The Elements of a Handstand

I am in the process of developing a training program for people who want to do handstands. I thought this would be useful both for people who practice yoga by themselves, and also for people who teach yoga who want to understand the elements of a handstand so that they can teach it to various levels of students. As an aid to understanding the process of breaking a big idea into smaller more manageable small ideas I wanted to show my initial breakdown for understanding a handstand and how to practice it or teach it.

Elements of Doing

We can break down the process of doing a handstand into three main elements or stages:

jumping up
staying up
coming down

These elements can then be broken down into smaller elements. In the Jumping up category I can include ideas like:

going up and down using feet on a wall (to get first timers used to being upside down)
jumping up and down with feet on a wall (to get beginners used to the idea of jumping)
jumping up using the down leg
jumping up using the swinging leg
jumping up with one leg at a time (down leg and swinging leg working together)
jumping up from downward dog with one leg
jumping up from downward dog with both legs
jumping up from downward using the hips as opposed to the knees
jumping/pulling up from a forward bend
jumping up using the shoulders and hips in a reciprocating action (????)

These are all different techniques or ways that I've taught hand stand at one time or another.

The staying up category would include

using our connection with the earth to feel where our center is so that we can sense when it is moving away from the center of our foundation
recovery techniques for when you feel yourself tipping forwards or backwards and ways of practicing those techniques
staying up for longer and longer
variations of handstands.

Coming down from handstand would be the easiest section to teach. I would make a joke about how for most of us this is the easiest part, but I have had students who come out with absolutely no control and so this section would be to teach such people how to apply the same awareness they use going into the pose to coming out. Actually, coming out could be a good way to teach people to go in since coming out with control requires control and that control could then be used to help people jump in.

Elements of the Body

We can also break down the body into a number of elements that are key in any of the above three stages. The purpose of breaking down the body into these elements is so that we can practice feeling, controlling and understanding them. The ideal is to get to the point that we can sense each part and respond to what we sense based on what we are trying to do without having to think. To get to that point we can design and use exercises that help us to sense and control these elements individually as well as together in the context of a handstand (or any other action we are trying to do.)

the hands, using them to feel and control center
the elbows (it might seem obvious to keep them straight but for those that can't then it can be useful to practice drills so that students can practice feeling when their elbows are straight
the shoulders since they control the relationship between the upper body and the arms.
our hips and pelvis, since this is approximately where our center of gravity is
the legs, a key element in jumping up, and once up they can be used to express the handstand. Reach them up!

I would include practices, exercises and/or drills for learning to both feel and control these parts in a handstand and out of a handstand.

Getting Comfortable and Failing Safely

For people who have never been upside down, a key element is to get them used to being upside in small, controllable and comfortable stages. Hence using the wall can be a key training tool.

For those who want to venture away from the wall, an important tool is giving them the ability to fail safely, some way of falling that doesn't cause injury. Generally in handstand the easiest way to do that is to shift the hands in such a way that they can fall with their feet in front of them as opposed to behind them. For people not used to moving their hands while upside down, that is something else that can be practice against a wall.

Another key point in both cases is to get into the habit of making sure that our practice area is safe for us to fail within.

Yet another practice, and this takes some balls, is to tuck and forward roll at of a handstand.

Transitions to and From Handstands

One of the reasons for doing a handstand is that we might want to use it as a transition from one pose to another or as a pose in a string of poses. As an example, we might to bend backwards into a back arch, then come up into a handstand, and then from there back to standing. And so once we've learned or at least gotten comfortable being on our hands, we can then practice entering it from a posture like wheel pose. We can start of with our feet elevated on a table or low bench, or we can use a wall to walk down and up.

All of these ideas are tied together by the big idea of learning to stand and balance on our hands. All of these methods require practice, but because they are all simple to understand, the practicing part can be relatively simple and straight forward.

Also important is that each of these elements is meaningful in the context of doing a handstand but also in the context of learning to feel and control our body. They are readily definable which means that they can be sensed, understood and we can learn the necessary control to do each of them.

The net result after practice is the ability to do a handstand or at least to know what we need to do to do it. An added benefit is that we understand our body well enough that we can apply that understanding to other things that we use our body for.

Teaching, Adjusting and Firm Foundations

Since this program would be geared towards teachers as well as self-practitioners, we could look at the big idea of teaching handstands to a class. A key element would be spotting which in itself is a variation of the same techniques that are used in handstand. As an example, doing a handstand, or any posture for that matter, our connection with the earth is our foundation. In the case of handstand our foundation is provided by our hands, arms and shoulders. These need to be sensitive, stable and responsive in order for the handstand to be done. With our foundation taken care of, in order to stay balanced all we then need to do is keep our center over it.

If we are aware of this as a teacher who is adjusting someone else then we can first make sure that we are in a position so that no matter what happens we have a firm foundation and that we can keep our own center over that foundation. If we aren't then we adjust how we relate to the person we are adjusting so that we can stay balanced. At the same time, we make sure that in whatever way we adjust the person we are working on, they are able to maintain their foundation and keep their center over it.

As a matter of fact those are two things that we can help them with,

keeping their foundation stable, and
keeping their center over their foundation.

Handstands and Basic Principles

Basic Principles are designed to be used on ideas and the relationships between them. A first step towards using basic principles is to know what we are trying to do. This could be the "Big Idea." We can then break this big idea down into the little ideas or elements that make it up. Once we know the elements we can work on how they relate to each other. And so with respect to handstands and the little ideas that make them up, once we've practiced the small ideas, we then work at putting them together into a big idea that works, being able to move in and out of handstands.

Neil Keleher is lives and teaches yoga in Taiwan. He's been teaching yoga for 12 years and doing it for five. He specializes in teaching people how to feel and sensational-yoga-poses.com/handstand.html control their body in such a way that they can use that understanding in yoga and any other activity that involves the body.
Find out more about sensational-yoga-poses.com/handstands.html handstands including how to stabilize your shoulders, the middle position, jack knifing and jumping up from downward dog.