Asana Column: Salamba Sirsasana (Headstand)

Strengthen your musculoskeletal system, improve respiration, and stimulate digestion—all by standing on your head.

By John Schumacher

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Almost all of the articles you see about yoga these days—and there are a passel of 'em—describe how wonderful it is. They list the benefits, ranging from increased flexibility to ultimate immersion in the Great Cosmic Ooze. They describe yoga as a stress-free, painless way to well-being. But by touting only the obvious goodies, these articles not only paint an incomplete picture of yoga, they also rob it of its juice. The pleasures and benefits of yoga are indeed numerous and profound, but the difficulties you encounter in your practice are at least as important.

Ancient yoga texts stress the importance of tapas—the fiery quality of discipline and determination. One way to produce fire is friction, and the resistances that arise as you practice often provide the spark that ignites the fires of transformation. That fire is fed and fanned by your practice as you roll out your mat day after day. Every part of your life, from the most mundane to the most lofty, also rolls out for your consideration. Every time you practice, you run the risk of having your world turned upside down.

But that's true whether you do yoga or not. At any moment, your life can change forever. Whether you choose to keep this frightening truth in the forefront of your awareness or not, impermanence is a fact of life.

Long ago, yogis recognized this by making nonattachment one of the cornerstones of yogic practice. If you follow the path of yoga, you must be willing to change anything and everything in your life: what you eat, wear, and read; how you perceive, think, and act. To be truly free, somewhere along the line you have to be willing to give up the illusory security of the known and fling yourself into the abyss of the unknown.

Salamba Sirsasana (Headstand) provides an opportunity for experimenting safely with the unfamiliar and the fear it engenders. Headstand can be scary. It literally turns your world upside down. Beginners may become disoriented, unable to tell left from right and top from bottom.

But, as B.K.S. Iyengar says in his section on Sirsasana in Light on Yoga (Schocken, 1995), "The best way to overcome fear is to face with equanimity the situation of which one is afraid." Fortunately, disorientation in Headstand subsides fairly quickly. With regular practice, you can begin to experience the benefits which led the yogis to call Sirsasana the "King of Asanas."

Getting Ready

Salamba sirsasana is not a pose for raw beginners. Proficiency in some preliminary asanas will speed your learning and go a long way toward preventing problems in Headstand.

The most fundamental asana for learning Sirsasana is Tadasana (Mountain Pose). The actions of the legs, torso, and neck are essentially the same in both poses, although these actions feel different when you turn topsy-turvy and reverse your body's relationship to gravity.

The standing poses develop the strength, flexibility, and endurance you need in Sirsasana. Gomukhasana (Cow Face Pose) can help provide the necessary increase in shoulder mobility; Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward-Facing Dog) also opens and strengthens the shoulders and introduces you to a mild inversion.

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