Shoulderstand Stress

[Questioner]

Dear Mukunda,

I hope you can help me with a problem I am currently dealing with.

Yesterday morning, I attended a yoga class in the morning in which we practiced head stands and shoulder stands. I have never done a full headstand and did not go into a full one yesterday. However, I did the shoulder stands and our teacher asked us to hold the pose as long as we could … I ended up holding it for about 5 minutes. We were in a room with hard wood floors and I was only using my one thin mat to practice the shoulder stands. As I came down from the stance, I immediately started feeling pins in needles running through my left pinky and my left ring finger. The class ended at 7:30am and I was still feeling a dull pins and needles feeling through lunch. It was at this point that I called a reflexologist friend and asked if I could come over and visit with her. She found that I was holding a lot of tension in the left side of my neck and in my left shoulder … alll these muscles were knotted up and she proceeded to work on loosening the knots. The pins and needles feeling subsided late last night (around 10pm), but I still have a lot of pain in my spine … particularly the bone that protrudes out the furthest … I believe this might be either C-6 or C-7? I intuitively feel that my spine is bruised in that area, but do you feel from what I have told you, that I need to worry that this could be something worse? When I was up in the shoulder stand, I felt a tremendous amount of pressure in that area … I did not once turn my neck or feel anything pop out of place … it was just as I was coming down that I started to feel the pins and needles (perhaps a pinched nerve?).

If you have a few minutes, please let me know what you think of this.

I look forward to hearing back from you.

Namaste,
K

[Mukunda]

I feel that you were not adequately prepared to do what you did. To hold a long shoulderstand one needs to develop the strength of the triceps and latissimus muscles which can push your body vertically while in the pose. They are called the shoulder extensors. Without adequate time to develop those muscles with cat bows (pushups done from cat position) or repeating bridge while using those muscles the weight in shoulderstand goes to where you experienced it at C6-7. This is a natural protuberance of the lower cervical spine. I have seen students in one method actually develop calluses on that region from holding the pose so long. My standard is to have you be able to do 12 cat bow push ups with elbows close to the side and an additional 12 with the elbows out to the side of wrists to prove to me that you have the strength necessary for a safe full shoulderstand. In my version of the shoulderstand as shown in Structural Yoga Therapy book, it is actually ? position, you are working to develop tone in these muscles and once that is done then pose can be safely done without weight bearing on any section of the spine. The pose is called shoulderstand; therefore weight goes outward from neck on the shoulders. It is not called neck stand. I do not feel you should worry about any permanent damage, but I would encourage you to show this response to your teacher and let them know that you will not be doing that again, until you have been adequately trained in the steps leading to develop tone in the muscles I have mentioned.