Yoga at Home for the Beginner: Shoulder Stand Refresher

 

I do the shoulder stand daily - holding it for 1-3 minutes and it reminds me just a bit of the Hanged Man in the Tarot.

In a recent issue of Yoga Journal, yoga instructor Briohny Smyth said that inversions are her favorite pose because:

    "Turning yourself upside down gives you a moment to reflect.  It takes all of your focus.  Very rarely am I upside down thinking, 'hmm, my problem in life...' An inversion is a full-body engager; therefore, it is a full-mind engager."

Yes!  I agree.

What I enjoy about the shoulder stand is that it requires me to indeed take a different perspective. As creatures who move about in an upright position, we typically look ahead and far too many of us, I have observed, look down on the ground as we walk, perhaps in an effort to avoid eye contact with strangers! But, very few of us, unless we are professional ballet dancers or gymnasts who regularly turn and twist upside and down in various poses, look from the ground up.

When I do the shoulder stand daily, as shown above, I am forced to look up and truly focus on keeping my body straight. The position challenges me to remain still without wobbling.  I usually take a couple of seconds to adjust into the position of being straight and I truly must concentrate so I stay still. The poses requires me to observe my own physique in a different way- keeping my legs upright and my chin held firmly against my chest as I hold the pose for several minutes.

What I especially like about the shoulder stand is that I gain many of the benefits of the much more challenging headstand which I have yet to master. Just like the headstand, you enjoy a nice inversion of blood flow to your brain. It also benefits your entire circulatory system, especially the veins and arteries of your legs. In addition, because you are inverting your whole body, the blood flow reverses its usual direction and moves through and stimulates the organs and glands of your upper body including the thyroid gland. 

As I have often said, our bodies all differ and some of us may have particular challenges with specific poses like the shoulder stand. If you are learning this pose for the first time and/or have been out of shape for some time, always check with your healthcare provider to get the green light on what is reasonable for you to do. The key is always to ease into every pose with great care and in the most gentle way possible.  The shoulder stand can be challenging for some people.

Although I have written about the shoulder stand several times in the past, I felt it was time to give you a refresher and to provide new readers of this blog with a full explanation.  Instructions follow.  Enjoy!

Shoulder Stand: (Sanskrit term – Sarvangasana)

Type of yoga pose: Supine, inversion pose

Body parts targeted: Spinal column, upper back, abdomen, brain, circulation, internal organs and glands (sexual glands and organs; thyroid and parathyroid glands; pituitary gland; eyes, ears, and salivary glands)

How to do the pose:

1. Lie down on you back your mat and relax with your arms and hands at your side.
2. Face your palms downward.
3. Inhale distending your abdomen and then hold your breath while tightening your abdominal muscles and stiffening your legs.
4. Press downward against the floor with the palms of your hands and using them as a lever, slowly lift your legs off the floor while exhaling. Keep your knees straight.

1. Take at least 5 seconds to smoothly raise your legs straight up in the air until they are perpendicular with the floor. The more slowly you raise your legs, the firmer and stronger your abdomen will become. If needed, you may rock you knees and forelegs back and forth a bit to gain the necessary momentum to lift your lower back and buttocks off the floor.
2. Place your right hand against the kidney region of your back and brace yourself with it. Place your left hand also against your back for additional support.
3. Raise both legs together until your entire body is vertical with your elbows resting on the floor and both hands supporting your back.

1. Keep your legs and body as straight as possible with your chin nestled into the space in front of your collarbone – i.e., the jugular notch.
2. Hold the pose motionless for 30 seconds.

• Slowly bend your legs at the knees and gently lower your legs until your knees are about one or two inches from your face.
• Place your right hand on the floor and brace yourself with it. Follow by placing your left hand on the floor and also brace yourself with it.

• Slowly straighten your legs until they are again vertical in the air.
• Keeping your knees straight, slowly lower your legs until they are resting on the floor. You may wish to enhance the abdominal firming effect of this pose by holding your legs taut for a few seconds when they are one to two inches away from the floor.

Practice time: Hold the pose for 30 seconds during your first week of practice. Add 10 seconds a week until you can hold the pose for 3 minutes.

Number of repetitions: 1

Key benefits from this pose:

1. Benefits and energizes the entire body.
2. Massages and stimulates the spinal column.
3. Increases blood supply to brain to increase energy, tones the nervous system, and can improve certain mental faculties such as the memory.
4. Stimulates the thyroid and parathyroid glands, and enriches the pituitary gland.
5. This inversion repositions organs and glands into their proper place by offsetting the downward pull that gravity puts on the body.
6. Enhances circulation and helps to relieve strain placed on blood vessels when the body is upright for long periods. May help alleviate varicose veins.
7. Can help regulate weight because the pose helps stimulate the thyroid gland.
8. Strengthens back and can build up chest.
9. Can eliminate headaches.
10. Stretches and strengthen shoulder and back muscles.
11. Stretches muscles and ligaments of the cervical region (the top part of the spine that consists of the seven vertebrae of the neck and the disks that separate them).
12. Strengthens the entire nervous system.
13. Stimulates the sexual glands and organs and boosts the libido.

 

Special hints and Laura’s experience with this pose:

If you have had neck injury or problems or have high blood pressure, consult your physician or medical advisor before trying this pose.

Because this is an inverted pose and the blood flows downward, women should avoid this pose during menstruation.

Go up into the shoulder stand only as far as you comfortably can. People who at first find the pose difficult are often advised to use a wall to help get them into the position or at least to acclimate themselves to getting their legs vertically into the air. I never found this necessary. I simply raised my legs as far up into a vertical position as was feasible for me in the beginning and after several weeks I was able to achieve the hold in a completely vertical position.

Come out of the shoulder stand slowly and smoothly to avoid hurting your spine or back.

 Yours for gaining tremendous benefits from inversions such as the shoulder stand!

Laura Venecia Rodriguez, The Beginner's Yoga at Home Coach