Kapotasana?

[Guest guest]

Does anyone have a reply to message 693? I, too,

am having difficulty getting into this particular

posture effectively.<br><br>I was also wondering about

the use of a few blankets in shoulder stand. My

Iyengar instructor considers it dangerous to do this

asana without the prop. <br><br>Care to comment?

[Guest guest]

if you dont have a friend to help you in

kapotasana you can try it by a wall, walking your hands down

it, and up again when you reach your limit. day by

day it should increase. same as for chakrasana. but

you might need help even with this to begin with.

doing yoga on the beach can open you to backbends and

show you how to adjust yourself into more challenging

postures.<br><br>shoulderstand is problematical for people with tight shoulders

and necks and can lead to problems from irritation of

the top spine and neck due to excess pressure falling

on top thoracic and cervical vetrebrae. this

pressure should not be there. iyengar evades it with mats.

an alternative is to learn the correct lifting

technique. however some people just cant. they need to use

mats or do the halfshoulderstand which makes this lift

very easy as the hands and elbows take so much more

weight.<br><br>you have to use your hands from the grounding action

of shoulders and upperarms to lift the back upwards

taking pressure off the spine and lifting all the

vertebrae off the floor so there can be no pressure. i was

shown this simple action by david swenson. this lift

makes it easier to line up the body so that the bandhas

are not inhibited by the collpase of the trunk. this

lift from the foundation needs to be supported by the

rest of the body resisting gravity, all the way to the

toes. the toes lift the toes and all below, the feet

the feet, the legs, the pelvis etc. this advice was

given to me by john scott in the context of how to go

up into a handstand from uttanasana, but it holds

true for all inversions.<br><br>good luck..

[Guest guest]

For most of us, even those who've been doing

astanga a LONG time (not naming any names), getting into

kapotasana by one's self ain't easy.<br><br>So don't feel

bad.<br><br>Usually one has to be helped into it -- as you can

appreciate, there's very little leverage left to the arms, in

that position, so it's quite difficult to move them to

the toes by oneself.<br><br>A good intermediate pose

to help open the back and shoulders would be to set

yourself facing a wall, about 3 feet away, do headstand

and bring your feet to the wall, feet toghether, then

lift up the headstand with head fully off the floor,

thusly stretching the armpits.<br><br>From there you can

push off the wall with your toes, working into a

backbending stretch.<br><br>If that's possible so far, then

bring your feet down to the floor from that position,

while doing you best to keep your head lifted off the

ground.<br><br>From there you can adjust your arms by your shoulders

and do urdhva dhanurasana . . . all of this will help

open the upper and lower back, as well as stretch the

hips.<br><br>A wall is an excellent source of leverage, if you

don't have a yoga instructor around to adjust you.

[Guest guest]

Thanks very much, Godfreydev & Trayam for your thoughtful responses. I am

definitely going to try your suggestions! <br><br>Namaste.