WHY THIS SARVANGASANA (SHOULDERSTAND) SEQUENCE WORKS
I’m going to begin this text with the identical caveat that I included in my Headstand sequence: This follow is just not designed to show you Shoulderstand. Somewhat, it’s designed to interrupt down the weather that comprise good, skillful sequencing for Shoulderstand (Sarvangasana). It’s solely meant for college students and lecturers who’re already proficient on this posture. In the event you’re not usually training Shoulderstand, please be taught the pose within the presence of a professional teacher.
Shoulderstand (often known as Sarvangasana) is an easy posture, aside from one evident part—the shoulders. It’s becoming that the shoulders are the distinctive facet of the posture that bears its’ title. When the shoulders don’t adjust to the posture, they create misalignments that may wreak havoc on the neck and make all the posture really feel out of whack.
Happily, sequence for Shoulderstand will help put together your physique the place you want it most: the entrance of your shoulders, chest, hip flexors, and quads. Your shoulders want to increase and adduct with a purpose to get into the optimum place for Shoulderstand. To visualise this: Think about swinging your higher arms again behind you, bending your elbows, and hugging your elbows towards one another. In any other case, your elbows will splay away from one another, you’ll lose stability that your shoulders present, and also you’ll overload your neck. The mix of extending and adducting your shoulders actions is just not straightforward, which is why the sequence under focuses so closely on anterior (entrance) shoulder and chest opening.
Admittedly, the pliability of your hip flexors and quads is just not as essential as the pliability of your shoulders. However, extreme stress in these muscle teams can negatively affect your total posture, particularly whenever you’re upside-down.
Let’s break it down somewhat additional:
POSES 1-3
This sequence begins off with Ardha Supta Virasana, Down Canine, and Low Lunge with fingers clasped behind the again. These postures introduce three important parts of Shoulderstand. You open the entrance of your shoulders and chest within the low lunge, you open your hip flexors and quads in Ardha Supta Virasana, and also you get the other way up in Downward-Going through Canine.
POSES 4 – 8
Postures 4-8 type the guts of this sequence. I snuck Reverse Warrior into the combo as a result of it’s smart to do sidebends earlier than backbend and since the posture provides some selection and stability to the sequence. Transitioning from Reverse Warrior to Ardha Chandrasana with the foot clasped is a pleasant, easy mixture. Ardha Chandrasana with the foot clasped helps put together you for the sequence of backbends to comply with because it stretches the hip flexors and quads. I can’t emphasize sufficient how integral opening the entrance of the chest, shoulders, and thoracic backbone is to a wholesome Shoulderstand.
In direction of this finish, postures 6, 7, and eight
are a simple development of backbends. Bridge Pose is the only of the three backbends and so it might have been first within the collection, not final. However, Bridge Pose does such a fantastic job of replicating the actions of the higher physique in Shoulderstand that I needed to incorporate it as the ultimate backbend within the collection.
POSES 9 – 10
In the event you needed a shorter sequence, you would skip poses 9 & 10. In truth, I like the concept of going from poses 4-8 straight into Plow and Shoulderstand almost as a lot as I like together with postures 9 & 10. Going straight from postures 4-8 into Shoulderstand offers you with the continuity of opening your chest since these postures focus so closely on opening your chest and shoulders. That stated, I’m together with Little one’s Pose and seated ahead bend on this sequence previous to Shoulderstand as a result of they’re good for soothing the nervous system. Ideally, Shoulderstand is a deeply nurturing, quieting posture. Training Little one’s Pose and seated ahead bend earlier than Plow Pose and Shoulderstand might make these postures extra helpful by serving to you agree your nervous system.
POSES 11 – 12
Plow Pose offers the proper transition into Shoulderstand and out of Shoulderstand. There’s no thriller right here. Get pleasure from.
{illustration by MCKIBILLO}