-
Headstands and elbow/forearmstands holding the pole
I know a lot of studios ask students learning to headstand to wrap their hands around the base of the pole before lifting/tucking/kicking/stepping/pressing up their legs. Like most polers I learned to headstand first near a pole – but never heid the base; I always put my hands clasped around my head as that was how I was taught in yoga, and pushed down with my forearms rather than hauling the pole.
I can now headstand comfortably without a pole or wall and love headstands more and more – but the more I find out about them (and develop my yoga and pole practice) the more I worry and think that grabbing and pulling the pole is potentially dangerous and puts the neck and head out of safe alignment, uses the wrong muscle mechanics to get up, stay up and come down safely.
Am I worrying unnecessarily? My instructor teaches the hold the pole base way and I never know what to do in classes so I don’t say anything but continue to headstand without holding the pole and hope she doesn’t make an issue of it
-
3 Replies
-
I was taught NOT to hold the base of the pole, main reason because if you fall and your fingers are interlaced behind the pole, you may hurt yourself worse because you are tied to the pole. Said that, I do wrap my hands around the base because if not, I’m too far away from the pole and cannot walk my back to the pole to lift up with control. I’m not proficient in headstands so please take my comment with a pinch of salt… In fact I do hate headstands because I always feel I’m going to collapse on my head, same with elbowstands. I’m probably doing something wrong, as I said, not my thing…
-
I don’t teach to grip the pole either! It doesn’t put you in a good position: It creates a dependency on the pole making learning without the pole hard. For most people, holding the base places your body too close to the pole making kicking necessary because you can’t bring the hips over head being that close to the pole. Without the hips reaching over the head lifting with control just wont happen.
Instead of having students grip the pole I would rather have them learn against a wall if they fear being farther from the pole.
Tropical, it could be an issue for the cervical spine because if dancers focus on just pulling into the pole and kicking they may not be engaging the shoulders enough placing more stress on the head and neck. Holding the pole often makes dancers think they NEED to use it to get up…this is not what we want. Also I don’t teach true head stands(hands only on floor, head pressing into floor) because you need to be very precise with head placement to keep the neck and spine happy. Elbow and forearm (when done correctly) take the strain off the head and neck.
-
Thank you so much! It’s good to know I’m not being unnecessarily paranoid! Veena I went and watched your excellent tutorial on Elbowstand and saw you did not teach it with the hands wrapped around the pole . I actually just went and tried a headstand and elbow stand in that position with cup grip of pole base and it felt soooo wrong. I couldn’t stack the hips and float up and it didn’t feel safe.
I can’t do or say anything about how it’s taught in class. Nor can I do anything about Twisted grip handspring and TG Ayesha being taught…the instructor is really good. I don’t think she knows that there is any issue or concern about pole holding or Twisted grip in kickup/pressup inversions. It’s so commonplace in the pole world now… I wouldn’t have known if I wasn’t a member here and if Ididn’t do a lot of yoga reading/classes.🤓
Thanks again and happy inverting everyone 🙃🙃🙃
Log in to reply.