0:00

Hey

0:00

everyone, I'm Andrea Ferretti and

0:02

this is Yoga Land.

0:12

Hi Jason. I'm back. You're

0:14

back. It's almost like I live upstairs from

0:17

a recording studio. It's

0:20

almost like you're really close

0:22

to the host. Yes. So

0:25

we're going to circle back. We've been doing

0:27

a series on the benefits

0:29

of different pose categories for beginners and

0:33

we've got one more, unless anybody

0:35

has any special requests out there. We've got one more,

0:37

which is the category of inversions and

0:40

their benefits for beginners.

0:43

And similar to arm balances

0:45

and backbends, I think this is an

0:48

important and fantastic

0:50

category of poses to look at for beginners

0:53

because there are very few other disciplines

0:56

where you do them as

0:58

adults. A lot

1:00

of kids do gymnastics and tumbling when they're little

1:02

and they'll practice them

1:05

there. But I'm trying to think,

1:07

unless you are doing gymnastics as an adult,

1:10

I'm trying to think if you really do

1:12

inversions. I don't think so. I don't think there's

1:14

really a very common scenario, even in other movement

1:16

modalities. You just don't

1:18

go upside down very much. And posturally

1:21

going upside down is just

1:24

the hallmark of the asana practice. And

1:28

it goes so far as to being,

1:30

shoulder stand sarvangasana

1:33

was always considered the queen of

1:35

all yoga postures. Sarvangasana,

1:37

headstand, the king of all yoga

1:39

postures. I don't necessarily know

1:41

that I want to continue that lore, but I think that they're

1:44

very valuable poses getting upside down.

1:47

And I also want to acknowledge that when I'm

1:49

working with beginners,

1:51

like you said, we talked about backbends, we talked about

1:53

arm balances. When I'm working

1:56

with beginners compared to those

1:58

two categories, I'm really... conservative

2:00

when it comes to teaching inversions

2:02

to beginners, right? And I have

2:04

a kind of an anomalous approach.

2:07

I would say that I want to talk about in a moment,

2:10

but I have a couple of quick things

2:12

that I want to throw out of why I think they're

2:14

so valuable. The main reason,

2:17

like the first and foremost reason that

2:19

I think inversions are so valuable

2:21

for beginners is that they

2:24

require focus. They both require

2:27

focus and they build focus. I

2:29

understand they're scary for some. I understand

2:31

they can be really intimidating. They're hard

2:33

for everyone as a teacher and

2:36

as a student, it's easier just to ignore

2:38

these poses and pretend they don't exist. Um,

2:41

but when you are working on these poses

2:44

as a student, you are

2:46

immaculately and perfectly

2:49

focused. When you're doing backbends

2:51

and arm balances, you're, you're probably pretty

2:54

focused, but the mind can

2:56

wander. When you're doing standing poses,

2:58

your mind can wander pretty easily. When you're doing a

3:01

little seated hip opener, your mind can

3:03

wander. But when you're working

3:05

on some variation of handstand

3:08

or headstand or forearm balance, you

3:10

are going to be a hundred percent with

3:12

yourself in that moment. You are going

3:15

to be dialed in and as a yoga

3:17

teacher, you're also going to be

3:19

dialed in. Same thing

3:21

as a student, as a teacher, like

3:24

we don't want to, but sometimes we

3:26

inadvertently phone it in or we're, we're

3:29

trying to focus, but we're really lapsed and we're

3:31

thinking about something else when we're teaching

3:33

a class or we have these little moments, but

3:36

when your students are working on a version

3:38

of shoulder stand, you are going

3:41

to be there. And I, and I think

3:43

that this is just such an important thing

3:45

for us to recognize that these practices

3:47

are largely about being focused

3:49

and present minded and inversions

3:52

do a superlative job of these things.

3:54

Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

3:56

Completely. So let's talk about

3:58

physical.

3:59

benefits just in terms of pose

4:02

category. I know there are many, but

4:05

are there any big takeaways from this category? I

4:07

think this is a really tough one because

4:10

there's so much lore around these poses

4:13

and there's so much There's

4:15

so much physiological benefits

4:18

that is accorded to these but I

4:20

wouldn't say that they have sound

4:23

enough studies to say That

4:27

you know, they're a panacea for all things So

4:30

let's just pause for a moment and

4:32

talk address a little bit of the lore sure

4:34

just in case people don't know Yeah So

4:37

like you mentioned is it headstand as the king

4:40

or yeah headstand as the king known as the king

4:42

Shoulder stand is known as the queen and I believe it was

4:44

a younger who coined that yes

4:47

Yeah, or at least popular and when you look in

4:49

light on yoga, yeah, and you look under

4:52

You know the list of benefits it's like I'm

4:54

like this is everything. Yeah. Yeah, it's

4:56

a lot. Yeah, it fixes everything from my

5:01

To a terry gland dysfunction

5:03

to pretty much the let

5:05

me give the shortcut It's pretty

5:07

much said that these

5:10

fix Like virtually every

5:12

endocrinological problem, right? And

5:15

and here's it here and I don't want to go there, but

5:17

I also don't want to like throw shade on it Yeah,

5:20

yeah, I think I think that this is what we can

5:22

say about them. First of all, they do not

5:24

reverse our blood flow I know that's

5:26

another fun. Blood just doesn't go doesn't it just

5:28

doesn't like go the other direction all of a sudden Okay,

5:31

however, however, so this

5:33

is right. So so they're super physiologically

5:36

valuable, but I think I think

5:39

without Getting

5:41

into specious territory. What we can say

5:43

is they facilitate Circulation

5:47

really well and they change

5:49

the gravitational stress on

5:51

the body and so they facilitate

5:55

Easier circulation into the

5:57

upper extremities, right? So it's

5:59

not really like you're reversing the blood flow

6:01

or you're changing the blood flow, it's a

6:04

little bit more like you're facilitating

6:06

blood flow into the upper extremities.

6:10

And because you're going upside down,

6:12

you're also increasing blood pressure. That

6:15

may or may not be a desirable thing for

6:17

someone. Right, for your particular situation.

6:20

Right, right. But because

6:22

you're going upside down and because there's effort

6:24

involved, like even shoulder stand,

6:26

there's some effort involved. So because you're

6:28

going upside down and there's effort involved,

6:31

these are uniquely suited

6:34

to facilitate circulation. And

6:37

facilitating circulation and facilitating

6:39

circulation into the upper extremities seems

6:42

to be a pretty good thing for a lot of things. Right,

6:44

like, so again, I think

6:48

in yoga, often where we make

6:50

the error

6:52

is to overly be overly

6:57

prescriptive or overly singular

6:59

and diagnostic saying, expose

7:02

fixes Y problem. So

7:04

I think with this, we need to stay a little bit more general

7:06

and say, facilitating circulation

7:09

and facilitating circulation to the upper extremities

7:11

is a really good thing. The focusing

7:14

is a really good thing. Getting

7:16

your body to work is a really

7:18

good thing. Getting your body to

7:21

work in a novel way is

7:23

a really good thing, right? I

7:26

think the other thing that we want to kind of throw out in

7:28

terms of benefit

7:29

is all of these

7:34

poses are going

7:36

to be imposing, that sounds

7:38

like a negative word, but I don't mean negative. They're

7:41

all going to be imposing a greater weight

7:44

load on the shoulders, arms

7:46

and upper body. And that

7:49

both builds strength in

7:52

the muscles and the tissues, but it

7:54

might also facilitate a little bit

7:56

more strength of bone and structure.

7:59

Right? So you're getting

8:01

good weight into good places.

8:05

I think the other thing that

8:07

calls to mention is with

8:10

a little bit of

8:13

practice and skill, and a little

8:15

bit of good direction,

8:19

these poses remind you to breathe. Because

8:22

they're difficult, because they're novel, because

8:25

they're different, because they facilitate

8:27

focus, you might hold

8:30

your breath. But with

8:32

a little bit of training, those

8:35

things are actually reminders to

8:37

slow down and smooth out your breath and to

8:39

focus on what's happening in the

8:41

current moment.

8:43

So

8:44

I agree that the novelty

8:47

aspect is really important. And

8:50

for me, the novelty means,

8:53

or has meant over the course of my practice, that

8:56

number one, they're kind of fun to work on, because again,

8:59

just like arm balances and back ones, you don't get

9:01

to put your body in those shapes. Number

9:04

two,

9:04

as you mentioned, they force you to focus.

9:07

And for me, they kind of like,

9:10

it's like a reset on

9:12

my brain. They're refreshing

9:13

to my brain.

9:16

Some people will say like, oh, turn upside

9:19

down and it changes your perspective and it sounds a little corny,

9:21

but it's true. It's just like, when

9:24

you're doing something novel with your body, it's

9:26

just,

9:27

can be so good

9:29

for your brain in terms of how it feels. For sure. What

9:32

about like the empowerment

9:34

aspect? Or, you know, I've seen

9:37

you take so many people

9:39

up into handstand for the first time, so

9:42

many people, and I've seen like

9:44

the fear that they go through. So

9:47

how much do you think that's a

9:50

factor for beginners? I think it's a pretty

9:52

big factor, because, you know,

9:55

I don't necessarily wish

9:57

that as a species, we are this

9:59

way. way, but we

10:02

do tend to get inspiration from

10:04

making progress in something. And

10:07

I know that when we're talking about progress

10:09

in the context of yoga, it's complicated

10:11

because we don't want to be overly material, right?

10:14

Like we're just making progress in poses

10:16

that that there's some there's some

10:19

existential problem

10:21

with exclusively thinking

10:23

that way in the context of yoga. But when

10:26

you do something that you haven't done in a

10:28

long time, or when

10:30

you do something that you never thought you could

10:32

do, or you do something that, you

10:35

know, maybe secretly you aspire

10:37

towards, it's a really big

10:39

deal. Or when you when

10:42

you just approach a fear and do

10:44

something that is a little bit scary, like, it's

10:46

a really big deal. It really is. And

10:49

I never think about

10:51

myself as like,

10:53

I want my students to always know

10:55

that they're supported, and it's okay

10:57

to opt out of something. At

11:00

the same time, opting into

11:02

something that you're a little bit scared

11:05

of

11:05

is a

11:06

big deal. It's

11:08

a really positive thing. And

11:10

the scenario for me where this, this

11:13

comes up so frequently, it's actually less in

11:15

beginners trainings.

11:17

And even more, I don't travel

11:20

as much as I used to. But when I would travel into an arm

11:22

balance or an inversion workshop, I

11:24

would always split the room up at

11:26

some point. So that people

11:29

that were more proficient in handstand

11:31

and forearm balance and headstand were able to do

11:34

x, y and z variations. And

11:36

everyone else that needed more help with those

11:39

poses would make a line and I

11:41

would take them up. And man, I

11:43

have no exaggerations to say I've taken 1000s

11:45

of people up in the handstand and

11:48

people are stoked on it. It feels

11:50

like you've

11:55

really accomplished something.

11:57

And here's the thing, like on the surface, I've

12:01

doing handstand if you've never done handstand

12:03

is really not that big of a thing,

12:06

but doing something that you

12:08

wanna do, doing something that you're scared of, doing

12:10

something that you're intimidated of, doing something

12:12

that you thought was

12:14

like years past your ability

12:17

to do, well, those things are

12:19

big deals. And then one more quick

12:21

thing before we move on, which is just

12:24

going back to the novel stresses, it's

12:26

really clear that using your

12:28

body in varied ways is

12:32

really valuable. Doing,

12:35

stressing your body in different

12:37

ways at different angles

12:40

with different degrees of intensity is

12:42

incredibly valuable. And

12:45

going upside down, I think the other thing

12:48

that it really facilitates

12:50

is spatial awareness, proprioception.

12:54

And I remember Rodney was,

12:56

my teacher, those of you that don't know Rodney,

12:59

Rodney was like huge

13:02

into big statements, right? He would

13:04

just make like a big statement. And

13:07

I remember him saying, when

13:10

he was talking about headstand, and

13:12

he was talking about, for most people, it

13:14

was gonna take them at least six months of

13:17

regularly doing headstand to

13:19

be completely oriented

13:22

upside down. So that they could

13:24

do the pose, articulately

13:26

in the middle of the room and start to add variations,

13:29

right? And what

13:31

I kind of realized is, in

13:35

the same way that stressing

13:38

your bones and other tissues

13:40

in novel ways is valuable, stressing

13:44

your, I don't know

13:46

if stress is the right word, but perceiving

13:49

yourself differently, putting

13:53

yourself in a different physical scenario so

13:55

that your nervous system and your brain have

13:57

to. interpret

14:01

spatial awareness and information differently.

14:04

These are all just

14:07

so valuable and I don't know exactly

14:09

how to calculate their value. Yeah.

14:11

You know what I mean? And that's why I always feel like it's a little

14:14

bit specious but I just don't

14:16

think... I think that the

14:18

way that these poses spatially

14:22

orient us and do physically

14:26

novel things for us I think

14:29

is really different than

14:31

any other pose category. Like

14:34

it's just an elevation compared

14:36

to any other pose category. I would agree

14:38

with that for sure. Yeah. Okay

14:41

so let's jump into the actual poses

14:43

you want to take us through today. Yeah.

14:45

There's something important first

14:48

because I'm gonna be a little bit more brief with the poses

14:51

and I'm gonna remind everyone

14:53

that shortly after we release

14:55

this episode I'm also

14:58

releasing an episode of Yoga Teacher's

15:00

Companion on Jason Crandall Yoga

15:02

YouTube that's gonna teach

15:04

you how I actually teach these poses

15:06

that we're gonna talk about. It's a 30-minute

15:09

episode and it's gonna like walk through all

15:11

of these things. Great. But what I don't

15:14

talk about there and what I do

15:16

talk about here is this...

15:19

I

15:20

would say it's a little bit of a sequencing

15:23

or a teaching anomaly that I have

15:25

when it comes to teaching inversions which is

15:27

this. In most

15:30

scenarios you use easier

15:33

poses to prepare for harder

15:35

poses. You sequence

15:37

easier poses before you sequence harder

15:40

poses and you use an easier

15:42

pose to teach a harder pose but

15:45

when it comes to inversions I 100% flip

15:48

the script on this. Headstand

15:51

and shoulder stand are

15:53

the easier inversions

15:56

to do. So when we think about there's really four

15:58

primary inversions. And you could argue

16:00

down dog and handstand. There's plenty of poses

16:03

that have an inverted quality

16:05

to them. But when we're talking about

16:07

like the classic inversions in

16:09

yoga, we really have four and

16:12

a bonus. We have handstand,

16:15

forearm balance, headstand,

16:17

shoulder stand, and then our bonuses,

16:20

Viparita karate, legs up the wall. And

16:22

each one of those poses, of course, has variations,

16:25

right? But when we look at those four

16:27

primary inversions, the

16:30

easiest one for most people to

16:32

get into is shoulder stand. But

16:34

of all of the inversions, shoulder

16:37

stand puts the neck in the most compromised

16:40

position. Yeah. And we have the second

16:42

easiest one for most people to get up into, which

16:44

is headstand. And ironically, which

16:47

version of headstand is the easiest for most

16:49

people to do? Tripod. Tripod.

16:54

And it's way more vulnerable for

16:56

the neck than sheershaft's in a

16:58

one. Okay. So I kind

17:00

of want to talk this out a little bit and just,

17:02

but just kind of throw that out there that shoulder

17:05

stand is the easiest inversion for most

17:07

to get into. Headstand is the second.

17:11

The version of headstand that is easier

17:13

to get into is tripod headstand for

17:16

most and tripod headstand,

17:19

the hands don't offload

17:22

any of the weight that's being transmitted through the

17:24

neck. So the two easiest inversions to

17:26

do are by a mile, the

17:29

more dangerous inversion. And

17:32

I never, you know, like I don't,

17:35

I don't want to, I don't want to be fear mongering

17:37

because no,

17:38

but I mean, it's the reality is

17:41

your neck is vulnerable in those poses. Yes.

17:44

That's just the reality. It's the reality. So

17:47

right now we are talking about people who don't

17:49

already know how to do these poses. Right. Right.

17:52

So I'm not saying that no one should do headstand or shoulder stand at their end, that

17:54

they're dangerous. What I'm saying is I bear

17:57

a very substantial responsibility when it comes

17:59

to headstand. comes to teaching someone something.

18:02

And in contemporary

18:05

yoga, you know, it's

18:08

common that pretty much everything is all levels.

18:10

And we don't have like, we're not used

18:13

to in modern yoga thinking about prerequisites,

18:16

right? Yeah, no, there's technique that

18:18

yeah, that is required, right for these poses,

18:20

it does big time technique. And

18:23

so, and so what I really

18:26

want people to understand is this concept.

18:29

I don't want my students to bear weight

18:32

on their neck or head, if

18:34

they don't have the strength, skill

18:37

and technique to support

18:39

that weight with their arms and shoulders

18:42

first. So I actually

18:45

am pretty insistent in most, there's always

18:47

some exceptions, right? There's like,

18:50

someone's been doing shoulder stand since they first

18:52

saw it with Lilius and you in 1979.

18:54

And they're feel amazing in shoulder

18:57

stand, but they don't do hands and fine. There's all

18:59

sorts of, there's all sorts of like exceptions.

19:01

But for the most part, starting

19:03

from scratch, I want someone

19:06

to be able to do handstand at

19:08

the wall and forearm balance

19:10

at the wall before I

19:12

want them to do headstand at

19:15

the wall and before I want them to do shoulder

19:17

stand. So the progression

19:19

there, that is the opposite progression

19:22

of accessibility, right? We're

19:24

going from least accessible to most accessible,

19:27

right? But we're

19:30

also going from the least

19:32

likely to injure a neck to

19:35

the most likely to injure a neck. And

19:37

so I have to really be, I will

19:42

acknowledge I am more conservative than most

19:44

on this topic, but I think

19:47

that this is a really important step

19:51

ladder to understand. Okay. So

19:53

you would start

19:56

by introducing handstand first.

19:58

Yeah. So let's take up that topic. and these are the

20:00

things that in the teacher's companion I'll break down. So

20:03

to me when I'm teaching beginners, there's really two

20:05

versions of handstand. One

20:08

is a version of handstand and one only

20:10

kind of is. So the first version

20:13

of handstand is half handstand

20:15

at the wall. And I think people are really

20:18

familiar with this, right? You don't

20:20

have to set it up like this, but kind of the easiest

20:23

way to gauge it is you just

20:25

sit facing the wall with legs

20:28

straight and take the bottom of the feet to the wall.

20:30

And that kind of is gonna tell you your distance from

20:32

the wall, right? Then you just put

20:34

your hands where your hips are, and just turn

20:37

around, do a short facing

20:39

down dog with your heels against the wall, and

20:42

then walk the feet up so they're at

20:44

the height of the hips. And when you're doing

20:46

this, you're making a 90 degree angle

20:49

at your hip joint. So your handstand,

20:53

you're enhancing your upper body. So your

20:56

hips are stacked over your ribs, your

20:58

ribs are over your shoulders, shoulders are over your hands,

21:01

and your thighs are parallel

21:03

to the ground because your feet are at the

21:05

wall. Yeah, you'll see beginners either walk their feet

21:08

up too high

21:09

because it feels scary to get their hips

21:12

directly over their shoulders. Well, it's

21:14

also harder. Or you'll see them kind

21:16

of walk their hands, inch their hands forward at the last

21:18

minute. Yes. But you're saying look

21:20

for the 90 degree angle. Yeah, look for the 90 degree

21:22

angle, but what you were saying right there, it's

21:24

actually to me if it's a beginner, it's okay. So

21:28

I would say that your starting place is

21:31

feet at the height of the hips, but

21:33

taking the feet higher than the hips is easier.

21:36

It's less stressful on the shoulders, so

21:38

it's totally fine to do.

21:41

The other thing that you can do from there, so I'm not thinking

21:43

about this as a separate pose, but the other

21:45

thing that you can do from there if you're feeling pretty

21:48

good and confident, is keep one

21:50

foot at the wall and take the other

21:52

leg vertical. Right? You

21:55

just keep one, so both feet are on the

21:57

wall. Right? and

22:00

you just keep one foot there, and then you take the other foot off

22:02

the wall and you just reach it straight up towards the ceiling.

22:04

So it's just taking one, okay. Yeah. Like

22:07

it's hard, that's a lot harder. Well, so here's

22:09

the thing. Okay, everyone, I want you to imagine

22:12

that you are standing

22:14

up, like forget all of this, imagine you're

22:16

standing up and you reach your arms towards the ceiling.

22:20

Think about how demanding that is for your body. And

22:23

then now, think about standing

22:25

up, bending over 90 degrees

22:28

at the hip joint and reaching your arms forward.

22:31

Like you're doing Ardha Utanasana with the arms

22:33

reaching forward. Which one of those is more

22:35

physically taxing? I

22:38

don't know. The second one. Yeah. Being

22:41

bent over 90 degrees is way more physically taxing.

22:44

So the more of your

22:46

body and handstand you have vertical,

22:50

it's actually easier. It's less

22:52

stressful for your body. So

22:55

taking one leg and reaching it up towards the

22:57

ceiling actually makes you, it

23:00

creates less stress in the body and it makes the

23:02

pose actually a little easier, but

23:05

it can be a little mentally scarier. So

23:08

that's where I

23:10

like to have people keep both feet at the wall until

23:12

they're mentally comfortable to raise one

23:14

leg towards the ceiling. Okay. Yeah.

23:17

The second is not handstand

23:19

at all. It is teaching

23:22

students how to swing and

23:24

hop. So it's teaching people

23:27

handstand transitions without

23:30

actually doing handstand. And

23:33

when I break this down, especially

23:36

if I'm teaching this in person, I

23:39

always just try to give this example. The

23:45

example of golf comes up, but you can use

23:47

pretty much anything, especially any

23:50

racquet sport. Imagine

23:52

that every time,

23:55

imagine you've never played golf, right? And

23:57

you're just learning a golf swing. And

24:00

each time you swing, you're

24:02

trying to drive the ball as far

24:04

as you possibly can. Like you're just trying to

24:07

hit it a thousand yards. Or

24:09

you've never played tennis. And

24:11

so you're learning the basics of swinging and

24:13

you're just trying to like hit the ball as hard as you

24:15

can. Are you likely to

24:17

create a good swing in those situations?

24:20

The answer is no. It's going to be terrible

24:23

because you're working too hard. You're trying

24:25

to get somewhere. You're

24:27

trying to get to this focal point instead of just relaxing

24:30

and learning a technique. And

24:32

so I actually really think people need

24:34

to be taught the swing and hop to handstand

24:37

with absolutely no interest,

24:40

pressure, or desire to get into handstand.

24:42

Because in this situation, then you actually learn

24:45

the swing and hop and then

24:47

you can build on that because it really

24:49

is a technique. Like

24:52

I think that's the last thing that I want to

24:54

make sure I throw out about these poses before we

24:56

go on to the variations of forearm balance.

25:00

These poses are technique driven. They

25:03

really are. Strengthened flexibilities

25:05

are always important variables

25:08

for sure. But

25:11

inversions are more technique driven

25:13

than we think. Yeah. Yeah.

25:17

And that's why the last one is the doing

25:19

the pose with the teacher support, right? Because that

25:21

helps you build the

25:24

technique. Like it kind of scaffolds

25:26

you until you have the technique. Yes.

25:29

So that's the final version. In that version

25:32

is not something I break down in the video

25:34

because it's a

25:36

little bit more nuanced. But if it's possible,

25:38

yes. And I think the

25:41

final thing that I would say about that is,

25:43

you know, you use the word scaffolding.

25:48

Once we are trying to learn

25:50

a set of skills that

25:53

are complicated and dynamic enough that

25:55

we can't do them all at the same time. We

25:57

need to learn them separately. something

26:00

with my sports background and

26:02

your dance background, I think you and I intuitively

26:05

understand that like

26:08

for you as probably choreography, for

26:10

me it's technique, that

26:14

in sports and the other

26:16

things that I've been involved with, you

26:18

don't always just try to do everything

26:22

all out, all in at once.

26:25

You break down things in the little increments

26:27

and you drill those increments. You break things

26:30

down into components, you drill those components

26:33

and then over time you let them come

26:35

together. Right? And

26:37

so being in half handstand, building

26:40

the strength and the awareness of being upside down,

26:43

doing the swing and hops without trying to

26:45

get there, just getting better at swinging and hopping,

26:48

going up with a teacher, all of those

26:50

are separate skills that

26:52

over time can come together

26:55

into the fruition of the pose, especially

26:57

everyone when you're learning it as an adult. When

27:00

you're learning some of these things, if you're like six

27:02

years old and in gymnastics, you're just

27:05

gonna get thrown into the fire and that's

27:07

that. But when we're learning these things

27:09

as an adult, we really have to think about them as

27:13

complimentary learning phases. Yeah.

27:16

Do you ever get any strong

27:19

hit that you don't want a student

27:22

to try full handstand yet and

27:24

do you kind of intercede or

27:26

do you feel like once you've

27:28

covered these bases, you

27:32

just let them experiment? The

27:35

thing with handstand is it's pretty self-limiting.

27:38

Okay. So when it comes to half

27:40

hands at the wall, it's pretty

27:43

accessible unless someone has significant

27:45

elbow issues, shoulder issues or wrist issues.

27:48

So there might be mechanical reasons why

27:51

a body just isn't, you

27:55

know, these poses aren't for them, right?

27:59

Same thing with swing. a hop like the

28:01

swing and hop is going to be one of these things

28:03

that mostly is developing motor

28:06

coordination. But let's say

28:08

someone doesn't have any ailment

28:11

or injury or condition that's going to

28:14

like intercede and then going upside down.

28:18

Then if that's the case, I'm happy for them to

28:20

work on getting into full handstands, because

28:23

they they just may or may not get

28:25

there depending on whether or

28:27

not they've built those skills. So that's where it ends

28:29

up being very self limiting. Okay. Okay.

28:33

And then you mentioned you also teach forearm

28:35

balance before headstand and shoulder stand. So

28:37

I do the approach to teaching that pose.

28:40

I do. And what I would even say is handstand

28:44

is I don't want to say the word that's coming to

28:46

my mind is not the right word. Okay,

28:49

but I'm going to say it anyway because it's stuck in there. Let

28:52

me say the phrase and then let me back off it. Handstand

28:54

is almost extraneous. So

28:57

I don't mean that. But

28:59

what I mean is forearm

29:02

balance is going to do everything heads,

29:04

excuse me, forearm balance, especially

29:07

the way that I'm going to propose it is

29:10

going to give you everything

29:12

that handstand is going to give you.

29:15

It's easier to get

29:17

into. And it doesn't

29:19

have the same kind of wrist complications.

29:22

So totally stand behind handstand.

29:24

However, if it's if it's not

29:27

negotiable, for some reason, forearm

29:30

balance is not only like

29:33

a good surrogate, but this is going to give

29:35

you everything that that

29:38

pose is going to do. And it's going to set

29:41

you up for a headstand that much better, because

29:44

there's so much similarity between

29:47

forearm balance and shear shafts and a one.

29:51

Again, it's not it's not completely the pose

29:54

just yet. But I would say the first version

29:56

of forearm balance, if you will, is what

29:58

I call shorter.

29:59

dolphin

30:00

pose. So

30:02

I really have two versions of

30:04

dolphin pose I like to do. Longer

30:06

dolphin and shorter dolphin. In

30:09

longer dolphin you can just think

30:12

about you essentially have

30:14

the same orientation in your body

30:16

as you would in down dog except

30:18

for your forearms are on the ground and your fingers

30:20

are interlaced. Okay so

30:22

in both versions of dolphin the

30:25

forearms are down the fingers are interlaced

30:27

the outer wrists are strongly pressing down. In

30:30

the longer version of dolphin which

30:32

I think is a great pose to include in this process

30:35

in the longer version of dolphin you have the same

30:37

angles that you have in down dog and

30:40

it's a little bit more for

30:42

opening the shoulders. It's gonna lengthen

30:44

the lats, it's gonna lengthen the triceps, it's

30:46

gonna broaden the shoulder blades, it's a little

30:48

bit stretchier. So the longer version

30:51

is just more space between the feet

30:53

and the arms or is it feet in the

30:55

elbows? Yeah okay but that the hand position

30:57

the arm position is the same. Correct. Okay.

31:00

Yeah now shorter dolphin

31:02

this if it doesn't make sense already it will

31:04

make sense now. In shorter dolphin you

31:06

walk your feet in towards your elbows and

31:09

you elevate your pelvis so your pelvis

31:11

is more vertically stacked over

31:13

your ribs and over your shoulders.

31:16

So in this shorter version you're really

31:18

trying to create an inversion

31:20

from the pelvis through the ribs

31:23

through the shoulders and into the elbows. You're

31:25

really starting to get more upside down.

31:27

The more upside

31:29

down you get however the more

31:31

this becomes a strength generating

31:34

pose. When you have that longer stride

31:37

it's nicer it's stretchier you can

31:39

be there for a longer increment but

31:41

when you shorten up the stride you're

31:43

really starting to physically replicate

31:45

the position and also the demands

31:48

of being upside down. And would

31:50

you say for people who are

31:53

a little more hamstring challenged

31:56

if they are walking the feet in

31:58

to do the short dolphin? Should they bend

32:00

the knees or do you think they should just do

32:03

the longer dolphin? I think they should walk the feet

32:06

in as close as they can and when their hamstrings

32:08

become an encumbrance Just stop

32:11

there. The reality is if you bet

32:13

here's the thing if you bend your knees because

32:15

your hamstrings are tight bending

32:17

the knees kind of pulls the hips down

32:19

and That makes the pose

32:22

really cumbersome When

32:24

I first started doing this pose many years

32:26

ago My hamstrings were really

32:28

tight and and they really were a limiting

32:31

factor for me So it's nice that you bring

32:33

it up. So you just step the feet in

32:35

as close to the elbows as you can Then

32:38

the next thing I want to say is this also

32:40

leads us into essentially the final

32:43

version of dolphin which is starting

32:45

to get closer and closer to Headstand

32:49

and also closer and closer to actual forearm

32:51

balance Which is you take this shorter

32:54

dolphin and you raise one

32:56

leg towards the ceiling? So

32:58

now you're starting to get a leg

33:01

the pelvis the ribs and

33:03

the shoulders all Vertically stacked

33:05

over the elbows, right? Okay So

33:07

this is a lot like that phase that some

33:09

of you might have taken where You

33:12

were in half handstand at the wall and

33:14

you took one foot off the wall

33:16

and raised it up. I Wouldn't

33:19

say that Raising one

33:21

leg towards the ceiling makes

33:23

the shorter version harder I think

33:26

there are they're pretty much equally demanding

33:28

But it does give you a nice feeling

33:31

of getting upside down. Mm-hmm. Okay,

33:34

and the hands here are

33:37

in this pose our Dolphin

33:40

hands so the dolphin hands that's

33:43

really odd. Yeah Human

33:45

dolphin. What am I saying? Yeah fingers

33:47

interlace. Yeah in outer wrists pressing

33:49

down, which is great Because

33:51

that also preps you for headstand.

33:54

Yeah when you take the two so

33:56

imagine you're doing this pose kind of like a conventional

33:59

Sphinx and and you're doing all

34:01

these things with the palms facing down on the

34:03

ground and the hand separated you have

34:05

a much more difficult time. Every

34:08

time or anytime i should

34:10

say you interlace the fingers. You're

34:13

joining the two sides of the body and

34:15

when you join the two sides of the body together

34:19

everything get stronger you create a stronger

34:21

frame. And so by interlacing

34:23

the fingers and pressing the forearms down

34:26

you have a you have a stronger

34:29

mechanical framework in the arms

34:31

and shoulders. Which is gonna allow

34:33

you to flex the shoulders a

34:36

little bit more deeply which is the primary action

34:38

that's happening in the shoulder joints in these

34:40

poses and you can just stay

34:42

in the pose a little bit longer. That

34:45

being said i don't

34:48

i don't know if i would kind of already said this

34:50

but. This is

34:52

a physically demanding pose like

34:55

no one's gonna i want to equate

34:57

this pose to locust pose

35:00

in that it's one of these poses that it

35:02

really build this. Incredibly

35:05

valuable strength for the body but

35:07

in the short term not very fun

35:10

it's not super satisfying and

35:12

there's a lot of output. So

35:15

it's an accessible thing to do but

35:17

there's a lot of energy expenditure

35:20

and so i think you have

35:22

to qualify the value of this and

35:24

just acknowledge this is a tough thing

35:26

to do but this is gonna build

35:28

the strength that's really gonna help us get

35:31

upside down in a much safer

35:33

more sustainable way overtime. Right

35:36

okay and so just to clarify when they

35:39

do kick up to for imbalance you want

35:41

the fingers interlace i do

35:43

okay and this is okay so let's let's

35:46

get to work kind of creeping in

35:48

the headstand right third one so let

35:51

me say this which is. In the same

35:53

way that you worked on handstand

35:56

transitions the swing and hop that

35:59

exact. same process instead of

36:01

techniques is going

36:03

to be practiced in

36:06

dolphin. So essentially you want to do

36:08

this short one-legged dolphin and

36:11

little swing and hops. If

36:13

you have practiced them in handstand,

36:17

then practicing them in forearm bounce

36:19

is probably going to be even easier. And this

36:21

is often the first pose where

36:24

people get upside down of their own volition,

36:27

because the effort to get upside

36:30

down is a little bit lower

36:32

in this forearm

36:35

balance variation than it is handstand.

36:37

So if you've kind of drilled the technique,

36:40

you can start to work on the technique here.

36:43

And then essentially what's happening is you're

36:45

going to start to get up all the way

36:48

up into what we can call essentially

36:51

either another version of forearm

36:53

balance or the first version

36:56

of headstand. And what I like to call this

36:58

is headless headstand. It's essentially forearm

37:02

balance with the fingers interlaced or

37:04

headstand with the head hovering just

37:07

a little bit above the ground.

37:09

Right. So no headless because the

37:11

head is not pressing into the ground. It's lifted

37:13

off the ground just slightly, just slightly. And

37:16

again, this goes back to the initial

37:19

sentiment of I understand

37:21

this is a slower, more

37:23

demanding path than just doing

37:26

it with your head on the floor. But

37:28

it's also ensuring that you're

37:31

developing the strength to

37:33

support your entire body weight without

37:36

having to load your cervical spine.

37:39

And I think that in the modern

37:42

era, I just think I

37:44

think we have to be honest with the

37:46

potential risk of neck

37:48

injury. And to

37:51

say, I, you know, personally, I don't

37:53

want that in my room. I don't want that

37:55

for anyone. I'd rather someone go through

37:58

a little bit of a slower, more

38:00

laborious protocol, then

38:03

maybe get up prematurely and risk

38:05

their neck. Okay, so with this

38:08

hybrid sort of forearm balance headstand

38:11

pose, they are kicking up at

38:13

the wall. They're kicking up at the wall. So

38:15

imagine I'm in a short dolphin,

38:18

my knuckles are gonna be pretty much touching

38:20

the wall. I'm gonna be that close

38:22

to the wall. And then I'm gonna

38:25

get upside, I'm gonna get into that shorter version,

38:27

I'm gonna raise one leg and maybe that's where

38:29

I stop. Or maybe I just from

38:31

there work on my swing and hops. Or maybe

38:34

I work on my swing and hops till I actually get

38:36

up. And if you get up, your

38:39

butt and your heels are gonna get to the

38:41

wall. So you'll be ever so

38:43

slightly leaned into the wall, but

38:45

just barely. And

38:47

so this is also a really good opportunity

38:51

to split the room or to communicate

38:54

to the students, hey, there's a couple of

38:56

different possibilities here. Some

38:58

of you, if you don't feel comfortable swinging

39:01

and hopping, I just want you

39:03

to work on short dolphin. If

39:05

you feel comfortable swinging and hopping, but

39:08

you're not trying to get to forearm balance, just

39:11

do a couple of baby swing and hops and just take

39:14

your time with it, there's no urgency. Those

39:16

of you that have been working on this for a while or feel

39:18

a little bit like you got it, just

39:20

give a little bit more boost and you might come there

39:22

or raise your hand and I'll come

39:24

and support you up. Okay,

39:27

great. The final really brief thing I wanna

39:29

say about this is once someone

39:32

is up with their head off the ground

39:35

and their butt is at the wall and their heels

39:37

are at the wall, they might ever

39:40

so slightly lower down and

39:42

let the top of the head touch so

39:44

that they're getting the feeling of headstand. Now

39:47

you're in a proper headstand. But

39:50

I'm gonna make up a number, I'm gonna say at this

39:52

point, maybe we keep 90 to 95% of the weight in

39:54

the forearms and

39:58

only just that remaining percentage. in

40:00

the head itself. I think that's a

40:02

really smart way to teach it. I mean because when

40:05

you kick up to headless headstand your

40:08

arms are, you know, it's

40:10

so hard to get the action of the arms and

40:13

shoulders in

40:15

this pose and to really work

40:18

and take the weight there. Especially,

40:21

I don't know, for me I have a pretty small rib cage,

40:24

you know, smaller shoulders, bigger hips.

40:26

So that

40:27

really forces you to use those muscles

40:30

and the muscular engagement and then you're

40:32

just slightly

40:34

lowering the head. I think that makes sense. Yeah,

40:36

yeah. And then we're gonna see the

40:38

same really conservative

40:40

approach to shoulder stand. So

40:43

the way that I like to teach shoulder stand is

40:45

essentially supported bridge pose with

40:48

the block and the legs vertical. So

40:50

this is kind of a hybrid

40:52

version of shoulder stand meets supported

40:55

bridge meets legs up the

40:57

wall V. brittacroni. Legs up the wall

41:00

with no wall, right? Yeah. Because

41:02

you're working the legs. So what we

41:04

do for this is we just have a block

41:07

and it's got to be a firm enough block that it can support

41:09

your body weight. So you can sometimes like if

41:11

it's a, you have a like kind of a softer

41:14

foam block you

41:16

can use two next to each other. I've done that plenty

41:18

of times. So you lay on your back

41:21

like you're in due bridge, you lift into bridge,

41:23

and then you slide a block between

41:27

like underneath you. So it's supporting the back of the

41:29

pelvis, the sacrum. Once

41:31

the sacrum is supported and your arms are

41:33

grounding. So you take the arms just

41:35

like you would take them for shoulder stand. And

41:38

right, you get those arms to come underneath you

41:40

and externally rotated. Then

41:43

you bend the knees, take the feet off the floor

41:45

and straighten the legs up towards the ceiling

41:48

actively. The nice thing about

41:50

this is

41:52

you

41:53

it's shoulder stand. It's a full-blown shoulder

41:55

stand. It's just not completely

41:57

vertical. I love this pose. It's

41:59

really It's really nice because

42:02

there's two reasons that

42:05

this makes the pose less

42:08

precarious for a new student. Number

42:11

one, your neck doesn't

42:13

have to be, it doesn't have to

42:16

flex to the same amount. Because

42:19

you're not as vertical, your

42:21

pelvis is essentially over your elbows,

42:24

not over your neck and shoulders. So

42:27

your neck is not as flexed. That's

42:29

number one. And number two, you're

42:31

not bearing nearly as much weight

42:34

on the shoulders or the neck. Because

42:37

you're not as vertical, the neck is

42:39

at an easier

42:42

angle with less load. And

42:45

I don't wanna say shoulder stand

42:47

is a dangerous pose that

42:51

no one should do. If it was,

42:53

I wouldn't teach it in any capacity. However,

42:56

I have to know

42:58

that what we are risking

43:03

when we are doing shoulder

43:05

stand, it's

43:08

a much more substantial risk than

43:13

if we stress the knee or the lower

43:15

back or the wrist and some other pose. What

43:18

can go wrong with the neck is could

43:21

be life changing, to be honest. And again,

43:24

you and I are not, especially

43:26

in the modern yoga situation, not like

43:28

fear-based teachers, but

43:31

I just don't see any urgency

43:34

to learning this pose. And

43:37

to be honest with you, if

43:39

I had a global

43:42

show of hands of people that genuinely

43:45

enjoy and feel good in

43:47

shoulder stand, I'm guessing

43:49

it's much lower than 50%. Especially

43:52

if we were there for more than a minute.

43:56

But I think part of that is, it

43:58

was just so hastily taught. for so

44:00

long. So for this pose,

44:03

I'd rather be much more conservative,

44:05

give the feel for the pose, let

44:07

you get upside down, mitigate

44:10

the vast amount of risks that

44:12

are possible in neck and shoulders,

44:15

and learn this pose slowly and

44:18

progressively over time and have a better

44:20

go of it. Yeah, I

44:22

mean, my opinion,

44:24

I don't know how you feel about this, but when

44:29

we learned it, we tended to learn it

44:31

from Iyengar teachers,

44:33

and there was a lot

44:35

of time put

44:37

into getting the props correct,

44:40

and the teacher would go around and adjust

44:43

the props for each particular person and body,

44:45

right? For the length of your neck, for the curve

44:47

of your neck, for how strong

44:49

you were and able to lift your hips up. And

44:52

so I think

44:54

it's a very personalized

44:55

pose, that's

44:58

what it needs to be. And

45:03

so that takes time, and most

45:06

Vinyasa classes don't afford

45:09

us that time anymore. Most

45:10

students don't wanna take that time at this

45:12

point. But this

45:15

pose with doing it on the block is

45:17

fabulous, it feels so good. And

45:20

sometimes I'll admit, the fussiness

45:22

of the props and shoulder sand used to drive me crazy.

45:25

So this is much less fussy and gives

45:27

you

45:30

much of the same benefits. Totally. Yeah.

45:33

Probably gives you the exact same benefits. Yeah. Yes.

45:36

Okay, all right.

45:38

And then there's also the alternative

45:40

of just doing legs up the wall, right? Totally. To

45:42

Parita Karani. Totally. Which is like

45:45

a desert island pose for me. Agreed. Yeah,

45:48

okay. So make sure to check out the companion

45:51

to see a little bit more of a breakdown on

45:54

all of these poses or most of the variations

45:56

that we talked about today. Great. Thank

45:58

you so much, Jason. Thanks for being here.

45:59

here. Thank you. I have sequences

46:02

to go with these poses on our

46:04

website so you can go to the show notes page and I will

46:06

put links to all of these sequences yogalandpodcast.com

46:09

slash episode 313. Thanks so much for listening,

46:16

thanks for sharing it, thanks for leaving

46:18

reviews. It helps other people

46:20

send the podcast. We appreciate you.

46:22

Until next week, enjoy your

46:24

practice.

46:30

you