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sun_salutationSince I recently achieved one of my dreams and learned how to kick up into a handstand against the wall, I wanted to share some of the excellent resources that helped get me there (and some I've found since then; if you've got resources to suggest, please please rec them in the comments).
Handstand is thrilling and wonderful -- wait, no, actually, for a lot of us it's terrifying and dispiriting and something we think we will never, ever be able to do. Dayna Macy says:
Trying to kick into Handstand leads me straight into the heart of fear and shame and negative body image, which I've hung on to since childhood. When I was young, I was amazed when other kids flipped up onto their hands. I watched the crazed joy on their faces as their bodies sliced through the air with abandon. I was never that kid—I never felt that kind of unfettered freedom and trust.
Which makes it amazingly powerful and liberating when you do it. Not to mention fun.
Caveats: handstand is not advised for people who have problems with blood pressure, heart problems, glaucoma or other eye problems, wrist injuries, or who have a headache (it won't help). As it's an inversion, some teachers will advise against doing it during menstruation. I am not a doctor or a yoga teacher: if you have concerns, please talk to someone who is.
[/caveats]
Okay, beginning with:
Handstand modification with feet on a chair
A nice modification that allows you to get the feel of having your hips over your head in a relatively easy and non-scary way; I think this would be accessible for most people who are okay with downwards-facing dog.
Intimidated by Inversions? Start Out with Half Handstand
Half-handstand actually takes more strength than a handstand against the wall, because you're using a lot of body tension to hold your feet in place. But you don't have to kick up, and it feels safer and less like you might topple onto your head. So it's physically and psychologically easier to get into.
If you're okay with half-handstand, try taking one leg up vertically while keeping the other on the wall; you'll probably find you feel lighter when more of your weight is stacked vertically over your head. I found this interesting and helpful to play with.
Sadie Nardini: Sadie's 30
It helped me a lot to make the connection between handstand and "floating" jumps forwards (which I still can't do; one day …).
Yoga Today: Handstand How-To (you can also download this in iTunes)
Those Anusara people really love their handstands. This is a sweet little 13-minute mini-workshop on alignment, beginning with lots of work in downwards-facing dog (this was when it really clicked for me that down dog is the first stage of handstand), then dolphin, half-handstand, and finally working on handstand against the wall.
Sadie Nardini: Core Handstand for Everyone
A progression from the "Sadie's 30" hops to kicking up against the wall.
It took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize that when you "kick up," you're not just pushing off with the bottom foot, you're swinging the top leg to give you the momentum that carries your hips up over your shoulders.
In the end, the final bit of advice I needed to make it happen didn't come from the net, but from a RL Iyengar teacher: put a bolster against the wall in front of your head. This helps with the fear that you're going to bash your head into the wall, and also makes you keep your head down between your arms.
(She also advised not kicking up into handstand more than two or three times in a row, at least for beginners; you get tired and dizzy faster than you think.)
Natasha Rizopolous's step-by-step guide to handstand (some nice Iyengar-style modifications, including the bolster trick and a belt around the arms)
I only just found this article in Yoga Journal, Standing on Your Own Two Hands, but it's a wonderful guide to the whole process, including the psychological elements, with recommendations for a wide range of poses you can use as preparation to build arm strength, shoulder openness and balance.
This blog post and the comments have some fun thoughts about handstand and everyone's fears about it.
From Fear to Freedom: One woman's journey into Handstand, and how it turned her life upside down by Dayna Macy (who I quoted earlier) is a very long and thoughtful article about learning handstand, including detailed descriptions of her work with three different expert teachers and their different approaches.
Finally, some pure inspiration: I found this Handstand workshop for dancers completely mesmerizing, and keep rewatching it.
It has a few movement ideas I can play with, and many that are waaay out of my league, but it's a really interesting creative exploration of the physical dynamics of handstand, and a reminder that it can be a form of play.
Now, to work on getting off that wall …
Handstand is thrilling and wonderful -- wait, no, actually, for a lot of us it's terrifying and dispiriting and something we think we will never, ever be able to do. Dayna Macy says:
Trying to kick into Handstand leads me straight into the heart of fear and shame and negative body image, which I've hung on to since childhood. When I was young, I was amazed when other kids flipped up onto their hands. I watched the crazed joy on their faces as their bodies sliced through the air with abandon. I was never that kid—I never felt that kind of unfettered freedom and trust.
Which makes it amazingly powerful and liberating when you do it. Not to mention fun.
Caveats: handstand is not advised for people who have problems with blood pressure, heart problems, glaucoma or other eye problems, wrist injuries, or who have a headache (it won't help). As it's an inversion, some teachers will advise against doing it during menstruation. I am not a doctor or a yoga teacher: if you have concerns, please talk to someone who is.
[/caveats]
Okay, beginning with:
Handstand modification with feet on a chair
A nice modification that allows you to get the feel of having your hips over your head in a relatively easy and non-scary way; I think this would be accessible for most people who are okay with downwards-facing dog.
Intimidated by Inversions? Start Out with Half Handstand
Half-handstand actually takes more strength than a handstand against the wall, because you're using a lot of body tension to hold your feet in place. But you don't have to kick up, and it feels safer and less like you might topple onto your head. So it's physically and psychologically easier to get into.
If you're okay with half-handstand, try taking one leg up vertically while keeping the other on the wall; you'll probably find you feel lighter when more of your weight is stacked vertically over your head. I found this interesting and helpful to play with.
Sadie Nardini: Sadie's 30
It helped me a lot to make the connection between handstand and "floating" jumps forwards (which I still can't do; one day …).
Yoga Today: Handstand How-To (you can also download this in iTunes)
Those Anusara people really love their handstands. This is a sweet little 13-minute mini-workshop on alignment, beginning with lots of work in downwards-facing dog (this was when it really clicked for me that down dog is the first stage of handstand), then dolphin, half-handstand, and finally working on handstand against the wall.
Sadie Nardini: Core Handstand for Everyone
A progression from the "Sadie's 30" hops to kicking up against the wall.
It took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize that when you "kick up," you're not just pushing off with the bottom foot, you're swinging the top leg to give you the momentum that carries your hips up over your shoulders.
In the end, the final bit of advice I needed to make it happen didn't come from the net, but from a RL Iyengar teacher: put a bolster against the wall in front of your head. This helps with the fear that you're going to bash your head into the wall, and also makes you keep your head down between your arms.
(She also advised not kicking up into handstand more than two or three times in a row, at least for beginners; you get tired and dizzy faster than you think.)
Natasha Rizopolous's step-by-step guide to handstand (some nice Iyengar-style modifications, including the bolster trick and a belt around the arms)
I only just found this article in Yoga Journal, Standing on Your Own Two Hands, but it's a wonderful guide to the whole process, including the psychological elements, with recommendations for a wide range of poses you can use as preparation to build arm strength, shoulder openness and balance.
This blog post and the comments have some fun thoughts about handstand and everyone's fears about it.
From Fear to Freedom: One woman's journey into Handstand, and how it turned her life upside down by Dayna Macy (who I quoted earlier) is a very long and thoughtful article about learning handstand, including detailed descriptions of her work with three different expert teachers and their different approaches.
Finally, some pure inspiration: I found this Handstand workshop for dancers completely mesmerizing, and keep rewatching it.
It has a few movement ideas I can play with, and many that are waaay out of my league, but it's a really interesting creative exploration of the physical dynamics of handstand, and a reminder that it can be a form of play.
Now, to work on getting off that wall …
no subject
Date: 2010-07-07 03:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-07 04:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-07 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-07 04:48 pm (UTC)I would never have thought it was possible for me. It was the biggest item on my mental list of scary impossible physical projects. Now I need to expand the list ...
i could never do one as a kid, by the way -- kicking into one. too scared.
Me too.
I really love the blog post and comments here, because there are people talking about doing handstand for the first time at 48 and 47 and 56 and so on.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-07 10:30 pm (UTC)If you are doing downward dog, standing forward folds and shoulderstands while menstruating, you are already doing types of inversions. How do these poses make you feel? How does yoga in general feel for you *today*? Physically, how are you feeling overall? Sometimes, menstruation can make you dizzy, woozy, feverish and if you aren't paying attention to the signals that your body is giving you, then doing a handstand will be especially dangerous. What works for you today may not work for you tomorrow. Heck, what works for you right now may not work for you in an hour. Listening to your body all the time, not just when you are menstruating, is the only way to have a healthy yoga practice.
The science behind inversions and menstruation is just now in its infancy. At one point, people said that inversions during menstruation can cause endometriosis. This has been proven false as doctors have increased their understanding of the disease.
From a yogic perspective, again, opinions are divided. Some schools say that inversions while menstruating change your energy flow in harmful ways (e.g. Astanga) and some say they change your energy flow in helpful ways (e.g. Iyengar). I come from the Astanga school and have found that for myself, practicing while menstruating feels wrong energetically. This is more due to engaging the bandhas than in doing inversions.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-08 08:29 am (UTC)Likewise. For me, if I've got that heavy/dragging/crampy feeling, I skip major inversions like shoulderstand, headstand and handstand (and tend to do a bunch of cramp-relieving poses and deep leg stretches instead); it just seems like a bad idea to be balancing upside-down when I'm feeling like that.
OTOH, if I'm bleeding lightly and feeling normal, I'll invert all over the place.