The poses after shoulderstand

Yoga Discussion General Yoga
#1

Hello, I’ve been doing ashtanga yoga. I have been using support under my shoulders in shoulder stand, my neck no longer touches the floor and I feel like I have more upward push in the shoulderstand pose thanks to that.

But I now have a question about (I forget the names) the next poses where you cross your legs and support the knees with the hands (like an upside down sitting cross legged meditation pose) and then the next one where you hug your arms around the (crossed) legs. In these poses I seem to loose my balance. I can’t stay on the shoulders I kinda roll back and forward a bit losing balance. Is that due to me doing it wrong or will it improve over time?

And another thing in these two poses, the back of my head tends to press down on the floor rather hard, it’s like the weight of my body doesn’t get channelled directly down through the shoulders but bypasses them straight to my head (but my neck never touches the floor). I think this might be due to my shoulder support being slightly too high so today I will lower it an inch and see how that goes.

I know you should have a soft neck and throat, my throat is never soft in these positions but I do have tension in that area, quite a bit of it, I like to think that these poses (and the whole practice) will soften it up.

Basically I’m just wondering does this sound like normal beginner stuff that will improve as my strength and flexibility does? Or does it sound like I’m doing the poses wrong?

Thank you.

#2

Who is your teacher, are you doing the entire Primary Series, and how long have you been practicing?

While I am not an Ashtanga teacher or practitioner it is fairly obvious that the series in its full expression is very challenging, especially for a beginner. Perhaps one of the members of our community who is more familiar with the Ashtanga practice can comment on how it is fitted to new students without risk.

It is not a matter of doing the poses “wrong” it is matter of being ready to do the poses both mentally and physically so that the poses can be done safely. What you describe does not sound safe (to me).

You ask if this will simply happen as you continue practice. There are some requisite openings for the poses you mention. Simply doing those poses without the requisite opening(s) can be “risky”.

#3

Oh yeah I forgot to mention I am using a DVD actually I don’t go to a class. I have been doing the full series on and off for about a year I’ve always found it a real challenge until fairly recently. Now I do it everyday but a few days ago I found out I was doing the shoulder stand wrong, my neck always pressed into the floor. Upon discovering I was doing it wrong I used support to lift my neck off the floor. I assume this means that certain muscles were not correctly strengthened this whole time and am thinking maybe that is part of the problem?

[QUOTE=InnerAthlete;64682]
You ask if this will simply happen as you continue practice. There are some requisite openings for the poses you mention. Simply doing those poses without the requisite opening(s) can be “risky”.[/QUOTE]

Can you tell me the names of these opening poses please? What exactly is an opening?

I wonder why they aren’t a part of the primary series if they are so important?

#4

Again, only from the perspective of the yoga I practice and teach…

Safety for the cervical spine (vertebrae in the neck) mandates level support across the shoulder blades such that C7 (the 7th cervical vertebra) is supported throughout the pose. This has nothing at all to do with strengthening certain muscles. It is simply to prevent damage both in the moment (“ouch”) and over time (“oops”).

An opening can be thought of as a mobility in the muscle tissue, though I’ve never actually thought about defining an opening since it’s covered in class over and over through demonstration. To give you an idea relative to shoulderstand…if you stand up, clasp your hands behind you with the palms remaining together, then straighten your arms, can you lift them up behind you until the forearms are parallel with the floor WHILE resting the chin on the sternum and lifting the bottom of the belly?

Why these things aren’t covered in the practice you’ve selected is a very good question. One might say those who promote the practice do not find it important or one might say the series was never meant to be taught using a static source as a stand-alone product. Still others may assert that the practice itself has this “stuff” built-in. Or it could also be that I have no idea what I’m talking about and this isn’t important at all.

#5

I can not lift my arms so they are vertical. But the pose you describe sounds similar to one near the beginning of the astanga practice. You stand with the feet wide and ben forward touching the crown of the head to the floor then you do what you described above with the arms but upside down. Can that be considered an opening for shoulder stand?

#6

[QUOTE=childofthetao;64704]I can not lift my arms so they are vertical. But the pose you describe sounds similar to one near the beginning of the astanga practice. You stand with the feet wide and ben forward touching the crown of the head to the floor then you do what you described above with the arms but upside down. Can that be considered an opening for shoulder stand?[/QUOTE]

Lol I didn’t mean to say “vertical”, I meant horizontal ie. parallel to the floor, I’m not all that far off though.

#7

After today’s practise I noticed something. When in shoulder stand my elbows point out to the sides by quite a bit, it’s not supposed to be like that is it? They should be pointed more or less straight behind me right? I can’t do that though, I can’t pull the elbows together. Are there any poses that will help me bring the elbows together?