10 Tips for Headstand – Part 3
So far we have covered 5 tips for headstand in part 1 and part 2, and we have really begun to prepare well for our headstands. Perhaps you have heard the saying: perfect preparation prevents poor performance. Well that is what we have been doing.
The next few tips will begin to cover actions you need to do or know about once you are up in the headstand.
Tip No 6. – Do not kick off.
When you first decide to come up into a headstand, if you need to kick off, lift one leg at a time or even bend your legs to come up then technically you are not ready to be doing headstand. Well maybe I am being a little hard on you, but it is true. When you have developed the necessary strength in the lower abdominals and the flexibility in the legs, you will lift off easily without needing to do any extra actions other than walk in and tighten your lower abdominals. If you have been doing a balanced practice that strengthens the core muscles as well as the muscles that surround the spine, then coming into your headstand will be practically effortless and light.
The body contains an innate wisdom and we should respect it. Your body will simply not do things it is not ready for. Remember the first time you did the Western Stretch (Paschimottanasana), the seated forward bend. Could you easily clasp your feet without rounding the spine? Probably not. This is because the legs and hips did not have the necessary flexibility to allow you to do it; you were not ready. To override that wisdom and grab something and pull yourself down could quite easily lead to an injury – torn hamstring muscles, lower back pain, all sorts of issues.
And so it is with headstand, if you cannot lift two straight legs off of the floor without kicking, jumping or even pushing with the toes then you are not ready and you should respect the wisdom of your body.
Once you have prepared your Dolphin Pose 1 position, walk the feet in toward the hands until you are in the correct place to put the head on the floor – see Tip No. 5. Once the head is lightly contacting the floor continue to walk in and the pelvis will almost go beyond the place where you hands and head are, then, one of two things will happen as you continue to walk in, either you will roll on the floor or the legs will magically and lightly lift off of the floor. You will need to keep your core muscles activated and make sure you are not taking too much weight on the head at this point, due to the possible issues with the alignment of the neck when the hips are moving behind the body.
In my class, I have students who have all of the necessary strength in the upper body and core and back muscles, yet are lacking the necessary flexibility to continue walking in toward the hands – I could be really hard on them and not allow them to come up – however I do work with a little give and take.
It is important for you to know that it takes far less time to develop strength than it does to develop flexibility, this is true unless you have been regularly using advanced stretching techniques such as PNF.
So; for these people that are lacking the necessary flexibility by the smallest fraction I allow them to bend their legs, but, and this is important, they need to continue to walk in with bent legs until the legs do the magical and light lifting off of the floor without pushing, kicking, jumping or using one leg at a time. Coming into the headstand in this way will really help to develop good core muscles. The students must also ensure that they walk in with straight legs until they have reached their maximum walk in before bending the legs.
So simply do not do it: Do not kick, push, jump or lift one leg off of the floor at a time to come into your headstand.
Tip No. 7 – Know how to roll.
Many people first learn headstand using the wall, this gives them the confidence to come up without the fear of falling, once they have established their headstand near the wall and can stay up without using the wall, then they come into the centre and have a go there.
But no matter who you are – there will be a time in headstand when you fall out of the pose. It happens to everyone and so you need to know how to tuck and roll before doing a headstand in the centre of the room. It really does happen to everyone, the nervousness of being in the centre will hold you back in your headstand the first few times you do it and you will be given instructions to help improve your alignment, as you apply the instructions to improve your alignment in headstand it is quite likely that you will over- correct and come tumbling down.
Even if it doesn’t happen when you first come into the centre to practice, it will eventually happen as you learn variations of headstand in the centre. If you can prove me wrong please let me know. Everyone falls at some point. The good news is, if you have learnt how to roll, what you learn when you fall, is that you have nothing to fear. You have a little giggle, a sigh of relief and then go back into your headstand. It can be scary the first time you fall and this is why the knowledge of rolling needs to deeply ingrained in the body so that it is almost a subconscious action.
Please don’t let this knowledge that you will fall hold you back from doing headstand. If you have learnt what to do you should be fine, you will become a confident, skilful and courageous practitioner of yoga.
To learn how to roll, take yourself off to the local gymnastics centre and ask them to teach you how to roll on the floor, it should only take one or two sessions – I could go into it, but it is always good to approach experts in the field and it will expand your repertoire of knowledge.
Another quick tip: if you are falling, do not resist. This is how many people get injured when they fall, because they try to resist it. You will probably hear them say this at your local gymnastics centre.
Tip No. 8 – Protect your neck.
Many instructions for headstand include this very important instruction: press the arms firmly into the floor so that there is less weight on the head.
Here is what B.K.S. Iyengar has to say about headstand in Light on Yoga:
The whole weight of the body should be borne on the head alone and not on the forearms and hands. The forearms and hands are to be used only for support to check any loss of balance. In a good pose you feel a circle, about the size of an Indian rupee, of the head in contact with the blanket on the floor.
So why does a master of yoga tell us to only have the weight on the head, yet most instructors are telling us to take the weight off of the head by using the arms? Well, times have changed since Iyengar wrote Light on Yoga, yet his basic wisdom still applies.
The reason yoga instructors are now saying to use the arms to reduce the weight on the head is this: too many people were hurting their necks through compression in headstand, because their whole body weight was on the neck and head. However there is a very important instruction that many yoga teachers are leaving out, perhaps they have not been taught it themselves. The instruction is to firmly ground the head into the floor so that you can receive the rebounding energy through the spine. It is a Principle of Practice: Grounding and Rebounding.
If we do not firmly press the head into the floor in our headstand, the supporting muscles of the neck and spine are not activated and this leads to compression. You need to strengthen the muscles of the neck and spine and this is done by pressing the head firmly into the floor. Too much padding reduces the benefit of this – see Tip No. 4. If you do not press the head firmly down you do not correct imbalances and you will not feel light and refreshed after your headstand. If you make the muscles strong, they will support and protect the relatively small vertebrae of the neck.
If we over-use the arms to do the headstand we are overworking one part of the body and underworking another, this will lead to imbalance and potential injury. If we use the arms too strongly they will tire quickly and then you will be bearing weight on the head and neck without the benefit of the muscles working in the neck and it will lead to injury.
From my personal experience: I used to over-work my arms and wonder why I could only hold the pose for 5 breaths before needing to come down, exhausted. Once I learnt from my teacher, Nicky Knoff, to press my head down firmly, I began to be able to hold the pose longer and the pose became effortless. Holding a headstand for 5 minutes or longer now is nothing at all to me.
All parts of the body are working to support me. I still use the arms, but I press them lightly into the floor, whilst pressing my head firmly into the floor. After all, another principle of practice states that all parts of the foundation need to be grounded.
To protect your neck, you need to use the muscles to support the joints. Joints are there so that we can access the muscles to create movement. Joints are not in the body to support the weight of the body, that is the job of the muscles, so please use them.
Oops, the length of this article escaped me, so I will leave you to absorb, practice and digest this information before we continue with our last two tips. 
Jump to Part 4.
Tags: alignment, class, core muscles, fall, foundation, gymnastics, headstand, Iyengar, neck, Practice, roll, tips