CHAPTER 6

Peak Poses and Sequences

In power yoga classes, we build to a peak pose or series of poses that require more focus, strength, flexibility, and skill than you may have in the beginning or end of class. In power yoga, the aim is to get your whole body ignited and open through your power sequence so when you get to the peak of your class, you have the freedom and flexibility to work more advanced poses. Peak poses are often the poses you see on social media or are done as party tricks. When practiced in a mindful progression with warm-ups and power poses as your foundation, they can be empowering, intelligent, and rewarding for the body, mind, and spirit. This chapter will explore how to create a peak within your practice through utilizing the space and heat you’ve created in the first part of your practice and working into peak poses.

Igniting Your Peak

Remember that heat and finding your edge set power yoga classes apart from other styles of yoga, and this part of your practice is where you get to utilize your fire. The peak is the apex of your practice. Peak heat can be created with longer holds in a sequence or by working toward a peak pose. The apex of the power yoga practice generally comes about three-quarters of the way through.

The warm-up is important. Your opening poses through your power sequence lay the foundation for the peak of your practice. Building to a peak, the warm-up should include a variety of poses to create a full range of body movement, building strength, balance, and flexibility and moving the spine in all directions—flexion, extension, side bends, and twists. Your breath should be ignited as your whole body feels the heat. Once you feel activated, open, and balanced, then move into your peak with more advanced asanas or challenging holds.

You must expect great things of yourself before you can do them.

Michael Jordan

Creating Peak Heat

The peak of your practice takes you to your edge, where you grow both physically and mentally. The peak of heat doesn’t need to be complicated or advanced. Peak heat can be created through longer holds of strength-building standing poses, like holding crescent lunge or goddess to fire up the legs; a simple sequence of extended holds, like weaving together balancing poses to challenge your stability and focus; or targeted core work to demand more of you than you think is possible. With the peak coming from heat, the goal is to stay in the poses until you feel like you can’t give any more—your muscles are shaking, sweat is running down your face, and your mind is telling you to quit. Stay in the fire and with your breath and give yourself the chance to find your center during a storm. Your mind will want to give up before your body, so notice when your mind tells you that you can’t take any more or that this is too much. That’s the moment you can choose to stay in the pose, smooth out your breath, and access a new level of your power. In the peak, new sensations will arise as you extend the limits of your edge. Watch yourself and give a little more with each breath cycle and every practice as your strength and endurance—both of mind and body— grow.

TEACHING TIP

Look for the Lights

As you begin each class, look for the most advanced student and the most inexperienced. These students are your beacons of light and will help guide you in creating a class that is both challenging and accessible for the students who have showed up for you. Teach to both, affirm them both, and help them find their edges. As you do, you’ll also speak to everyone at every level within the class. Make the steps clear and give permission to stop and explore on the journey to the peak. The end pose isn’t the goal; it’s what your students learn in the process. Highlight the areas of opportunity and growth for every student at every level to explore what’s available throughout the whole class.

The peak of your practice may include a variety of poses, like a few backbends and some handstand drills. Other days, you may want to work on arm strength, and your peak can be a series of planks and side planks held and linked together until you get to your edge. And some days, you may need less heat, leave out the peak entirely, and choose to move into a restorative backbend and finishing poses.

You don’t have to choose a peak pose or a peak series before you begin your practice. I often get on my mat, and all I want to do is move and feel good, and I don’t want to think about how to challenge myself once I build heat. Sometimes I’m not interested in choosing a higher intention or mapping out a sequence to get to a certain pose. Other times, one peak pose will drive my whole practice. Backbends, arm balances, and inversions can be worked into your practice once you establish your mind-body connection and develop heat and flow.

THE BODY-MIND CONNECTION

Your body hears everything your mind says. Pay careful attention to what you are telling yourself, especially when taking on new challenges like these peak poses. If you are telling yourself that you are going to fall before you go into crow or handstand, chances are that you will! If you repeat to yourself that something is too hard or your body won’t be able to do it, then you are declaring it as so. Align your mind with the present and where you want to go. Focus on your breath and each step of the pose. Bring your attention to what you are doing and look for what is possible. Take on these challenges as opportunities for growth. There is power in aligning your thoughts with what you want to have happen, rather than what limits you. The body and mind work as one.

Working Into Peak Poses

Mastering more advanced poses isn’t as simple as just doing the pose. It takes time to prepare and open the body and understand the component parts to create the whole.

When working into a peak pose, it is helpful to have a sense of where you are going before you begin so you can create a skillful sequence with purpose and power. In your warm-up and power poses, introduce actions and a variety of poses that prepare your body for the peak pose. Explore the relationship between the poses and how each pose affects what comes before and after within the sequence. Look for the patterns in shape, body part, energy, and intention. Consider what needs to be warmed up, opened, and engaged to prepare you for the apex of your practice and pick one or two key actions that will drive this home. Small details and repetitive actions help lay the foundation for your peak pose and allow you to find new power and purpose in familiar motions. Thread these movements through your practice to open specific muscles and understand the activation of the peak pose.

Build your warm-up sequence around the actions required for your peak pose. Choose an opening pose and sequence with gentle and expansive movements that inspire your peak. For example, opening the spine with cat and cow can be helpful at the start of your practice if you’re moving into wheel pose as your peak, which requires warming up all the back muscles and opening across your chest and front body.

May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.

Nelson Mandela

Sun salutation variations are great opportunities to weave in physical themes that progress into your peak pose. If you are working up to backbends like wheel, you can add a side stretch within your sun salutation A’s. In your sun salutation B’s, you can hold your warrior poses longer to activate and use the larger muscles of the legs that are essential to wheel pose. You could also add humble warrior to continue to emphasize lengthening the side body, strengthening the legs, and opening the chest and shoulders. As you work the component parts of each pose, you’ll start to turn on and fire new parts of your body and brain and create a path to work toward the peak pose.

The process of working on the prep poses and working toward the peak pose will make you stronger. Your body will create the pose that is exactly what you need in every practice, so enjoy what you can do and be patient. It’s not all about the final pose. There is no need to force anything, and you don’t have to “get anywhere” in your practice. It’s a practice, not a posture race.

Consider these tips for working peak poses:

• Do the pose more than once. Repetition builds new awareness and power. Notice what feels different and what you learn each time you practice the peak pose. Spend some time “working” the pose and see what unfolds as you build alignment and practice the principles.

• Go with your gut. If your intuition leads you to get into a pose using a different approach, try it out. There’s no one way to work a pose that will work for everybody. You build new access to the pose and muscle memory in your body every time you practice.

• Don’t be afraid to fall or fail. Falling is part of the process, and failure is essential to growth. Look for the wisdom in each fall and put it in your learning the next time you try the pose. You have to know your edges to find your center.

TEACHING TIP

Theme to Empower

A theme is an incredible tool for teachers to underscore the actions, intention, and energy of the peak of the class. The theme can be a spiritual, philosophical, or energetic thread that you weave through the practice, much like the actions that support the peak pose. For example, if you are working up to an inversion as your peak pose, you can speak to conquering fears, the trust and vulnerability that is required when you take risks, and the rewards of doing so. Build your sequence with poses that ask your students to challenge their fears and shake things up, like practicing sun salutations with their eyes closed. Be intentional with your theme and use your words to unite the physical practice with the deeper benefits of yoga. This purposeful thread will give your students an experience that empowers them, not just in their yoga practices but also in their lives.

While this applies mostly to teachers, you may want to experiment with weaving a theme through your practice as you develop it. Ask yourself what poses support your intention for your practice. Where can you take more risk? And what poses can you add to challenge yourself and support you in feeling good?

Peak Poses

Peak poses call for more flexibility, finesse, and focus as you reach the apex of your practice. Once you are warmed up and open, you can add more challenge with backbends, inversions, and arm balances. Remember that the power is in the process of the poses and not just in the destination. Stay open to the wisdom of the journey as you balance your efforts with ease and acceptance.

Before we begin, note that a huge part of expanding your power in this practice is knowing when to challenge your limits and when to modify, adapt, let go, and move on. No pose will look the same for everybody, and not all poses are meant for everybody. Sometimes the effort outweighs the reward. Listen to your body, your greatest teacher, to know when to leave certain poses out of your practice or adapt them. It doesn’t mean you won’t ever do those poses, so work with your needs and conditions now. Here are some common contraindications for the groups of poses outlined in this chapter.

Do one thing a day that scares you.

Eleanor Roosevelt

The following are contraindications for backbends:

Back injury

Carpal tunnel syndrome

Headaches

Digestive issues

Heart problems

High or low blood pressure

The following are contraindications for arm balances:

Wrist, shoulder, or neck injuries and sometimes other injuries

Carpal tunnel syndrome

Pregnancy

The following are contraindications for inversions:

Wrist, shoulder, or neck injuries and sometimes other injuries

Ocular conditions

First few days of menstruation

Pregnancy, depending on the practitioner

Backbends

There is a saying in yoga that, “you are only as young and as flexible as your spine.” The spine is where the major energy centers are stored, making it the energy grid for both your body and spirit. Backbends help keep the spine limber and your energy open, empowering your health and helping you age gracefully.

Backbends release vitality along the spinal column, which ignites your energy from the inside out. Backbends help you counteract the repetitive motions of modern life—like sitting at a desk, driving in a car, and looking down at your phone. These poses create suppleness in the hips and spine while strengthening, sculpting, and emphasizing structure and integrity of your whole back. Most backbends are held for 5 to 10 breaths, and I recommend repeating each pose two times or more.

Backbends are also known as heart-opening poses. These poses require courage and vulnerability as well as faith and trust because you go backward and in a direction you don’t normally go. Thus, backbends help you not only move through tension and tightness in the chest, shoulders, and upper back but also clear and open more space energetically in your heart, allowing you to create deeper connections with others and follow your desires.

Locust

Salabhasana

About the Pose

Locust is a great beginning backbend. It strengthens the torso, backs of the arms, and legs as you create length and lift through your entire body.

Alignment

  • Lie on your stomach with your forehead on the mat. Extend your arms by your sides and turn your palms down to the ground.
  • Press all 10 toenails into the mat to engage your legs and roll your inner thighs up to the sky.
  • Reach your tailbone toward your heels and engage your lower abdomen to integrate before you lift. With an inhale, lift your chest, arms, and legs.
  • Reach back through your fingers and toes and forward with your chest.
  • Keep your gaze down, with your neck in line with your spine.

Modifications and Adaptations

  • You can keep your feet or hands on the ground and press into the earth for support as you build strength. Work on activating your upper back and lengthening through your legs.
  • Locust with a bind: Interlace your fingers at your lower back for a bind. Bend your elbows and hug your shoulder blades in toward your centerline. On an inhale, straighten your arms and lift your chest and legs. With your feet hip-width apart, point and spread your toes.

Floor Bow

Dhanurasana

About the Pose

This belly backbend is an amazing opener for the chest, shoulders, hips, and thighs. It strengthens all the back muscles, massages the digestive organs, and stimulates the kidneys and adrenals. Create the balance of effort and ease—not pushing too hard or holding back—so you can access the full benefits of your intentional breath and power that comes from cultivating balanced action from within.

Alignment

  • Lie on your stomach with your forehead on the mat.
  • Bend your knees and grab your outer ankles or tops of your feet, and separate your knees to hip width.
  • With your inhale, kick your shins back and lift your chest with the power from your legs. Embody the energy of an archer’s bow being pulled back with a strong aim.
  • Press your outer shins in toward your centerline and spread your toes.
  • Breathe deeply and allow your chest to open.

Modifications and Adaptations

  • Half bow: If reaching back for both ankles feels like too much, modify into a half bow. Cross your left forearm in front of you and press down into the mat to lift your chest. Reach your right arm back to your right ankle and create a half bow and kick back. Pull both shoulder blades together as you shine your chest forward. Repeat on the other side. You can also use your strap as a connector to reach your foot and ankle.

  • Floor bow with flexed feet: Flex both of your feet and align them at twelve o’clock. Just like you would standing on the ground, press through all four corners of your feet and stretch out through your toes.

Reclined Hero Pose

Supta Virasana

About the Pose

This pose is a grounding backbend melded with a deep stretch for the hips, thighs, knees, ankles, and feet. This variation of the hero pose is best suited for later in the practice during the peak, when the body is warm and open.

Alignment

  • Come into hero pose and sit on the floor between your heels. If this is too intense, let your work be sitting upright and stay seated on your props. If you feel ready to move on, start to recline.
  • Lengthen your tailbone toward your knees, engage your lower abdomen, and start to lean back, and support yourself with your hands or forearms.
  • Stop at any point that you feel resistance, a sign you are at your first edge. Pause there and soften into your pose.
  • If you can, lean all the way back and bring your shoulders to the floor. Catch opposite elbows over your head and rest your arms on your mat.

Modifications and Adaptations

If you have any knee pain or other sharp shooting pain, recline less to reduce the intensity. In every pose, you want to be able to experience the fullness of your breath at your unique edge. This means not suffering when you feel pain and instead choosing to breathe into deep sensation.

Camel

Ustrasana

About the Pose

Camel pose is a deep backbend and an energy-boosting pose. As you open across your chest and entire front body, you stimulate your nervous system and become more alert and aware. Camel pose can help relieve fatigue and anxiety and soothe headaches. Be mindful of not pushing too far or holding back in this pose so you can access the full benefits of your energy-rich breath.

Alignment

  • At the top of your mat, kneel with your knees separated hip-width apart. Stand on your knees. You can flatten the tops of your feet to the mat or tuck your toes for more support.
  • Connect your thumbs at your lower back, then lift your shoulders up by your ears and roll your arm bones back to open your chest.
  • Press your hips forward to keep them stacked over your knees and curl your chest up and back.
  • If it feels good, allow your head to drop back and open your throat.

Modifications and Adaptations

To add more challenge, reach both hands back to your heels.

Bridge

Setu Bandha Sarvangasana

About the Pose

Bridge pose can be both strengthening and restorative. Bridge pose opens the chest, stretches the abdominal wall, and strengthens the legs. It prepares the body for full wheel pose.

Alignment

  • Lie down on your back and place your feet hip-width apart, and stack your knees over your heels.
  • Tilt your pelvis and lengthen your tailbone to the top of your mat.
  • Ground down through all four corners of both feet and press down through your triceps.
  • Inhale and lift your hips high. Wrap your inner thighs down toward the ground. Slowly lower down on an exhale.

Modifications and Adaptations

  • Bridge with a bind: Wiggle your shoulder blades in toward your centerline, clasp your hands, and interlace your fingers for a bind.

  • Bridge with one leg lift: To intensify, root down through your left foot, bring your right knee into your chest, and extend your right heel to the sky. Hold for five more breaths with the extension, then come down and switch to the left side.

  • Supported bridge: This passive variation of bridge opens the lower back and pelvis and can help prepare the body for more active backbends. Lie down and set up for bridge pose with your block within reach. Press down through all four corners of both feet, lift your hips up, and slide your block under your sacrum (the triangular bone at the base of your spine). It may take a few tries to find the sweet spot at the base of your spine and the height of your block that works best for you. Once you find it, settle in and allow your body to be supported by your block and your mat. Try extending your arms overhead or your legs long, if that supports you in your breath and release. Hold for 10 breaths or more to access the restorative benefits of this bridge variation. To come down, press your feet into your mat to lift your hips, slide your block to the side, and slowly lower onto your back.

Wheel

Urdhva Dhanurasana

About the Pose

Wheel pose is a powerful and deep backbend. It requires a coordinated effort of your whole body as it strengthens the arms, legs, and spine; stretches your chest and lungs; and gives you a shot of vital energy. It expands your breath capacity as you stretch and open all the small muscles between your ribs, the intercostal muscles.

Wheel pose is both a backbend and an inversion, so you get the benefits of having your head below your heart. Because wheel pose is such a deep and dynamic backbend, make sure that you warm up and open holistically before moving into it.

Alignment

  • Lie down on your back, bend your knees, and place your feet hip-width apart, with your feet facing twelve o’clock.
  • Set your palms down outside your shoulders, by your ears but wider than your shoulders, with your fingers facing back toward your body.
  • Establish your solid foundation and generate your breath.
  • With an inhale, press up to the crown of your head. Pause here and draw your shoulders onto your back.
  • With your next inhale, press into your foundation and lift off the ground. Allow your entire front body and sides to open while you power up your back, legs, and arms.
  • Spin your inner thighs down and lift your outer hip bones up.

Modifications and Adaptations

  • If you feel that you are struggling to press up, try setting your hands closer to your shoulders. When your base is too long in wheel, it can feel like you are barely hanging on. There is an opportunity for more power and integration by shortening your base.
  • Separate your hands a little wider than your shoulders in the setup before your press up. Draw your shoulder blades onto your back to integrate your shoulders and access more power. Sometimes going wide gives you more space for integration. With your first inhale, come to the crown of your head and emphasize this integration. Move your elbows in toward your body, hug your shoulder blades onto your back, and press up into wheel.

Flip Dog

About the Pose

Flip dog is a modern backbend variation that combines balance, core, and arm strength. It stretches the chest, shoulders, and neck as well as the hip flexors. This playful pose can help with fatigue and lift your mood and is a great backbend to add into a flow sequence.

Alignment

Modifications and Adaptations

To access a deeper opening across your upper body, bend the elbow of your lifted arm in toward your side ribs. Squeeze your shoulder blades together, lift your chest up and open, and then extend your arm with more power.

Arm Balances

Arm-balancing poses can bring a new level of challenge, confidence, and playfulness to your practice as well as develop core and upper-body strength, build bone health, sharpen your reflexes, and cultivate mental discipline. Additionally, practicing “taking flight” in arm balances can help you face fears and challenge-limiting perceptions in your life. These poses can help you move through what’s blocking you and light you up in a way that you are ready for now.

Arm balances require both deep, stable roots and lightness. Developing the skill to be both grounded and buoyant empowers you to experience both qualities simultaneously in life: the balance of effort and ease and strength and flexibility. You risk a very short fall to your mat, but the wisdom that will gain in the process of trying will give you so much more.

Crow

Bakasana

About the Pose

Crow is an upper-body and core strengthener that awakens balance and lightness. Crow is a great entry pose for arm balancing.

Alignment

Modifications and Adaptations

  • Crow with a block: To modify, step onto a yoga block, and use it as a perch for more lift. Pull your lower abdomen up toward the ceiling. You can stay here or gently work more weight onto your hands and try to lift one foot, then the other.

  • Seated crow: Access the core-strengthening benefits of crow while seated. Balance on your seat in boat pose, place your fingertips on the mat behind your hips. Move your elbows back and hug your shoulder blades toward your spine line. Engage your low belly and lift your chest up and open. Keep pressing the arches of your feet together to ignite the energetic line from your feet up into your core and separate your knees wide to create crow legs. Pull the pinkie edges of your feet toward your face, press your big toe mounds away, and spread your toes. Stay in a tight boat pose variation. Lift your hands off the ground, extend your arms forward, and connect your triceps to your knees.

  • Crane: In crow, straighten your arms and transition into crane pose for more of a challenge.

Side Crow

Parsva Bakasana

About the Pose

Side crow is both an arm balance and a twist. It strengthens the core, especially the obliques, and tones the arms, legs, and shoulders.

Alignment

  • Start in a twisting squat, hug your knees together and balance on the balls of your feet.
  • Twist your torso to the right, like in tight prayer twist.
  • Plant both hands on the floor to the outside of your right leg, with your hands shoulder-width apart. Aim your fingers away from you. (This tight twist may be where you stop and work your edge as you get started.)
  • Set your gaze in front of your hands and tune in to your breath.
  • Bend your elbows, lift your hips slightly, and start to transfer your weight onto your hands.
  • Keep your legs and feet together and use your core strength to lift your legs as one unit.
  • Press down into the floor and lift into your core.
  • Repeat on the other side.

Modifications and Adaptations

Step up onto a block and use it as a perch to help you deepen your twist and create lift and leverage to take flight.

Side Plank

Vasisthasana

About the Pose

Side plank integrates the upper and lower body and uses your body weight as resistance to tone and strengthen the arms, wrists, and torso. Side plank has many variations, so build a solid foundation and create an expression that feels good to you.

Alignment

  • Come into high plank pose, stack your shoulders over your wrists, and extend your heels to the back of your mat.
  • Ground down through your left hand, dial both heels to the left, stack the arches of your feet, and lift your right arm to the sky.
  • Look to your top hand and spread your fingers wide.
  • Lengthen your tailbone toward your heels and lift the pit of your belly up and in.
  • Press your hips as high as you can and open your chest.
  • Flex both feet, spread your toes, and hug your leg muscles to the bones. If your feet are inactive in side plank, you are depending heavily on your arm and core strength to keep your whole body lifted. Feet, hands, and core integration are the foundation of the pose.
  • Repeat on the other side.

Modifications and Adaptations

  • When you feel stable with your foundation, start to play with leg variations. Float your top leg up and expand in all directions or create tree pose with your top leg.
  • Wild thing: Plant the big toe mound of your top foot behind your bottom leg and spin your chest high.

  • Full side plank (vasisthasana II): To intensify the pose, flex your feet, activate your legs, and raise your top leg high. Move from your core center and bend your top knee into your chest. Either hold your knee or grab your big toe or outer edge of your foot with your top hand. Extend your heel to the sky. Pull everything in and up to stabilize as you express out in all directions.

  • Plank with one knee down: From tabletop, extend your right foot to the back of your mat, spin your heel to the ground, and stack your right hip on top of your left. Ground down through your left hand. Inhale, lift your right arm high, and expand across your heart. Gaze up past your top hand. For more support, bring your top hand to your top hip.

  • Fallen triangle: From down dog splits, on an exhale, shift your weight forward onto your hands, hug in, and touch your right knee to your left tricep. Kick your right heel past your left wrist. Press down into the outer edge of your right foot and squeeze your inner thighs together. Press down through your right-hand knuckles, lift your left arm to the sky, and gaze up to your top hand. To deepen your opening and expression, you can drop your head back and reach your top arm back.

Forearm Plank

About the Pose

This pose is a modified version of a high push-up on your forearms. Forearm plank strengthens the core, stabilizes and stretches the shoulders, and tones the arms and legs. This pose is sometimes called dolphin plank.

Alignment

  • From high plank, transition down to your forearms, one arm at a time. You can flatten your palms to the mat or interlace your fingers.
  • Press your forearms down and soften your thoracic spine (upper and middle back) to integrate your shoulders.
  • Hug into your centerline. Press your outer shins in. Firm your leg muscles to the bones.
  • Extend your crown forward and reach your heels back.
  • Lengthen your tailbone toward your heels and engage your lower abdomen.
  • Light up your whole body, feeling everything working together as one powerful vessel.

Modifications and Adaptations

  • To lessen the intensity, modify by bringing your knees to the ground.
  • Plank to forearm plank: To build heat and strength, move up and down between your hands and forearms. From plank, place your right forearm on the mat, then walk your left forearm down into forearm plank. Plant your right palm on the ground, and then bring your left hand down to press back up to plank. Repeat this sequence 10 times, alternating which arm begins. Link with your breath. Lower to forearm plank on the inhale and press up to plank on the exhale.
  • Heel twists: Keep both forearms sealed to your mat, and on your exhale, twist both heels to the right. Squeeze your obliques. With you inhale, bring your heels back to center. With your next exhale, twist both heels to the left. Keep twisting with breath to stoke your inner fire and build massive heat.

Inversions

Inversions are known for mood- and health-boosting benefits, but they’re also great tools to help you break free from the seriousness of the adult world. Inversions in yoga are said to be the fountain of youth. Going upside down can infuse a sense of wonder, exploration, and play into your practice and life and can be fun and empowering.

Inversions are invigorating and rejuvenating. They promote circulation, move energy back into the vital organs, relieve physical stress on the spine, and can reduce swelling in your feet, legs, and pelvis. They positively affect all the major systems in the body—endocrine, cardiovascular, lymphatic, and nervous systems. When you put your head below your heart and reverse the flow within your body, you are literally turning your world upside down and recalibrating your biochemistry.

They can also be very calming and soothing as you create a sense balance within the poses because they require deep focus and attention. Inversions like headstand, handstand, or forearm balance can help you get out of your head and into your body. Inversions help infuse the brain with fresh energy and oxygen, which soothes and revitalizes the nervous system. As you release the muscles in your neck, you open the pathway to bring more oxygen-rich blood into the brain. As you breathe deeply in the inversion, you infuse even more energy (prana) into each breath, and more energy and blood are directed to the brain to re-energize your thinking. If you feel like you are stuck in your head or lost in your thoughts, try shaking things up and do an inversion. Flip your energy upside down and see what clarity emerges from resetting your system physically.

The more you stack your spine and joints, the easier it will be to find and create balance while inverting. You must work to establish a firm foundation—through your hands, forearms, or head—and extend upward through the feet, as if you were standing on the ceiling. Root down to grow high.

“We are very afraid of being powerless. But we have the power to look deeply at our fears, and then fear cannot control us.”

Thich Nhat Hahn

When I first started my yoga practice, inversions were difficult for me. I hadn’t played on my hands in years, and I was still working through some trauma and injury from a fall when I was a college cheerleader. Once I started getting back into my body with my yoga practice, I started to crave this challenge, and I began practicing handstands with the support of a wall. I built my inversion practice outside of the studio first, and the space next to my desk became my handstand spot. During conference calls at work, I would press the mute button, kick my feet up against the wall, and go upside down. I felt the benefits from my inversions—I felt refreshed, renewed, and inspired after long calls, when before I would feel drained and depleted. And eventually, I was able to start kicking up to handstand in my practice in the middle of the yoga room.

INVERSIONS AND YOUR MOON CYCLE

Is it safe to do inversions during your period? I get this question a lot. If you are no longer menstruating or this doesn’t apply to you, feel free to skip this section. In some yoga styles and traditions, it is not advised to do inversions while menstruating. From a yogic perspective, this has to do with not wanting to reverse or interrupt the natural downward flow of energy, known as apana, during your cycle.

However, every woman is different, and no one period is the same. I suggest following the same wisdom as the rest of your practice. Do what feels best to you and adapt your practice to meet your needs. I usually don’t feel like practicing at all the first few days of my cycle, and if I do practice, it’s much slower and more restorative. Toward the end of my cycle, my energy shifts, and I usually feel a lot of connection to my core and like to go upside down. Listen to your body and create your practice in a way that works and feels good for you.

Going upside down can be super fun but is not required. You can skip inversions completely or take a more restorative variation. Practice patience with yourself as you build strength and face your fears. Yoga is a journey, not a destination.

Headstand

Sirsasana A

About the Pose

Headstand is known as the king of asanas. Standing on your head with optimal alignment strengthens the whole body and refreshes the mind. Sirsasana, or traditional headstand, helps relieve fatigue and stress as you flush your whole body and brain with oxygen-rich blood and new energy. It tones the abdomen and helps improve digestion

Headstand is considered a more advanced pose, so is best suited for students with some experience in their practices. A solid base is necessary to build this pose. Once you have a strong and consistent practice, then gradually begin working the steps of headstand into your practice as a peak pose. There is no need to rush anything in yoga, and this is especially true for poses on the head and neck.

Alignment

Modifications and Adaptations

Once you feel stable in your headstand, play with leg variations. Trying bending both knees for pinwheel legs or eagle legs or a wide straddle.

Tripod Headstand

Sirsasana B

About the Pose

Tripod headstand delivers similar benefits as traditional headstand. It also opens the gates for many more advanced transitions and arm balances.

Alignment

Modifications and Adaptations

If you feel there is a lot of pressure on your head, try putting a folded blanket under it. You can also practice both versions of headstand close to a wall for support.

Dolphin

Ardha Pincha Mayurasana

About the Pose

Dolphin pose is preparatory pose for forearm balance and has many benefits on its own. It’s a deep stretch for the shoulders and upper back and strengthens the core, arms, and legs.

Alignment

  • From plank pose, lower to your forearms. Walk your feet toward the top of your mat to create a short downward-facing dog on your forearms.
  • Press your forearms firmly into the mat.
  • Lift your gaze to between your hands.

Modifications and Adaptations

If your back starts to round, bend your knees to help create length through your entire spine.

Forearm Balance

Pincha Mayurasana

About the Pose

Forearm balance strengthens and stretches the arms, neck, and upper back. It’s helpful to use a wall for support as you build into this pose.

Alignment

Modifications and Adaptations

If you feel your elbows sliding away from each other as you are going up, try using a strap around your triceps to help maintain the width of your base. You can also place a block between your hands and use the L shape of your thumbs and index fingers to hug the block and pull into your centerline.

Handstand

Adho Mukha Vrksasana

About the Pose

Handstands can be fun and empowering and can give you a break from overthinking. Handstand is mountain pose, but you’re on your hands. As you begin and build your handstand practice, I suggest using a wall for support. Set your base about a foot away from the wall and make sure nothing is hanging that will be in your way.

Alignment

  • Walk your feet halfway up your mat and come into a short downward-facing dog.
  • Lift your gaze between your hands, shift your shoulders over your wrists, and lift your right leg high.
  • Bend your standing leg slightly, exhale all your air to access the strength in your core, and hop your feet up.
  • You can keep your heels on a wall or try to catch some air out in the open.
  • Switch sides when you feel ready. Have fun!

Modifications and Adaptations

  • L-shaped handstand: Come into a short downward facing dog with your heels against a wall. Plant your hands to make roots. Bring one foot up to hip level, then lift the other foot to create an L shape, setting your feet against a wall (not pictured). Stack your hips over your shoulders and wrists. Keep your arms straight and strong as you lift your hips up to the sky. To intensify, keep your legs together, and on your exhale hop with your legs piked in to handstand, as shown.

  • Handstand hops: In your short downward-facing dog, set your drishti between your hands, stack your shoulders over your wrists, and lift your right leg. Bend your standing leg slightly, exhale your air, and hop up. Repeat a few times and then switch sides. You can also bend your standing leg into a stag to help find you balance on your hands.

  • Handstand switch kicks: Switch kicks build on your handstand hops. On your right side, as you exhale and hop up, switch kick your legs through handstand to land with your right foot down and left leg high. With your left leg up, hop up and land on your right leg. Keep moving for 10 rounds or more as you switch your legs, generating heat and core strength. Maybe catch some air in handstand along the way.

Leapfrog Hops

About the Pose

Leapfrog hops are a fun way to build the strength and skill to go upside down. Maintain a waterlike quality through your pelvis as you hop and have fun! Leapfrog hops can also be added to your sun salutations as you shoot back to chaturanga.

Alignment

  • Walk halfway up your mat and come into a short downward-facing dog.
  • Step your feet together to connect your arches, lift your heels, and separate your knees wide to create crow legs.
  • Keep this connection at your feet to ignite the energetic line from your feet up into your core. This plugs you into your core power as you hop up and creates total body integration.
  • Lift your seat high and look forward, past your fingers.
  • With your exhale, hop your hips up over your shoulders.
  • As soon as you come down, hop back up for 10 rounds.

Modifications and Adaptations

To build strength and confidence, you can practice these close to a wall.

Shoulderstand

Salamba Sarvangasana

About the Pose

Shoulderstand is considered one of the most essential yoga poses. It is a rejuvenating inversion that promotes circulation and helps improve immunity. It has a calming effect because it stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, creating harmony in the body and mind. It’s important to build your shoulderstand practice gradually and safely because your body weight is supported by your shoulders, neck, and head.

Alignment

Modifications and Adaptations

  • If you have any neck or back problems, or feel strained in this pose, I suggest leaving this pose out of your practice for now. Legs-up-the-wall pose is a great alternative to shoulderstand.
  • For more support, place a folded blanket under your shoulders. Avoid putting any props under your neck.
  • Half shoulderstand: This is a less intense variation of shoulderstand, but you still reap the same benefits. Lower your legs to a 45-degree angle and create the shape between shoulderstand and plow pose.

Legs-Up-the-Wall Pose

Viparita Karani

About the Pose

This pose is a passive and supported inversion that allows the blood from your legs to flow back into your midsection. I recommend performing legs-up-the-wall anytime you need to restore and reset your energy. This pose is great for relieving lower back pain.

Alignment

  • Scoot one hip next to a wall, lie down on your back, and lift your legs up the wall. You can also place a block or blanket under your sacrum and lift your heels to the sky.
  • Let the weight of your legs set your thigh bones back and expand your lower back.
  • Keep your legs active but easy and allow the energy and blood to flow from your legs to your vital organs.
  • Extend your arms to your sides and allow your body to restore and rejuvenate. Turn your palms up to the sky as a symbol that you are open and ready to receive. Hold for 10 to 20 breaths or more.

Modifications and Adaptations

You don’t need a wall to do this pose. Simply lie on your back and lift your legs into the air to access the same restorative benefits. You can add a block underneath your sacrum, as shown.

Plow Pose

Halasana

About the Pose

Plow pose is a deep back opener that stretches the shoulders and spine. It stimulates the vital organs of the abdomen and the thyroid, and can help with back pain and headaches. Plow pose often follows shoulderstand.

Alignment

  • If you are transitioning into plow from shoulderstand, keep your legs straight as you slowly lower your toes to the ground. Otherwise, lie on your back with your arms along your sides.
  • With your exhale, press down with your arms, roll up onto your shoulders with your hips over your shoulders, and lift your legs up and over.
  • Draw your shoulder blades closer together and either place your hands on your midback for stability or interlace your fingers for a bind. Press your triceps into the mat.
  • If your toes touch the ground behind you, flex your feet, firm your legs, and lift the backs of your knees skyward.
  • Set your drishti straight up to the ceiling and lift your chin slightly. Do not move your head or neck while you are in the pose.
  • To come out of the pose, lengthen your arms along the sides of your mat. Engage your core and slowly lower down to the mat one vertebra at a time.

Modifications and Adaptations

  • If you feel any strain in your neck or upper back, hold off on plow pose for now and instead do legs-up-the-wall pose.
  • Ear pressure pose (karnapidasana): From plow pose, bend your knees to the outside of your ears. Keep your arms extended, or place your hands on your heels or behind your knees.

Fish Pose

Matsyasana

About the Pose

Fish pose is a powerful counterpose that releases the muscles in the back and opens the throat, chest, and entire front of the torso. Fish pose stimulates and opens the throat and heart areas, which are the centers for self-expression and communication. Fish pose is often practiced after shoulderstand and plow as a counterpose.

Alignment

  • Lie on your back with your legs extended out in front of you and expand through your toes.
  • Press your forearms into the mat at shoulder-width apart and slide your hands under your sit bones with your palms on the mat.
  • Draw your shoulder blades toward your centerline and expand across your chest and collarbones.
  • Pull your chin into your chest; then let your head drop back. Touch your crown to the floor.
  • Open your throat and breathe deeply.

Modifications and Adaptations

Full-extension fish: To deepen the pose, bring your arms together above you, unite your palms, and reach your fingertips to where the front wall meets the ceiling. From your core, press your legs together and lift your feet off the earth. Spread your toes.

Peak Sequences

Peak sequences constitute the crescendo of your practice because you build up to this series that requires more opening, skill, focus, and heat. Before you begin these sequences or work into a peak pose, I recommend a solid warm-up with an opening sequence, a few rounds of sun salutation A and sun salutation B, and a power sequence that includes standing poses, balancing, and twists to holistically prepare and open the body. For each peak sequence in this chapter, I’ve included suggestions for prep poses from previous chapters to weave in the building blocks for the peak poses.

This is the peak of your practice, and it is meant to be challenging and imperfect. Allow yourself the freedom to explore bending backward and going upside down and look for the wisdom and the fun in falling down and trying again. This is how we learn and grow. As you welcome the unsteady parts of your yoga practice patience and grace, you can start to meet life as it comes, both the highs and the lows, and feel the freedom and ease that emerge from your yoga practice.

After you’ve hit your peak, make sure you take time to cool down, restore, and take a final rest. We’ll get into the details about the finishing poses of your practice in the next chapter.

Backbend Peak Sequence: Wheel

Prep Poses

  1  Crescent twist
(page 155)

  2  Warrior II
(page 117)

  3  Extended side angle
(page 119)

  4  Dancer
(page 146)

Peak Sequence

  1  Down dog splits with bent knee
(page 81)

  2  Flip dog
(page 184)

  3  Down dog splits
(page 81)

  4  Crescent lunge with a bind
(page 125)

  5  Locust
(page 176)

  6  Floor bow
(page 177)

  7  Bridge
(page 180)

  8  Wheel
(page 182)

Arm Balance Peak Sequence: Crow and Leapfrogs

Prep Poses

  1  Down dogs splits with plank curl
(page 81)

  2  Chair twist
(page 153)

  3  Eagle
(page 140)

Peak Sequence

  1  Boat
(page 248)

  2  Seated crow
(page 188)

  3  Crow
(page 187)

  4  Leapfrog hops
(page 204)

Inversions Peak Sequence: Handstand

Prep Poses

  1  Plank waves
(page 251)

  2  Extended side angle with a bind
(page 120)

  3  Airplane
(page 150)

  4  Standing splits
(page 151)

Peak Sequence

  1  L-shaped handstand
(page 203)

Note that this step is done against a wall, with the feet on the wall (not pictured).

  2  Handstand hops (prep shown)
(page 203)

  3  Handstand switch kicks
(page 203)

  4  Handstand
(page 202)