then after that, if you'd like to lay flat, you can go ahead for a flat back. Hey. I'm gonna leave you here. Thank you so much for today.