Namaste and welcome to a short video tutorial about Headstand. Headstand or shirsasana, as it's the name of the posture in Sanskrit, is one of the very important postures in yoga asana. In some yoga styles, you practice it at the end of the session. But in other yoga styles, you practice it at the beginning of the session or just somewhere in the middle it happens like this because you don't need a specific preparation to turn your body upside down you just need to have empty stomach that's very useful empty stomach that's very useful and also to have a little bit of strength in your arms stable shoulders and of course strength into your forearms and hands this is very important because otherwise the whole weight of your body will be on the top of your head and also dancing a lot that's the neck and this is not of course not healthy and on the other hand you really need to have a stable created from the hands, elbows and shoulders on which you can rely. You can really rely on this stable foundation so that you can bring your body up and stay comfortably in the posture with mind calm and also breath should be calm. A very useful way to learn headstand is actually to learn it with the wall. But it's useful and useless in the same time. Learning headstand with the wall makes it easier to just go up with the feet, but then you rely on the wall for the rest of your life. It's really hard to get off the wall later. So I totally don't recommend that. We can always start with a preparation for headstand. The idea is not to bring the feet up the benefits of headstand and some of the most important ones is turning the blood flow upside down or calming the brain and the nervous system this you can experience only with preparation having the feet up can come later when you have built already a stable foundation to rely on, so no one needs to help you on the one hand and on the other hand you can feel confident that you will not fall. Practicing the preparation for headstand is very easy everywhere. You just need a yoga mat or a comfortable surface on which you feel confident and that's it, and your body. You don't need anyone to help you. You just need to have the consistency and the determination to build more strength and stability into your upper body for the rest of it for bringing the feet up i would recommend that you work with a yoga teacher who can support you in your regular yoga practice i don't recommend to do this alone at home or with friends showing around how how you can bring your feet up that's not helpful and it can be dangerous so let's start with the preparation very important is that you interlace the first three fingers and the pinky fingers you keep them one behind the other one not interlaced but one behind the other one so that this whole surface so that this whole surface can lie on the floor and it's your stable foundation so we can start first with coming down on our elbows and the elbow is under the shoulder not here not here under the shoulder you can usually measure this when you just hug your elbows and then open the hands to the front interlace the fingers and now we already have a stable foundation we place the top of the head on the floor and the back of the head is pressing into the hands and from here we engage our arms and forearms and press into this triangle in order to bring our buttocks up. Your head can be completely off the floor in this situation. You are pressing only on the forearms and the hands. Or maybe a little bit of weight on the head, but not too much. And then you start walking to the front coming every time closer to your nose and back and you keep breathing in the same time if you get tired you always can take the opportunity to rest in child's pose extend the child's pose or child's pose with the hands along the body and then we can get back again to our preparation interlacing the fingers pinky fingers one behind the other one placing the top of the head on the floor back of the head is resting between the hands and we feel confident and stable to bring our buttocks up we can stay here for a couple of breaths also and you can also do this one just lifting the head off that's very nice training for the arms and the forearms and then we start walking to the front of course that you can always have the knees bent if that's easier for you and come on your knees rest for a breath press into the forearms inhale up again walk to the front and back walk to the front and back and we rest again resting in child's pose is very important after preparation for Headstand or after Headstand. You can always extend the exhalation, make it longer. and we go for a third round of preparation interlacing the fingers grounding the forearms placing the top of the head on the floor remembering that we have much more weight on our arms and forearms and hands then on the head and we press firmly into the floor bringing the buttocks up and start to walking to the front and here you can try to bring one foot up and the other one right and left and keep pushing into the forearms not so much on the head and we keep pressing into the forearms and the hands becoming more and more confident with our foundation and we come down and relax neck is long and soft shoulders are relaxed chest is melting into the thighs to make it even more relaxing we can always extend the hands to the front and open the knees and let the chest melt into the floor This also allows the body to benefit from the posture And we slowly walk the hands back and find our way to sitting. whoo that's not an easy posture preparation is not easy either but it's totally worth it this is one of the most important inversions in yoga asana practice and you can practice it to get more energized to get relaxed and energized also any time of the day without necessarily having a warm-up but still being strong in the upper body and feeling confident in your triangle on which you have to rely when you practice headstand. I still insist that even only the preparation for a headstand has a lot of benefits so you don't have to wait for when you can bring your feet up to experience all the benefits from this beautiful asana. Thank you for watching this video and sharing the yoga practice with me. Namaste. Продолжение следует...