Tuesday Tips: Forearm stands
Ah, the headstand. This is an awesome move for learning how to engage your core and stabilize your body in an inverted position. Nailing a controlled forearm headstand and understanding the balance and core engagement is really important to a number of different tricks, including the handstand, ayesha, pencil, and the the iguana mount (if you don’t know what that is, take a look at the end of the video in this entry)… I think it’s a great way to quickly warm up too- I’ll do a bunch of these and be sweaty if I really work them. But a lot of people seem to have trouble with how to get up into one, and how to control the movement down.
If you haven’t already seen the video for the Shoulder mount Tuesday Tip, take a look. The yoga plow exercise at the beginning of the video is a great way to strengthen for the stand and to gain the ab control that you need to do the stand with control.
An easy way to strengthen for a lift is to work the negative, or the descent. If you can’t quite do a pull up yet, stand on a box and get your chin up above the pull up bar, and then work on lowering yourself down with your arms slowly. The same principle applies to the forearm stand: if you can’t get UP with control, work on lowering down and eventually you will be strong enough to do the positive. I cover two different methods to get your legs up into the forearm stand on the tutorial video.
When you are getting down in the position on the floor, be mindful of your set up! I like to lace my fingers together and place my hands slightly in front of the pole. My torso is pretty long and placing my hands around the base of the pole has never felt comfortable. Experiment with where you place your hands and see what feels comfortable for you. Eventually, you want to be able to work these away from the pole, freestanding in the middle of the room!
Your elbows should be shoulder’s width apart– you are trying to create a triangle with your head and your forearms and you want all sides of the triangle to be the same length to be as stable as possible. The most common mistake I see people make in setting up is placing their elbows way too far apart.
When you place your head down on the floor, think about keeping your neck neutral. I aim to place a spot just above the hairline down on the floor, but it’s different for everyone: if your throat feels like it’s getting choked off, try placing your head down a little closer to the back of your head. If your neck feels like it’s under a lot of pressure, you’re probably tucking your head under too much and need to aim for a spot closer to your forehead. But no matter what, you should be pushing down and into the ground with your arms– pushing your shoulders down, toward your ears, almost as though you are trying to lift your body up and off the ground. You should be sharing the weight equally through your head and your forearms, not balancing all your mass on top of your head!
One key to this move is the idea of hollow body that we’ve talked about before: in order to bring your legs down, you need to engage your abs and make sure that your back is NOT arched. Think about rounding your back, scooping your belly, and rotating your legs in their hip sockets. Your knees are gradually turning from facing the ground, to facing the pole as your legs descend, and your hips are tipping like a cup to allow this to happen. If you are able to control your plow, think about doing a vertical plow: you want to keep your back nailed to the pole, and engage the same lower abs.
The more flexible your hamstrings are, the closer you will be able to get your butt to the pole, and the more vertically balanced your torso will be before you start the lift– so it’s harder if you’re not as bendy, but definitely not impossible. Take a look at the video below to see all these concepts in motion!
If you have any tips on this trick to share, please feel free to let loose in the comments!
Tomorrow’s post: Compliments…
Thanks so much for posting this tip, Amy!!! I can do the head and elbow stands but they never look pretty like yours do. Now I know how to work on them so they do look pretty!
You’re super welcome, Sarah! I’m glad this entry helped, looking forward to hearing about your progress with the move!
I thought you weren’t supposed to put any weight on your head at all? Both Veena and the instructors at my studio warn against resting the head on the floor. If your head is on the floor, that means your shoulders aren’t engaged enough. It can be easy to rest the head on the floor without even realizing it, so it helps to look at the space between your arms once you are in the position. When I do this move, the bend in my arms ends up forming more of a 90 degree angle, which you should be able to see in this picture (you should also be able to see that my head is off the ground): http://thepoleplace.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/bwfang2.jpg
I sometimes notice that I start dropping my head if I stay in the move for too long or have been practicing it over and over, which means that my arms are getting tired and I need a break. I’ve always been taught that if you need to rest your head on the floor, it’s time to come down.
Holly, I believe it is safe to rest weight on your head as long as your neck is in neutral and you are distributing the weight through your forearms as well– and I do cover the correct engagement of the shoulders in the video =) There are tons of people who do headstands with just their hands on the floor, no forearms (http://www.beastskills.com/tutorials/tutorials/34) and keeping your head on the floor is the way that this pose is taught in yoga studios across the country!
If you look at the picture at the top of this entry, you can see my face is turned to the camera because I’ve lifted up into forearms and my head is no longer on the ground. However, I believe this is more advanced than having your head on the ground and I wouldn’t recommend this for beginners.
If you are working on your forearm stand away from the pole, without your head on the ground, I would DEFINITELY recommend that you have your forearms parallel with palms and fingertips pressing into the ground for stability, NOT with your hands together– this way you can use your fingers for support: http://media26.onsugar.com/files/upl0/0/0/02_2008/forearm.larger/i/Strike-Yoga-Pose-Forearm-Stand.jpg
Hi Amy-
I love the Tuesday Tips!! I am new to the Pole… about 8 months along and loving it. One thing that I am finding as a challenge now that I finally am getting a good arsenal of tricks is the transitions and/or flow between tricks. I knows this is more work for you, but it would be fantastic if you could show us an example of the trick “in play” after you demo the logistics of it. Just a suggestions, but hey, you asked. Thanks!!
Kaley, that is an AWESOME idea! I love it completely and I think it will be a great way to maybe get people brainstorming and suggesting other entries and exits out of each trick. I totally agree that transitions, not tricks, are what make a flow really special. Thanks for the suggestion!!
Argh core engagement and balance (or lack thereof) is really bugging me at the mo’ because I’m sure those lazy abs have the strength but they keep forgetting they’re supposed to be working!! I have the same problem in SG ayesha and trying to lift into iguana and forearm stands in that I know I can hold it (SG ayesha I can hold from cartwheel) or do the negative fairly controlled but trying to get the balance from an invert (for SG ayesha) or do the lifts (iguana and forearm stand) seems to shortcircuit my brain completely!! I have been practising the ‘hollow body’ position when just sitting or standing but it’s as if being upsidedown shakes all the knowledge loose:/
I’ve been working on the forearm stand regularly for a while now and really working the descent but the lift feels completely beyond me! I get my feet out to the side and go “go go magic feet, rise!” but nothing happens:/ I know you mention having your hands away from the pole – do you think this helps with rising or is it just how you get into it? I always do it with my hands clasping the pole at the apex of my elbow triangle.
Sass– depending on the length of your torso– for long torsos in particular– I find that having your hands on the base of the pole can absolutely change the room you have to round your back and really engage your core as your work the headstand. Also, in your case I would suggest working the descent as far down as you’re comfortable with– to have your feet hovering just above the ground, or halfway down, depending on your core strength– and THEN work the lift from there, over and over, until it’s in your muscle memory.
Thank you so much Amy! I have been trying to get this for almost a year.
Oh yuck Heather, how frustrating that must be and how awesome of you to stick with it!!~! Let me know if these tips help, I sure hope they do!!
Thanks to you I just mastered my first headstand
HIGH FIVE! That’s so awesome, thanks for coming and letting me know! CONGRATS! =)
Thank you so much Amy for sharing this. I can definitely see a couple places where I was making an error. Cant wait to try out your tis today!
=) Anytime Paulette, this is such a hard move and I’m happy you’re making progress with it!
[...] the plow over (somersaulting from a plow position). If you missed the earlier entries, see here for the head/elbow stand, here for kneeling floor work, and here for the wavy [...]
Thanks for this tip! Been kicking up and hooking feet into a forearm stand before this :S
Working on deadlifting recently, successfully managed a some but with breaks in between (woozy head mainly and finding it difficult to gracefully lift the legs). Aiming for deadlift reps – any tips for maintaining the upside down stamina i.e. head aches from pressing into the ground????
It’s difficult getting the feet to rise gracefully..will keep working on it
x
Your head should NOT be aching from pressing into the ground. If you are feeling a lot of pressure, you need to push into the ground more with your shoulders and forearms. You should almost be able to lift your head entirely off the ground with the lift that they provide!
[...] to do at least 3 pull ups, with control, so that you have the upper body and grip strength. And you should be able to do a controlled headstand, because by the time you’re working on the chopper, you’re supposed to fully understand how to [...]
[...] to do at least 1 pull up, with control, so that you have the upper body and grip strength. And you should be able to do a controlled headstand, because by the time you’re working on the chopper, you’re supposed to fully understand how to [...]
[...] my warm up at home–really concentrating on taping up into it and slowly coming out of it. http://aerialamy.com/blog/2011/08/09/tuesday-tips-forearm-stands/ -I really want to concentrate on not kicking into my inverted position and work on doing this with [...]