Winning! (in my Rockstar Stacy voice)

If you've been reading through any of my yoga posts, you know that I struggle with headstand poses - both the tripod headstand and the regular headstand. There's something about being upside down.

This morning, Stacy took me into a wide legged straddle on the mat, and then said that if I wanted I could play around with tripod/tripod headstand. I decided, eh - why not?

So first I went into tripod:


(that's me from earlier this year)

Then, I got focused. I found my drishti - in yoga that is your gaze/focal point. It's helpful in balancing poses to have a drishti to keep your concentration and focus on your breathing. After that, I started my transition into the headstand. Stacy is always telling us that we shouldn't rush into poses...much like life, we need to focus on the transitions.

For some reason, I always start with my right side, so I carefully lifted my right knee from my elbow and pushed it straight into the air, then pointed my toes. Normally, I would immediately try to push that left knee up, but this time I waited. I waited until I had my balance and my abs were engaged. Then I pushed my left knee up (and this is really more about your core than your leg strength).

Voila! I was up in the air! And balanced! And hopefully it looked something like this (I don't know 'cause I couldn't see it. LOL!):


(photo courtesy of fitsugar.com)

I'm guessing that a lot of folks can lift both legs at once. I'm not there yet, and I don't know if I'll ever be there. I'm just happy I was able to stay up there for about 3 breaths before I started to tilt and had to bring my legs down. My goal is to be able to hold that for 5 deep breaths and be able to release with control. Maybe one day come back down into tripod and then move into crow.

Everything is a work in progress. Even though that ab work in yoga is no joke, I try to focus on my breathing and do it, because stronger abs and a stronger core lead to triumphs like this.

Focus on your transitions this week! :)