by Jay Hiller, August 27, 2022
Photo by Nikola Murniece on Unsplash
It’s good to have a yoga project. By that I mean, that it’s good to have a specific pose or a family of poses that you’re working on consistently. I recently decided to shift my attention to practicing inversions.
Inversions are fun to work on and they don’t require a long warm up period. Even on a busy morning I can usually find time to do a handstand or a headstand before I get in my car to go to work. And the inversions family of yoga poses is good for me right now because I’m at three different levels with this family.
- Level 1–not too easy, not too hard, just right. For me, headstand puts me in this Goldilocks place. As comfortable as I feel in headstand, I know I can get better at it.
- Level 2–Somewhat challenging, I have to modify and prop. Handstand falls at this level for me.
- Level 3–Completely freaks me out, seems impossibly hard. Forearm balance. I think that this is pose isn’t a level 3 pose for a lot of people. I just don’t like anything about it.
To work on my inversions practice, I’m using Props for Yoga: A Guide to Iyengar Yoga Practice with Props, Volume iii, Inverted Asanas-Viparita Sthiti by Eyal Shifroni (2017). I’ve had this book for a while and tried some of the ideas in it, in a just-playing-around kind of way. I’m working my way through it more systematically now. I expect this focused attention on inversions to improve both my practice and my yoga instruction.
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