Arm Balancing Exploration

Yogis!  If you missed my arm balancing exploration workshop yesterday here's a couple simple general things that we covered.

Sequencing -- The arm balances are advanced warm up poses.  They are closely related to the standing warm up poses.  Take a look at arm balances you are working on in class.  Each one contains the actions of the plank pose and the low plank.  Look at what is going on at the hips, in the pelvic girdle.  Does the arm balance look like a triangle married with the plank or low plank? Does it look like the single pigeon married with the plank or low plank?  The standing warm up poses produce tapas, helping us to train the mind to concentrate, and also help us to warm the body up for the deeper practices.  When you are an advanced student the arm balances do the same thing for you.

Preparation -- Work on the actions of the plank pose and the low plank.  Especially focus on the work in the shoulder stabilizers and the relationship between flexion and extension in the spine.  If you can hold plank pose for 3 mins and the low plank for 1 min you are probably strong enough to do most arm balances you will see in class.  Work on poses that will help open the hips in the same way they are opening in the arm balance you want to work on.  Look at all of the poses that have the same work in them and practice these poses until you are ready to take this same position while balancing on the arms.  What poses live in, and require similar work to, the arm balance you are looking to move into in your practice?

Hope you can make it to the next workshop!  We had a lot of fun yesterday.