Posture category of the month: Arm Balances
Earning your license to fly
Starting out as a yogi, you can learn most of the essential postures within a few days. Whilst you want to hold your Warrior II or Tree Pose correctly, it isn’t rocket science to get a good feel for them soon.
The same doesn’t apply to Arm Balances - they require actual skill! You need to prepare and get ready, both in terms of physical strength and balance as well as your mental readiness to take the risk of falling over. Taking flight is a mental game more than anything and requires determination, commitment and consistent practice. Nothing for the faint of heart but incredibly rewarding when you finally get out of your own way, take flight and learn approach the law of gravity with a whole new level of joy and playfulness…
Benefits of practicing Arm Balances
Arm balances offer great physical, spiritual and emotional benefits. They are not simply practiced, they are conquered through your will power and dedication. Here is why it’s worth to earn your license to fly:
Tone muscles throughout the body and strengthen your core. In order to find balance, your whole body needs to engage and find stability. From your arms, back and legs to a strong and engaged core - all muscle groups have to work together and get stronger in the process.
Your internal muscles are being strengthened as well by engaging your bandhas to hold the postures.
Strengthen your whole upper body and protect your shoulder joints. Because of our increasingly sedentary lifestyle, our upper bodies aren’t as strong and stable as nature intended them to be. By practicing arm balances, we develop these muscle groups, which leads to better protection for our highly mobile and therefore vulnerable shoulder joints.
Increase your confidence and will power. Requiring a high level of focus and concentration, as well as core strength, arm balances are said to be connected to the third chakra (manipura) in the solar plexus area - the centre that projects your creative energy and personal power into the world. By energising and literally ‘firing up’ your core, arm balances help you burn through fears and remove mental blocks.
Develop mindfulness, focus and mental discipline. Just like leg balances last month, arm balances force you to be in the moment and focus on the task at hand. To stay in ‘flight mode’ you can’t take our attention anywhere but ‘here and now’. The more you practice this single pointed focus, the easier it is to apply it in other areas of your life.
Teach delayed gratification. Arm balances aren’t postures you master within a day. They require consistency and practice over time, to build up muscles, skill and trust in your abilities. They are therefore great teachers of patience and commitment. If you keep your eyes on the prize, you will see yourself master even the most physically challenging variations - an extremely rewarding experience that can serve as a reference point when it comes to mastering other challenging tasks.
Feel the fear and do it anyway - step by step
If you are new to arm balances, it can be intimidating to look at fellow yogis who are effortlessly taking flight in advanced postures like koundinyasana, mayurasana or adho mukha vrksasana (handstand). And yet, arm balances are a fun way to explore your strength and add to your skill set - after all, we are here to learn and grow, aren’t we?
If you are new to the practice, the most important thing to remember is to get out of your own way and enjoy the practice itself, as you work on each component that will lead to your desired result. If you are too attached to ‘getting it right’ and achieving the perfect posture immediately, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. To successfully work your way up to advanced arm balances, the key components you need to master are core activation, muscle control and trust in your abilities - a fine balance between physical and mental strength. So run your own race, and give yourself the time you need.
In our classes at Flex this month, we will help you get ready. We will start with simple steps like preparing your wrists and strengthening your arm muscles by practicing the according preliminary postures. From there, we will move on to activating your core as well as your bandhas so that you can safely hold yourself in the air without collapsing into a heap. And lastly, we can provide the required assists and corrections to make sure you enter, hold and exit each posture correctly.
Contraindications - when you should NOT practice Arm Balances
Arm Balances are a great addition to your practice - but they are not for everyone. Please make sure that if you have any of the following issues or injuries, you first speak to your GP or physiotherapist:
If you have recently injured your hands, arms, wrists or shoulders, or have any injuries to your core or other areas that are being engaged during your arm balances, please avoid practicing arm balances until you have fully healed. You can modify some of these postures with props, but make sure to ask your yoga teacher for advice to not compromise your healing.
If you have issues with migraines, be mindful when practicing arm balances, especially postures that require you to bend down your head lower than your body’s centre of gravity. A sudden rush of blood towards your head might trigger an attack.
People with carpal tunnel syndrome need to be extra careful - by putting extra weight on your hands and wrists you might aggravate your condition.
Female yogis should avoid arm balances during pregnancy and menstrual cycle. This is not the time to put strong tension on your core.
If you are suffering from high or low blood pressure be careful with arm balances, as you might (a) become light headed or (b) increase your blood pressure and - either way - lose balance.
Avoid arm balances if you are dealing with arthritis, spondylitis, osteoporosis or any other inflammation or anomaly, especially in the wrists, arms and spine.
Curious to learn more? Come along to Flex regularly and practice with us! There are over 25 classes/week, and we will practice Arm Balances daily during all of September 2021!
Thanks for creative input this month go to Ling Beisecker from DoYou.