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Put your yoga mat into a comer, kneel down in front of it and place your interlocked fingers in the comer close to the walls. |
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Put your head into the hollow of the palms, rise off the knees and take a step or two towards the comer. |
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Lift one leg and place it in the comer against the wall. If you are a little unsure, ask a friend to hold the leg and put it in the corner. Now, just kick the other leg up. Stay there for about 15 seconds, trying to remain relaxed. |
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To come out of the headstand, just lower one leg at a time. Again, if you feel unsure, ask your friend to hold one of your legs while you lower the other. |
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| Start off in the headstand for about 15 seconds. Increase the time by 15 seconds every week until you are doing three minutes. |
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| Stage 2 (The Standard Headstand) |
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Kneel down on your yoga mat. Interlock the fingers of your hands and place them and your forearms on the extra padding on the yoga mat. Keep the elbows fairly close together. |
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Place the back of your head into the hollow of the palms (not on the palms or fingers). Rise up off your knees and take a step or two towards your head. |
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Inhale, and slowly raise the legs until they are vertical. Keep your back straight and try to relax. Breathe slowly and deeply from the abdomen. |
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Concentrate on the brain or the pineal gland between the eyebrows. |
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To come down, bend your knees and lower one leg and then the other. As for the beginners' stage, start off in the headstand for about 15 seconds and increase the time by 15 seconds every week, until you are doing three minutes. |
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| Time |
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Do the headstand for fifteen seconds at first, adding fifteen more per week. |
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| Precaution |
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| 1. |
Don't do the headstand if you have high or low blood pressure. First get your blood pressure normal by natural means such as good nutrition, aerobic exercise and the other asanas. Even just giving up salt and taking garlic daily (tablets or in cooking) will cause a substantial reduction in your blood pressure. |
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| 2. |
Atherosclerosis (blocked blood vessels) and any history of strokes are also contraindications to doing the headstand. You must improve your circulatory system first, before attempting it. |
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| 3. |
If you have any serious eye diseases, ask your eye specialist's advice about doing the headstand. |
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| 4. |
Avoid this exercise if you are suffering from constipation, when the stool is excessively dry, if you have pus in your ears, if you are suffering from chronic nasal catarrh, or from very weak eye capillaries. Avoid this exercise if you have an organically defective pituitary, pineal or thyroid gland. |
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| 5. |
If you suffer from a neck injury or advanced arthritis in your neck, again you must improve your neck condition first. See your chiropractor, follow the nutritional principles in this book and do the other asanas to improve your neck. If you have a serious neck condition and you wish to get the Benefits of the headstand, you can purchase an inversion apparatus, which gives you all the Benefits without compression of the neck. In fact, this equipment produces traction of your neck, so your neck condition will actually improve. |
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| Don't let any minor pain stop you from doing the headstand, since most of the weight of the body is actually supported by the forearms. There is very little pressure on the head and therefore very minimal compression of the neck. |
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| - OR - |
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SHIRSHASANA |
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| 1. |
Sit in a kneeling position with the buttocks resting on the heels of the feet. |
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Lean forward and place the forearms on the floor in front while keeping the elbows about shoulder distance apart. Interlock the fingers of both hands. |
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Place the top of the head flat on the floor with the back of the head pressed against the inside of the interlocked fingers. |
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Placing the tips of the toes firmly on the floor while lifting the heels, raise the knees off the floor. |
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Hold for the duration of the held inhaled breath. When you can't hold the breath comfortable any longer, slowly exhale and return the back to the floor, slide the legs out straight returning to the shava-asana. |
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| Benefits |
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Improves memory and concentration, Useful in joint pain, indigestion, liver disease, kidney stone and erectile dysfunction. |
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| Precautions |
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If you attempting this alone position yourself in front of a wall as mentioned above. If you are suffering from high or low blood pressure you should not attempt this posture. The shirshasana should not be performed by woman who are menstruating, as is the case with all inverted postures (where the legs are raise over the head). |
