Four ways to enter headstand.

"You are old, father William," the young man said, 

"And your hair has become very white; 

And yet you incessantly stand on your head 

Do you think, at your age, it is right?

"In my youth," father William replied to his son, 

"I feared it might injure the brain; 

But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, 

Why, I do it again and again."

Lewis Caroll

Moving on to the Inverted subroutines for my Vinyasa Krama Practice Book tomorrow so thought I would repost my recent headstand post along with something new.

The first video is four ways to enter headstand
1. Bent legs (probably the one to start with)
2. Straight legs ( the standard Ashtanga entry )
3. from Vajrasana ( I think this is Ramaswami's preferred entry and exit)
4. from Lotus (this one comes up in one of the later subroutines, exit still needs work)

Here's the post from last month (including a video tutorial) which was a response to a question I received about headstands (the actual post and it's comments can be found HERE).

The only true headstand, the rest are arm balances

'Hey Grim, do you have any tips for headstand? I'm been trying it out against the wall, but was wary to kick up, tried it once and it made my neck really uncomfortable for a few days. Tried searching your blog for sirsasana, but all the 'hits' are quite advanced.. Is it one of those pose that will 'come when you're ready? just train your core strength, and dolphin pose (that's what a lot of pple said)'.

Cautionary note, I'm not a teacher, not really, despite what Ramaswami's certificate on the wall of the home shala says. I think it was a couple of years of teaching English before I considered myself a genuine English teacher ( and by then I was already teaching teachers to teach English), before I began to understand my students and how I might best be able to communicate what I was trying to impart.

Same goes for asana, I can pass on what Ramaswami taught me in Vinyasa Krama along with the tips/hints/ suggestions that I've found useful in my own practice, but it's always only what's worked for me, for my body shape, size and strength.

So I hesitate to post a how to headstand video, what works for me might not work for you but I was asked for any tips so that's what this video is, some ideas that might help when your beginning headstands which has to be better than trying out some of the Advanced headstand videos I have on this blog.

The main tips are

• Using a wall, for building confidence

• Making a firm base with your arms, your going to press down through your arms and take most if not all  of the weight on them rather than on your head

• Headstand is an arm balance rather than an actual headstand like the one in the picture above.

• Focus on the hips or the pelvis in space as I once heard it put.

• Bring the hips over the shoulders and even beyond them  to use as a counterweight for your legs.

• Kick up to half headstand with the legs bent

• Drop the shoulder blades down the back, this should create space stop your neck getting pinched

• Tap off the wall to find the 'sweet spot'.

• Stretch out through the whole length of your body, engage your legs and bring your attention to the furthers point, your toes

• Focusing the mind on the toes will control the balance once your fully extended.

• Come down by going back to half headstand

• Bring the legs to the chest

• Make sure the toes are turned up so you land safely.

Feel free to jump in with any tips of your own in comments.