Extracted ....

Standing on Your Own Two Hands

When I was first learning to do Adho Mukha Vrksasana (Handstand) years ago, my kind but honest teacher observed, "You don't really want to get up there very badly, do you?" She couldn't help but notice that my baby kicks propelled my feet barely a foot off the ground. Once she helped me into the pose, I discovered I actually didn't mind being up there; in fact, I really liked building my strength and learning to balance lightly in a new relationship with gravity. But I still feared that if I kicked up too high, I'd bang my head against the wall, which I certainly did mind.

Looking around in my yoga classes, I see plenty of other students showing some degree of Handstand-phobia. Excepting the former gymnasts and a minority of athletically gifted daredevils, many of us seem to react with a certain amount of reluctance when a teacher blithely announces, "OK, Handstand, everybody." The same students who spring into standing poses and can't wait to do complicated twists suddenly start fussing with their clothes, retying their hair, or discover an urgent need to run to the bathroom. My friend Margie (I've changed the name to protect her dignity) even confessed to me that she'd walked out of a private lesson when her teacher announced it was time to work on Handstand without the benefit of a supporting wall. "I don't have any problem doing Headstand or even Pincha Mayurasana (Forearm Balance)," she says, "but for some reason the idea of supporting all my weight on my own little hands made me panic."

Handstand is not a particularly difficult pose physically, although it does require a certain level of flexibility and strength. Instead, the real challenge of Handstand for many students is working on the necessary physical skills in a calm, focused manner while confronting the primal human fear of falling. For a beginning inverter the seemingly simple act of kicking the legs up to a supporting wall can be frightening. Even for more advanced Handstanders, going to a next level with the pose—say, leaping up with both legs at once or balancing in the center of the room—presents challenges that call up the fear factor.

... continue at Yoga Journal here.

I need more practise .. practise ... practise!!! :)