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February 2, 2014 | by Masumi Goldman
Headstands 101…Continued

Last week, I posted a tutorial for a basic tripod egg headstand. If you missed it and would like to join in on the inversion fun, please click HERE to get started.

If you’re still reading, I will assume that you’ve managed to get through the first Headstand 101 article and perform your first inversion. Congratulations! Getting yourself to this point is significant—I know many of you had to overcome fears and put aside a mountain of self-doubt, but here you are, experiencing success.

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In this tutorial, I will guide you through the remaining steps to get yourself into a full, tripod headstand with extended legs. Let’s get started.

From your tripod egg pose (step 4 in the collage above), engage your abs and begin to shift your weight into your left knee. As you push your left knee firmly into your left tricep, your right knee should feel light on your right tricep.

Your first goal is to lift your right knee just 1 or 2 inches off of your tricep. If you can manage to do that, lower your right knee, and repeat the exercise on the other side Step1(shifting weight onto the right knee and lifting the left knee a few inches instead). Most people will find this task to feel more natural on one side. Although we traditionally practice both sides in yoga, in these beginning stages of learning a new inversion, I advise you to just work on getting comfortable by practicing on the side that feels more natural.

Once you’ve determined which side feels more comfortable, practice lifting that one knee a few inches at a time into the air. Move slowly, and please resist the urge to throw both knees into the air simultaneously.  Lifting both legs simultaneously adds much more core instability to the pose. For beginners, our strategy is to maintain as much stability as possible by keeping one knee planted on one tricep until the other leg is fully extended.

Step3

If you are unable to lift your knee at all, continue practicing the exercise of shifting your weight back and forth between triceps. You will build the strength and stability in due time.  Please do not rush the process by deciding to kick up into a headstand. NEVER kick up into a headstand. Your head and neck are bearing your body weight, and the last thing you need to do is to add the instability and sharp movement of a kick-up.

If you DO manage to extend one leg into the air, notice whether your body is swaying.  If so, make an effort to engage all of your muscles.  Keep your core tight and energize your extended leg by pointing, flexing or “flointing” your foot.  Flointing is essentially pointing with the ball of your foot—think of Barbie feet that look like they are perpetually in high-heeled shoes.

Keep practicing your headstand with one-leg extended until it feels stable. Do not move on to the next step until you are comfortable and stable with one leg fully extended.

Step4

Before you extend your second leg into the air, run through this checklist in your mind:

-Is your core engaged?

-Are you remembering to breathe?

-Are you flointing/flexing/pointing the foot of your extended leg?

-Are you making an effort to keep your elbows squeezing in rather than splaying out to the sides?

-Is your neck nice and long?

If you’ve answered yes to these questions, slowly begin lifting your second knee into the air. Again, you will feel most stable if you lift in small 2-inch increments.

Step5

Lift slowly and maintain an engaged, energized feeling through out your entire body to find stability.  Once you find full extension of both legs, see if you can hold the pose for 5 full breaths.  Congratulations.  You did it!

Step6

27 Comments
  • Thank you Masumi. With your previous post I did my first headstand. I thought, headstands were something impossible. So now, I can’t wait to try this. This time I will need some time to straight my legs, but I’m excited to work to get it. Thank you

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  • Thank you, your post are really helpful for a beginner like me :)

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  • Yayaya! So excited to try this♡ thank you

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  • Thank you so much for this very informative blog. I’ve been struggling with my Tripod Headstand as I have been trying to raise both legs at the same time, it hadn’t occurred to me that it would be easier to raise one at a time! I now am feeling confident that I’ll get into an extended leg headstand very soon! Thanks again, your blog is so well written and made all the more clear with the great photos! I love the leggings you’re wearing here too.

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    • Thank you so much—I really appreciate the feedback, and I’m so happy that this article is helpful to you. If you would like to see any other types of tutorials, please let me know!

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  • Thank your for your tutorials, Masumi! I did it against the wall once, but i think I’m ready to start flointing.

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    • Yes, start flointing! You will find that you have more body control when you energize all of your muscles. Good luck!

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  • Thank you so much for this! I was able to do my first headstand yesterday with your tutorial and the help of my yoga teacher. Hooray!!! I do have a question…I probably practiced it 20 times yesterday throughout the course of the day ( I was so excited that I could do it!) and by about 7 pm, I felt like I was spinning and I was really nauseous. Is this normal? Did I do too much? I’ve never really done inversions before, not even as a kid. Will I eventually get used to it? Thanks so much for all that you do!

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    • I think you probably got over excited and practiced too much. Everyone is a bit different and has a different tolerance for being upside down. Cut back on your next practice and see how you feel. Maybe just spend a few minutes working on the pose.

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  • Yay!! I think I must present my feedback because I have just did the steps and I am very happy with the results. I love that you break the pose with all the IMPORTANT details like where to oust the weight, the position of arms and legs and every thing else.. Online we can find a lot of poses to practice but most of them lack of IMPORTANT details to kern it the right way (as you know every pose is important for everything in it not just accomplishing it) so.. thanks again and i’ll be waiting for the next one =o)))) KEEP UP POSTING!

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  • Thank you so much for the tutorials! They are a big help. I am wondering though, I’d like to do yoga right when I wake up, but I find that I am too stiff and restricted on certain poses. Is there any suggestions for how to “loosen up” before doing yoga in the mornings? i have no problem at night since my body is loosened up from all the activity throughout the day. Thank you and Laura for all that you do!

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    • In order to loosen up, I often need to do a little bit of cardiovascular exercise to warm up my body and not feel so stiff. You don’t need to do a ton—even 10 minutes of jogging or jump roping can do the trick. Once your body is warm, it’s much easier to stretch the muscles without straining.

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  • While during the tripod headstand I am now able to stay for at least 5 breaths. However, once I get down and I strecth I feel a little discomfort in my upper back mostly on my back bone. While I’m in the pose I feel fine and no pain. Is it normal to feel some discomfort after? Since the feeling is on my bone I can’t tell if it’s soreness or some sort of stress on the bone.

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    • Make sure that you are making a conscious effort to lengthen your neck in the pose by rolling your shoulders down and away from your ears. You might be crunching up and compressing your back in ways that is making it unhappy. Take a break from inversions until all of your discomfort disappears.

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  • I also wanted to know if the tripod headstand should be easier than the headstand with hands behind our head? I seem to have a much better balance with the tripod than the other one.

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    • You definitely need more core strength to lift up into the version with basket-hands behind the head. The reason why we teach tripod first is because you can just climb up onto the backs of your arms. I’m not surprised that you prefer tripod.

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  • Everytime I try doing headstands I feel a lot of pressure afterwards.. :( do you have any tips to prevent that ?
    Thank you,
    Marie-Pierre

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    • Make a conscious effort to keep your shoulders rolled down away from your ears. Keeping your neck long really helped me a lot when I was first starting headstands. It’s also probably a good idea to take a yoga class in a studio so that you can get a teacher’s opinion on your form. Perhaps just a few small suggestions could make all the difference!

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  • Thanks for the tutorial! Could you possibly do a tutorial on side crow? I can’t seem to get into it. On a completely different note, could y’all post where your clothes are from in your posts? I love them and am always looking for alternatives to just lululemon. :)

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  • Thank you for these tips! I’ve been practicing with the wall and kicking up, but am interested in building strength to do it on my own without a wall while maintaining safety. Looking forward to this website! Congrats!

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    • Please don’t kick up into a headstand!! In order to protect your neck, it’s a much better idea to climb onto the backs of your triceps (as shown in the step-by-step tutorial here.

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  • Yes! Yes!! Yes!!! Thank you so much. I’ve practised for the first time this morning and I could get one leg up comfortably! Woohoo! Now some more practice!

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  • Thank you I keep getting frustrated because I can’t get both legs up! I will try this exercise! This article is very informative and super helpful

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  • Bonnie in British Columbia

    Thank you for these inversion tutorials! Thanks to your tripod egg post, my inversion practice has really taken off in the last few weeks. That was really a catalyst point for me, where things started to click, and confidence in being upside down blossomed.

    I’m currently building core strength after having a second baby. He’s six months old, and I’m wondering if I could attain more of a six-pack apres children than I had before them. I used to have what I called “flabs,” what kind of looked like a six-pack under a layer of softness. I also am working on refining my tripod with legs extended form, and hoping to build it to a confidence point where I can practice the pose in class with neighbours to either side of me without fear of falling out!

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  • Your tutorial was the only way I get even close to doing a headstand! I use a pillow because my mat on the hardwood is too hard on my skull. I have only been doing this for four days and I can get one of my legs up sometimes!! It’s crazy, I NEVER thought I could do this! I hope I can lift up my second leg eventually — I tried, but I think I need more abs :D Thanks so much!

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