Welcome to your inversion breakdown with Clara Roberts-Oss. This tutorial includes preparation for three strong inversions, including headstand, handstand, and forearm stand.
You’ll learn how to prepare the body, props to support your practice, cues to take yourself deeper into the pose, modifications for all bodies and levels, and counter poses to neutralize strained muscles.
Watch a teaser of the lecture or read the highlights below.
In the full lecture, Clara goes over:
Poses to prepare the body for each inversion
Muscles to lengthen
Muscles to strengthen
Sequences featuring Wave Theory by Shiva Rea
Modifications for injury and sensitivity
Cues for new students to advanced practitioners
Ways to neutralize (counterpose)
Hello, and welcome to inversions, which we will break down together. Today, we’ll explore sequencing and how to set up and perform inversions. I’ll be guiding you through tutorials for headstand, forearm stand, and handstand.
What’s so cool about inversions is that we must recruit different muscles and that’s fun on a physical level. And then, on a mental level, it’s a lot about surrendering and softening into whether or not today I’m going to be able to do the pose or not do the pose.
I invite my students to do the same, especially those of us who can be perfectionists. It’s like softening out of perfectionism and just breathing into what is. If you work hard enough on inversions, I recommend a daily practice, you’re more likely to be able to get into the pose than if you do it every six months.
Then, I can recruit the muscles I need to do them. So, do core work right before inversions. I learned that from Ana Forrest. That changed everything for me.
So, who should refrain from doing inversions? Most people will say this if you’re on the first three days of your menstrual cycle. When we’re menstruating, we’re bleeding, and it’s moving out of us. Taking our hips over our hearts is taking the flow in the opposite direction. I always say it depends on the woman.
If the answer to either of those is no, regardless of whether or not you’re on your menstrual cycle, just in life in general, then that is not the day to be inverting.
Again, we must recruit our deep core muscles and feel strong in our pelvis to take our legs and find balance upside down. Ask yourself or your student those two questions beforehand. I usually say that I won’t necessarily bring up the menstrual cycle, but before we do inversion practice, I would ask those two questions.
So if you wanted to offer a modification, just because we’re putting weight on the upper body, what they could do instead is Viparita Karani: either bum to the wall, legs up the wall, or block under the sacrum, legs up. In that way, they get the benefits of the blood moving in the opposite direction in the legs, which can be very beneficial. It’s very cleansing. And because our legs do so much for us, taking our legs in the air is therapeutic.
Last, Viparita Karani also brings us into the parasympathetic nervous system: rest and digestion. So, it’s a great time to do it.
Next, I’d like to discuss the body parts that need strengthening and lengthening to prepare for most inversions. I will give you broad strokes because you will open up different body parts depending on whether it’s a forearm or shoulder stand.
Generally, we need to stretch and strengthen the hamstrings for all inversions. We have to stretch the hamstrings because usually, we come into the pose asymmetrically, meaning one leg is down, and one leg is up.
I also recommend stretching and strengthening the quadriceps because most people’s quads are tight just from life, like the sedentary life of sitting down. The quads need to be strengthened for the forward fold part and then open for the top leg going up to the sky.
So, the front and back of the legs need to be stretched and strengthened. And obviously, the core needs to be strengthened.
Hamstrings and Quadriceps: Hamstrings need to stretch for split leg positions. Strengthen quadriceps to hold transitions.
Core: Stabilizing the pelvis for balance requires engaging all core areas: rectus abdominis, obliques, transverse abdominis, and pelvic floor.
Shoulders and Arms: Stretch and open the shoulders, triceps, and side waist for full arm extension. Strengthen the biceps and triceps to bear weight and stabilize.
Wrists and Forearms: You want to claw the mat and engage what we call Hastabandha. We want to engage here to lift out of the wrists.
So, usually, I’ll do between 6-8 repetitions of an exercise to light it up and feel it is strong, but not to the point of exhaustion.
Start by placing a block between your feet with your legs straight. If you or your students find it challenging to keep the legs straight, you can modify by bending the knees. I’ll demonstrate both versions.
For the bent-knee variation:
For the straight-leg variation, follow the same instructions, but keep your legs straight throughout the movement, maintaining a firm squeeze on the block.
You can also do both of these without the block and alternate legs, making the movement simultaneous. This movement (especially with straight legs) mimics the L-shaped handstands.
Another great exercise I love to do is donkey kicks. This one is great because you can’t fake the funk, mainly if you teach a more significant class. It’s scarier, so people are less likely to take too much risk, which I feel like keeps everybody around that person safe.
Donkey kicks mean that my knees come into my chest, and my heels come to my bum as I push off the ground and try to bring my bum over my shoulders. This can be done near a wall as well.
Now, for the tripod headstand. My palms are on the ground, and my wrists, elbows, and shoulders are aligned. I’m putting the very top of my head down to the ground so that I can see my knees. I slide my hands to my knees. I look left or right. I want to create a 90-degree angle in my arms, wrists, and elbows.
I claw the mat with my finger pads and shrug my shoulders onto the back. This is Shirshasana B, a tripod headstand. I lift my knees off the ground, hug my elbows toward each other, and shrug my shoulders onto the back. When I do that, my arms and hands light up again.
You can always bend your knees to come in, trying to get your hips over your shoulders. Before this,
I would usually teach crow pose in class. Its bottom is like a crow: one knee to one upper arm, another to another upper arm, knees into the chest, and legs up to the sky—no kicking, ever.
To come out, I like to take my knees to my upper arms, toes down to the ground, and then the child’s pose.
After a session focused on inversions, it’s important to balance the body and release any tension by opening the quads and hip flexors. Backbends (supported fish or bridge pose with bolsters or blocks underneath) are particularly effective for this purpose, as they stretch the front body and counter the intense engagement of inversions. If backbends aren’t suitable for your sequence, consider incorporating thigh stretches or Hero Pose as alternatives.
To further unwind, include movements that open the quadriceps, which are the primary hip flexors, or focus on poses that target the inner thighs. This is especially beneficial if the inversion work involved parallel plane movements, such as handstands or forearm stands, where the hips stay aligned rather than lifting wide-legged.
I would do fewer poses here and I would like to put them in the pose, leave them, stop talking, and go around and adjust. Or I would sit and breathe myself, holding space.
Again, it doesn’t have to be the full pose, but working towards it is good for our bodies.
New members get
14-days FREE!
Sign up for a recurring subscription and get access to hundreds of different yoga classes and join the weekly LIVE yoga class.
10 Tips to Unlock Inner Harmony through the Subtle Body Welcome to Part Two of the Subtle Body Series, where we dive deeper into the
5 Powerful Mantra & Meditation Practices for the Subtle Body Welcome to Part Two of the Subtle Body Series, where we explore mantra, sound, and
The Power of Mantra: Unlocking the Subtle Body’s Potential Mantra is more than just a word or sound—it’s a tool for transformation, a bridge between
The 4 Purusharthas and Influential Teachers on the Spiritual Path The Purusharthas, which date back to the Vedas, are the four pillars of Indian philosophy
