Supported Shoulder stand pose is practiced with a bolster under the shoulders.

Yoga group practicing salamba sarvangasana (shoulder stand) in a blooming spring park

POSE INFORMATION

GENERAL INFO

Name in Sanskrit: Salamba Sarvangasana

Difficulty: Medium

POSE BENEFITS

  • Supported Shoulder stand pose helps to relax the brain, eases pressure and depression.
  • It invigorates organs such as the prostate and thyroid and stomach organs.
  • It extends the shoulders and neck.
  • It tones the buttocks and legs.
  • It enhances food processing.
  • It calms the manifestations of menopause.
  • It diminishes fatigue and a sleeping disorders.
  • It serves as a remedy for asthma, sinusitis and infertility.

POSE CAUTIONS

The following health issues should take cautions from the exercise:

  • Diarrhea
  • Hypertension
  • Women on their monthly cycle
  • Headache
  • Neck pain
  • Pregnancy: If you are knowledgeable about this pose, you can keep on rehearsing it late into pregnancy. Don’t take up the act of Sarvangasana after you know that you are pregnant.
  • Supported shoulder stand pose is viewed as a moderate to an advanced type of this pose. Don’t try this pose without adequate knowledge or except if you have the supervision of an accomplished educator. A few schools of yoga prescribe doing Salamba Sirsasana prior Salamba Sarvangasana, others suggest the other way around.

how to do the supported shoulder stand

HOW TO PRACTICE THIS ASANA

ONE

Overlay at least two strong blankets. The folded blanket should be about one foot by two feet. Arrange one over another.

For convenience, you may put a mat on the covers to enable your upper arms to stabilize during the pose. At that point, rest on the covers while the shoulders are upheld.

The shoulder should be parallel in respect to one out of the more extended edges and the head placed over the floor. Relax and place the arms over the floor nearby your body.

At that point fold the knees and place your feet pressed against the floor. The heels should be near your sitting bones. Breathe out, push your arms over the floor, and try to carry the feet off the floor, pulling the thighs inside the front part of the trunk.

TWO

Keep on lifting by twisting the back and the pelvis far off the floor. Your aim is that your knees move nearer to the face.

Extend your arms to become parallel against the cover’s edge. Then rotate them out to make the fingers push over the floor.

Allow the point of the thumbs to be behind you. Fold your elbows. Then pull them together. Place the backs of the upper arms over the blanket.

Extend the palms over the back of the body. Now pull up the pelvis on the top of your shoulders, with the goal that the trunk is in a perpendicular pose to the floor.

Move your hands over to the upper back near the floor. Don’t give the elbows a chance to slide excessively than the width of your shoulder.

THREE

Breathe in and push the bowed knees up to the roof, aligning your thighs with your body and keeping the heels somewhere near your bottom.

Push your tailbone to the pubis and face the upper thighs internally. Then breathe in and keep the knees straight, and keep pushing the heels to the roof.

At the point, when the backs of the legs are completely stretched, lift through the top of the huge toes. This will make the internal legs to be somewhat extended than the external.

FOUR

Make the tongue and the throat soft. Press the scapulas over the back, and push the sternum near the jaw.

Note: the forehead ought to be parallel against the floor, the chin should be perpendicular.

Firm the backs of the upper arms and the highest points of the shoulders into the cover you used as support, and endeavor to push the upper backbone far off the floor.

Stare at the area on your chest delicately.

FIVE

Beginners should remain in this pose for around 30 seconds. Later, put 5 – 10 seconds each day till the point that you can easily stay in the pose for 180 seconds.

After that, proceed for 180 seconds daily for possibly 7 -14 days, until the point that you feel confident doing the pose.

Then, keep adding 5 – 10 seconds to the time you stay on the pose daily till the point that you can stay in the pose longer for about 5 minutes.

You can now come down from the pose. To descend, breathe out, fold your knees inward to your body once more, and rotate the back cautiously over the floor.

Keep the back of the body on the floor while doing this.

How to do Supported Shoulder stand Pose (Salamba Sarvangasana)

BEGINNER TIPS

Generally, your elbows as a beginner, will separate and the upper arms will rotate internally which makes the body go deep over the upper back.

The pose will collapse, and possibly straining the neck. Prior going over the blanket support, fold up a sticky mat and place it on the blanket, with its long pivot made parallel to the back edge, the same edge which is inverse to the shoulder edge.

Now let your elbows be lifted on and anchored with the aid of the sticky mat.

MODIFICATIONS & PROPS

hanging to Sarvangasana from the floor may be troublesome at a couple of attempts. A wall support can enable you to get into the pose.

Place the blanket at about a foot away from the wall. The actual distance is dependent on how tall you are.

If you are tall, you will keep a longer distance from the wall. Shorter participants should come nearer. Ensure that you are sitting sideways on the brace while one side is on the wall.

Breathe out; move your shoulders down to the side of the cover while your legs up onto the wall. Curve your knees to 90 degrees; press your feet against the wall.

Then push your pelvis from the support. At the point when your body and thighs are opposite to the floor, push your feet from the wall and finish the pose.

To descend, breathe out your feet back against the wall. Come down.

MODIFICATIONS & PROPS

It’s normal in this pose for students to exert just the index finger edges against the back. Make it a certainty to spread the two palms wide against the back of your body.

Exert some force by pushing in and up over the back ribs, particularly with the pinkies and ring fingers.

Intermittently, remove your hands from the back, push the bones in your shoulders inside, and restore the hands to the back somewhat nearer to the head than they were previously.

PARTNERING

With a partner, you are able to figure out how to utilize your back of the body to open the front.

In this pose, adjusting on the highest points of your shoulders, extend the arms behind you to the side of the blanket you use as brace, roughly parallel to one another.

Let the person at that point take a seat on your brace that is within your arms. The person’s back squeezed to yours. Tilt your body toward one another and utilize the contact to press your scapulas further down the back.

This action will open your sternum to your chin. Also, this person can push your upper arms solidly onto the floor.

VARIATION

There are many forms but the Sarvangasana is among the simplest. It is reffered to as Eka Pada Sarvangasana ( ACHE-ah PAH-dah, ‘eka’ refers to one, ‘pada’ means leg or foot).

Start the pose. Balance out your left leg straight against the floor, at that point breathe out and bring down the right leg to become parallel against the floor and keeping the left in the way it is positioned.

The right leg’s external hip will in general go deep into the floor. Address this, by turning the right leg towards the exteriors, pushing the sitting bone of the leg to the left.

Keep both sitting bones together and roll, beginning at the hip joint to the right leg to the back and to a more neutral position. Stay between 10 and 30 seconds, breathe in your right leg back straight to become perpendicular, and repeat the whole step to the left for the same period of time.

Benny Martica

Benny Martica, a certified Hatha Yoga teacher based in Argentina, is a dedicated and passionate advocate of yoga’s transformative power. With a deep commitment to mindfulness and holistic wellness, she empowers her students to find balance and well-being through the practice of yoga. . Her mission is to inspire others on their path to personal growth and self-discovery.