Arm Balance Series #6: Handstand

For a lot of people who practice yoga, handstand is one of the more difficult poses to learn and one of the most sought-after. It took me 2 years to learn how to do it well and I didn't even start trying it until I'd been practicing for about a year. The difficulty level of this pose is about a 7/10 for me. For B.K.S Iyengar, one of the founders of modern yoga, it's a 10/60 lol. It's all relative.

The latest variation that I've been making myself do is to look back instead of down. These 2 pictures show the difference. It doesn't seem much different to most observers but it's kind of scary to not look at the floor when you're inverted like this. I've only learned to start doing this the past several months (been practicing about 7 years now).

LOOKING DOWN VS LOOKING BACKWARD

A lot of yoga studios won't allow people to do inversions anymore due to insurance reasons mostly. Thankfully the one I go to is owned by some of the coolest people I know.

When a person first starts learning this pose, it's best to try and kick one foot up and leave the other one tucked close to the chest until a balance point has been found. Then slowly extend the other leg upward. It's also a good idea to learn this pose against a wall, with a spotter, or both until you know you're strong enough to do it and how to fall out of it and not get injured. I'm not going into detail about how to fall but I'll admit I've fallen hundreds of times learning and perfecting this.

I get into this pose in 2 different ways at this point (I don't use the one leg kick anymore) and there's another transition that I still cannot even come close to doing (pike press from straight leg forward fold). Here's the second way I learned to get into it after getting comfortable with the one leg at a time method, which is kicking up from downward dog pose. The progression is shown below.

KICKING UP TO HANDSTAND FROM DOWNWARD DOG

When jumping forward, it's best to keep the knees tucked into the chest until stability is achieved and then raise the legs into a straight handstand.

Below is the third way I learned to kick up into handstand and I'm trying to master lifting my feet and raising up into it without kicking. On a day when I'm feeling good I can do it without kicking. Today wasn't quite one of those days.

KICKING / FLOATING UP FROM WIDE LEG STANCE

You can tell in the second frame that I did kick because my feet appear a bit blurry which means I'm not moving slowly into it like I want to. This just goes to show that even someone who appears to have mastered something may not have as good a handle on it as it may seem. I'm my own biggest critic sometimes.

Finally, I found a picture of the best handstand I've done on a paddleboard this morning so I might as well share it as it's relevant to this post. I've been looking for this photo for awhile now. This was taken last summer. Sadly I've only gotten out on the board a few times this year. Been busy this summer with new hobbies and businesses.

I want to stress that this is a difficult pose and it's easy to get injured trying it before you're ready. Always err on the side of caution, especially when you're new to trying a certain pose, especially inversions. When / if you do include this pose in your practice, please use props and / or a spotter until you have done it quite a few times and have figured out how best to "fall out of it."

Thank you all who have followed this series. I've still got several more that I'll share in the coming week or so.

Time to watch Game of Thrones now :)