Class focus Backbends/Headstand/Shoulderstand
Notes – Sanskrit terms are here (work in progress)
1: As always, start with five sun salutations at your own pace and level.
2: ūrdhvadhanurāsana
This is the most important of the basic backbends. It’s a gateway to the advanced poses. I urge you to include it in your practice and continue working on it until it becomes smooth and easy.
Use a chair at first. The hardest part of ūrdhvadhanurāsana is pushing up into it. If you are helped into it, it is easy to stay and work in the pose.
If you start over a chair, you’ll find it easy to lift off the chair into the pose (third picture below). Take care not to knock the chair over, you want to come back down onto it. Practice this until the process is smooth and totally under control.
Then work on pushing up. I find the best way to start pushing up is shown in the first picture below. Take bricks against the wall to lift your hands up the first few inches. The first few inches are the hardest lift.
Working in the pose
Once you get into the pose, work the legs strongly so you can move weight into the arms. The goal is to have the arms take the weight (second picture above). Eventually, you can lift your feet and come to handstand.
Dropping back
Dropping back into the pose is a lot less effort than pushing up. Its a very invigorating way to practice the pose. I learned to drop back using a belt attached to the wall at waist height (picture below). It should be smooth and easy.
viparītta daṇḍāsana is an important backbend which we briefly touched on in class.
pādāṅguṣṭhāsana dhanurāsana (Literally “big toe bow pose) is another great way to help open the upper body for the strong backbends. Its very accessible. Just make the belt as long as you need.
3: Headstand
This is arguably the most important pose in Yoga. My secret in this pose is to take the weight back. Most folk stay with the weight too far in front of the nose. Go back and learn to trust your balance! If you always add few of the moving variations your balance will greatly improve.
The ancient texts have very high praise for headstand. HathaYogaPradipika claims that if you practice this “for a mere two hours per day you will conquer death”.
4: Unwind
We unwound tension in the back with some rolling about on the back and then gentle twists and forward bends.
5: Shoulderstand
We did about eight minutes of shoulderstand and variations. The one point I wanted to make was that a belt across the arms can give a very nice support in shoulderstand (second picture below).
6: nāḍīśodhana (Nadi Shodhana) focus on viloma and nāḍīśodhana when teaching prāṇāyāma. nāḍīśodhana is where we use the thumb and index finger of the right hand to close each nostril in turn. I was taught that it must always be done seated but I see no harm in practicing it lying down as we did for viloma. It takes a long time to get the hang of this practice but my approach is to jump right in and then refine it over time.
“nāḍī is a tubular organ for the passage of prana or energy […] as well as sensation, intelligence and consciousness in the body. śodhana means purifying or cleansing. The term nāḍīśodhana means the purification of the nerves.” (Light On Pranayama Chp 28)