This Side Up: Building a Forearm Balance
Going upside down makes you stronger and more flexible. Plus it changes your perspective. Use this sequence to build to Forearm Balance and watch your body and mind transform.
By Cyndi Lee
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 You want progress and you want it now. It's natural to feel impatient when you're itching to lift into Headstand or want to quell the constant worries that arise in your mind. But real change is subtle and requires patience and persistence. Fortunately, doing yoga regularly can help you turn negative habits and fearful thoughts upside down. Challenging poses that may have once seemed preposterous, like inversions, will become possible, even fun.
Inversions like Pincha Mayurasana present wonderful opportunities for profound physical and mental transformation, but they're also rife with obstacles. Begin by simply noticing the obstacles that keep you from going upside down easily. When you acknowledge these blocks, you have something to work with, and a pathway to new possibilities reveals itself. You can nudge things along by cultivating meditative awareness and breaking inversions down into smaller, easier steps. This makes the goal of "perfection" less important; instead you can work creatively and enjoy the journey, no matter how long it takes.
In the May/June 2005 issue (see "Block Steady"), we focused on a series of inversions to build strength. As you continue this work by building up to Pincha Mayurasana—a pose that requires a courageous, open heart, not to mention flexibility in the upper back and shoulders—notice when you feel challenged. If the physical part is hanging you up, concentrate on your upper body or your abdominal muscles to create the conditions necessary to go upside down. If fear is the problem and it takes hold, fully experience its texture as it arises, stay steady as those feelings move through you, and watch how they naturally dissolve. Try the meditative exercise in "Before You Begin" (next page) to help with this.
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