By Allison Ray Jeraci
Photo by Andrea Killam
Yoga International
So, you’ve mastered hopping up into handstand and holding it in the middle of the room. Now you’ve set your sights on pressing up into a handstand. You place your hands on the floor, shift your weight into your hands, your feet lift off the floor, and…you’ve done it.
Wait a minute. Did that actually happen for you? Because the first time I tried to press up into handstand, I pretty much had no idea what I was doing and definitely did not meet with success. I placed my hands on the floor and shifted my weight into my hands and arms, but instead of my legs lifting up, I just got stuck. Really stuck, as in absolutely nothing happened. It was like my feet were cemented to the ground. And I had been a gymnast and was used to doing handstands. But I never learned to press up into handstand during my gymnastics stint (I must not have progressed very far in the curriculum). In fact, until I began practicing yoga, I didn’t realize that there were other ways to maneuver into handstand besides hopping up.