Sitting in an advanced class, while the energy raises to its peak, everyone can flip themselves up to hand stand but you can’t. I am sure many of us share the similar experience along our yoga journey. The frustration of kicking and falling back was still fresh few weeks ago for me.
I was never able to do hand stand before YTT training. After few weeks intensive training, i occasionally can flip myself up. Since the first time I kicked up, I started to be more aware of my body and the feeling of being inverted. I tried different ways of coming to hand stand and I realize there are techniques that we can apply.
The most important thing for me is to round the shoulders and fully engage it during the whole practice. By doing this, it gives me much stronger base on my palms and fingers when I flip up. Whenever I loose the shoulder engagement, I tend to bend the elbow or arch the lower back and the whole body will lose balance.
Second thing is to suck in the belly, squeeze the butt and thighs tight. By doing this, I found myself can flip up more gracefully instead of throwing myself against the wall. I usually squeeze the legs and point the toes once I am inverted as self adjustment. Tuck the tailbone and suck in the belly can help keeping the balance and avoid arching back and losing balance.
Third trick that I found it myself is to gaze at a fix point and start counting numbers when I am inverted. I am not sure if it is the gazing makes me more concentrated or the counting makes me calmer. I found myself stay a little longer if I do so.
Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. Being aware of your own body and keep trying!
