How to Do L-Pose Handstand at the Wall

Going upside down on your hands can be slightly intimidating, but everyone’s got to start somewhere. Enter the L-Pose Handstand.

The perfect introduction to Handstand (especially for students who aren’t quite ready to kick up to the wall), the L-Pose allows you to become comfortable going upside down with weight on your hands in a more controlled manner.

Plus, it’s a fantastic strength builder and shoulder opener for yogis of all levels, and a great tool for teachers.

If you feel strong and comfortable with straight arms in Downward Facing Dog and are ready to try going upside down, below is a step-by-step guide to L-Pose at the wall.

Step 1

Sit on your mat with your back against the wall, and with your legs straight out in front of you pressing out through your heels. Reach your arms straight over head with the backs of your hands pressing into the wall.
Notice that you’re in the shape of an “L” with a 90-degree bend at your waist. Now imagine inverting your shape — placing your palms where your heels are on the mat and your heels pressing into the wall where the backs of your hands are, making the same “L” shape.

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Step 2

Using a block or any object lying around, mark where your heels are on the mat, and come onto all fours with your hands in line with your marker, knees under hips and the soles of your feet pressing at the wall.
Spreading your fingers, press down through the pads of your thumbs and index fingers and straighten your arms. Draw your shoulder blades firmly onto your upper back and broaden your collarbones.

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Step 3

Tuck your toes under on the floor and straighten your legs, coming into a shortened version of Down Dog at the wall. (You’re going to feel like you’re way too close to the wall, you’re not – leave your hands in line with your marker.)

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Step 4

Continue to press the inner edges of your palms down into the mat and your arms straight as you take one foot up the wall with your toes curled under at about the height of your hips.

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Step 5

Begin to straighten the raised leg, pressing the sole of your foot into the wall, and sending your hips over your shoulders as you bring the second leg up to join the first.
Here’s where some fear tends to creep in. Most students are leery of sending their hips over their shoulders, and will often walk their feet higher up the wall to avoid the 90-degree bend. Or they will sometimes walk their hands further away from the wall, making it impossible to come into the shape of an L.
If that’s you, simply walk your feet back down to where you can put your soles flat into the wall and your legs parallel to the floor.

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Step 6

With your hands, shoulders, and hips stacked, press the soles of both feet firmly into the wall and straighten both legs.
Now you’re in L-Pose!

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Did you try it? Does L-Pose Handstand seem more approachable than Handstand? Let us know in the comments below!

Meagan McCrary Meagan McCrary is an experienced yoga teacher and writer with a passion for helping people find more comfort, clarity, compassion and joy on the mat and in their lives. She is the author of "Pick Your Yoga Practice: Exploring and Understanding Different Styles of Yoga", a comprehensive encyclopedia of prominent yoga styles and practical wisdom. Knowledgeable, passionate and playful, her teaching style is incredibly inclusive and empowering, and her retreats are transformative. Check out her blog and latest offerings at www.MeaganMcCrary.com, and play along with Meagan on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. 

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Handstand Tutorial

Want to work toward a safe and confident handstand? Try these tips, while applying the principles of persevering practice and non-attachment to your practice.

  BY Mark Stephens

Part of the sublime nature of hatha yoga is the infinite potential it offers for deepening, refining, and evolving our practice as a process of self-transformation. At first, a new asana or pranayama technique might seem altogether daunting. But through abhyasa, or persevering practice, we stay fully committed to the path, and with vairagya, an attitude of non-attachment, we embody our higher intention instead of identifying with the outcome of the pose or the completion of a goal.

Handstand helps build strength, confidence, and self-acceptance.

We’ll examine these principles by working toward adho mukha vrikshasana (downward-facing tree pose, or handstand). An intermediate-level asana, handstand helps us build strength, confidence, and self-acceptance. It supports transformation precisely because it is challenging: it challenges us to stand on our hands instead of our feet, to find balance when our normal relationship to gravity is inverted, and to overcome a palpable and perfectly rational fear of falling. By persevering through these challenges we generate tapas, the self-purifying inner fire of transformation.

Wisdom of Gradual Progression

To integrate abhyasa and vairagya in hatha practice, we can work with the concept of vinyasa krama. Vinyasa means “to place in a special way” and krama, or “stage,” refers to the effective sequencing of actions. Vinyasa krama allows us to chart our course through a more sustainable and accessible practice by giving each successive asana a meaningful place in relation to what has come before and what will follow.

A vinyasa krama practice typically follows an arc-like structure, first sequencing toward the peak asana(s) by moving from simple to more complex postures that warm the body and give targeted attention to areas where you will work more deeply. Anticipatory asanas help open and stabilize the muscles and joints most involved in the peak pose. After exploring the peak, the sequence follows a path of integration toward shavasana, each successive asana releasing the tension that may have arisen in earlier stages.
As you apply these principles in the handstand sequence that follows, cultivate an abiding sense of vairagya: allow the asanas and the practice to come to you as you consciously explore opening to them. Use the breath and the intensity of physical sensation to guide your effort, and remember that it is not about how far you go but how you go. You may find your practice is best explored without getting to the fullest expression of the peak pose.

Watch a Video of the Handstand Sequence

This brief handstand tutorial demonstrates some of the practices outlined in this article. Watch it—and after you read the article, use it as a mini-class as you build strength for adho mukha vrikshasana.

 

Anticipatory Warming and Awakening

To begin, warm the body with the surya namaskar (sun salutation) variation of your choice. Pause to explore in the asanas where there are elements that anticipate handstand or that prepare the body to ultimately make handstand more accessible, as follows:

In tadasana (mountain pose), cultivate pada bandha (energetic activation through the feet) as a tool for awakening awareness along the midline of the body, accessing mula bandha (root lock), and stimulating the flow of energy up through the core of the body.

Practice urdhva hastasana (upward hand pose) while maintaining pelvic neutrality, natural extension of the spine, and full flexion of the arms overhead. This pose has all the alignment principles that you will try to find in handstand, and is particularly helpful in feeling pelvic neutrality in relation to the spine, and neutral spinal extension while reaching the arms fully overhead.
In anjaneyasana (low lunge pose), gradually release more deeply to stretch the hip flexors, especially the iliopsoas.

Hold phalakasana (plank pose) for up to one minute to gain a sense of buoyancy through the hands, arms, and shoulder girdle. Phalakasana also awakens the transverse abdominal muscles that help stabilize the torso in handstand.

If practicing chaturanga dandasana (four-limbed staff pose), keep the legs and abdomen active while awareness is naturally drawn into the hands, arms, and shoulders. Keep the shoulder blades rooted on the back for increased stability and ease, and don’t bring the shoulders lower than the elbows to protect the shoulder joint. Keep the knuckles of the index fingers firmly rooted to maintain balanced grounding through the hands and wrists.
In adho mukha shvanasana (downward-facing dog pose), you will learn, develop, and refine most of the elements of handstand.

Downward-facing dog teaches us the principle of roots and extension: as you root down, you equally extend and stabilize. Balance the pressure across the hands by pressing down more firmly through the knuckles of the index fingers. Try to feel the “rebounce” effect of this rooting action in the natural lengthening through the wrist, elbow, and shoulder joints. If you have difficulty straightening your arms, play with turning your hands slightly out; if you tend to hyperextend your elbows, turn the hands slightly in.
Tight or weak shoulders create specific risks to the neck, back, elbows, wrists, and the shoulders themselves, in downward-facing dog and handstand. Moderate effort in downward-facing dog develops both strength and flexibility, opening the shoulders to greater flexion. Externally rotating the shoulders may cause the inner edges of the hands to lift; balance this effort by internally rotating the forearms, thereby establishing stability and ease in the hands, wrists, and shoulders.
With each exhalation, feel the light and natural engagement of your abdominal muscles. Try to maintain that subtle engagement while inhaling, without gripping in your belly. This light engagement in your core is a key source of stability in handstand.

Opening the Shoulders

One of the main challenges in handstand arises from tight shoulders. Imagine for a moment that you are able to raise your arms only halfway overhead, and that you are now in handstand—the rest of your body will not be able to line up over your arms. This is why many bodies are shaped like a banana when in handstand, making balance more elusive.
The easiest path to opening the shoulders to full flexion is through adho mukha shvanasana, as well as garudasana (eagle pose) and gomukhasana (cow face pose). Garudasana arm position stretches the rhomboids, a key set of muscles which can restrict movement of the shoulders when they’re tight. Gomukhasana arm position opens the chest and shoulder girdle.

You can also play with lying on a rolled blanket placed across your shoulder blades; interlace your fingers and stretch your arms overhead.

Preparation for Handstand

To move closer toward adho mukha vrikshasana, come to a wall. Start with your hands on the wall at hip height, with your hips aligned over your heels. Look forward to position the arms parallel, then gaze at your belly to draw your lower front ribs in. Rotate your pelvis forward to bring your sacrum more level with the floor, and bring your ears level with your arms. 

Pressing your hands into the wall, spiral the tops of your shoulder blades away from the spine while rooting the bottom tips of the shoulder blades into your back; balance this action by internally rotating the forearms and pressing through the knuckles of the index fingers. Activate your legs and try to press your hips away from your hands; then slowly extend one leg up behind you. Be more interested in keeping the hips level than in how high you raise the leg. Hold for several breaths before switching sides.
Next, reverse this position: place your hands where your feet were, place one foot on the wall where your hands were, and press into the foot to straighten the lifted leg; then place your other foot on the wall alongside. If you feel comfortable, extend one leg up to the sky, then switch sides. Try to hold for one minute, then release into uttanasana (standing forward bend pose).

If you have the strength to hold the second preparatory position for over a minute, you most likely have the strength to do full handstand for at least several breaths. Otherwise, stay with the preparatory practices until you feel sufficiently steady and relaxed with them.

The Peak Pose 

Getting Up into Handstand

There are several ways to get up into handstand, each one progressively more challenging: using assistance (which may get you up prematurely), scissor kicking, or piking.

Scissor Kicking

Come into downward-facing dog with your fingertips placed about five inches away from a wall (closer if you have really open shoulders and hip flexors). Keeping your arms straight and strong (without hyperextending the elbows), walk in until your shoulders are aligned over your wrists. Gazing between your thumbs, extend one leg up about two feet off the floor, keeping it straight, strong, and internally rotated. This is your swinging leg. 

Now start to play with springing off the other leg while simultaneously extending your swinging leg up overhead. With each exhalation you will feel the natural engagement of your abdominal muscles. Without gripping in your belly, try to maintain this light engagement in your core as you spring and swing up with the inhalation. The moment you’ve released your springing leg, make it straight and strong too, feeling that leg being pulled to the sky by the momentum of your hips and swinging leg. Keep springing and swinging until both legs meet at the wall.

Piking

When you’re comfortable scissor kicking up with either leg, graduate to piking. Start as before in downward-facing dog, but with the hands about six to eight inches away from the wall, and feet just about a foot closer in from downward-facing dog. 

Gazing down between the thumbs, play with simultaneously making both legs into springs, while shifting your weight forward and back over your shoulders. Keep your arms and shoulders stable, and envision rotating your pelvis up toward the wall as you spring off both feet as powerfully as you can. The moment you’ve sprung, make both legs straight and strong, elevating your hips over your shoulders and bringing your legs parallel to the floor, and eventually straight up overhead.

Aligning into Balance

Now it’s time to explore balancing. Upon arriving upside down in handstand, drop your head to gaze across the room, draw your lower front ribs slightly in, and try to find pelvic neutrality. Press firmly down through your hands while rooting the knuckles of your index fingers. Maintain external rotation of the upper arms and begin to press even more strongly down through your hands. If it is comfortable for your neck, shift your gaze down between your thumbs; while this makes alignment in the spine more challenging, it makes balancing easier.
Bring your awareness to your legs. Keeping the ankles together, internally rotate the thighs and energize out through the balls of the feet, while spreading the toes. As you root your hands and extend up through the entire length of your body, create a feeling of drawing energy to the midline, cultivating stability deep in the core. Use the actions of your feet and legs to more easily access and sustain mula bandha, accentuating a sense of awakened energy drawing along your spine.

It's equally important to know how to get into the pose--and how to get out of it.

Rather than drawing one leg and then the other away from the wall, keep strongly rooting and extending while visualizing your body coming into a straight line from the wrists through the shoulders, hips, and ankles. Get longer while stabilizing your shoulders, torso, and legs, continuously drawing energy to center. Keep the breath smooth and steady. As you get longer and more stable, your hips will gravitate over your wrists, your heels will leave the wall, and your body will gradually align into initial balance.

To refine your balance, play with slight movement of your lower ribs in and out, and slight rotation of your pelvis forward and back, until you feel like you are in better alignment. If you have strong and resilient wrists and you’re close to balance, play with alternately pressing more and then less firmly into your fingertips, feeling how this shifts your balance slightly forward and backward from center.

Integrating

It is important to know not just how to get into a pose but how to get out. This means not just coming down from handstand, but integrating the experience through pratikriyasana, or opposite action, which dissolves whatever tension has arisen and restores energetic balance.
However far you make it toward handstand, when releasing, first come into uttanasana or balasana (child’s pose) for at least a few breaths.

Use basic wrist movements and shoulder openers to relieve tension in the wrists, shoulders, neck, and upper back. For release in the wrists, come up to sitting in virasana (hero pose) with your palms together in anjali mudra (reverence seal), then reverse your hands, fingers pointing down, and press the backs of your hands and fingers into each other.

Shake out your hands really well, place your fingertips on the floor and repeatedly snap them toward each other, with the fingertips lifting off the floor but not touching. Play around with other wrist stretches, such as moving your hands around in circles.

For a calming progression, rest in balasana, release the spine with simple twists, and settle into a forward bend such as pashchimottanasana (posterior stretch).

If instead you prefer to move with the awakened energy and warmth created through your handstand practice, consider exploring heart-opening backbends such as setu bandha sarvangasana (bridge) and dhanurasana (bow pose).

Unless you have very happy wrists, avoid backbends such as urdhva dhanurasana (wheel) that hyperextend the wrists.
As you complete your overall practice session, settle into a profoundly restful shavasana, assimilating a deeper sense of abhyasa and vairagya. Let the persevering practice be one of doing nothing: allow the breath to flow freely and surrender into blissful awareness.
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Healthy Hips and knees

Bring your lower body into balance with safe sequencing and sensible alignment.

BY Marla Apt 

If you’ve ever experienced knee or hip pain, you know how tenuous simple activities such as walking down the stairs or squatting can feel—let alone attempting the vast range of positions and movements in a typical yoga class. Losing the spring in your step while babying a bum knee or hip can be humbling, and fear of further injury may lead you to completely immobilize yourself, which can actually exacerbate the condition. Luckily, yoga offers many tools to create space and relieve pain in the knees and hips.

Save for acute injuries, knee and hip pain are most commonly caused by wear and tear, which can be further irritated by the subtlest asymmetry. Imbalances in the hips can disturb the alignment of the knees, and vice versa. The range of motion in the hip (a ball and socket joint) is more varied than in the knee (a hinge joint). While the knee is mostly designed for flexion and extension, the hip can also be abducted, adducted, and rotated externally and internally. Limited mobility or hypermobility in any of the movements of the hip can contort and damage the knee. For example, if your upper leg doesn’t easily externally rotate from the hip, you may compensate by turning the lower leg instead, which torques the knee and overstretches connective tissue around the joint. Through yoga we can stretch and strengthen the muscles around the hips and thighs in order to address the full range of motion in the hips, and in effect, protect the knees.

Safe Sequencing for Hips and Knees

Knee problems tend to present us with more immediate feedback than hip problems, where it may take years of joint deterioration before the pain begins to express itself. When the knee is painful or swollen, it is best to start your yoga practice with non-weight-bearing asanas. Choose poses that extend the knee and align the upper and lower leg over the knee joint, such as supta padangusthasana I (reclining big toe pose I) and upavishta konasana (seated angle pose) in the sequence below.

In weight-bearing asanas, whether the knee is bent or straight, it’s important to ensure that the knee is tracking properly. We’ll examine this closely inparshvakonasana (side angle pose), where proper external rotation of the hip allows you to safely bend the knee, and in utthita hasta padangusthasana(extended hand to big toe pose), where lining up the ankle, knee, and hip in the standing leg serves to stabilize the hip.

In bent-knee poses, make sure that the inner portion of the knee isn’t stretching or contracting more than the outer portion. If knee flexion is limited when bending beyond 90 degrees, as in virasana (hero pose), place props such as a rolled cloth or a folded blanket behind the knees to create space in the joint. Once you work on knee flexion, the knee should again be extended in straight-legged asanas.

Let’s examine these principles in more detail. Hold each pose in the sequence below for one to two minutes on each side.

Supta Padangusthasana I (Reclining Big Toe Pose I)

While this pose requires hip flexion, it doesn’t involve rotation, abduction, or adduction of the hip, so the inner and outer edges of the knee can be stretched evenly. Lie down on your back, extend your legs, and press the thighs down toward the floor. Even though your back is in a neutral position and the lumbar spine doesn’t touch the floor, the lower back should feel long. Keep your toes and knees pointing straight up toward the ceiling. Extend from your calves to your heels and broaden the soles of your feet.

Bend your right knee in toward your chest and place a belt around the ball of the right foot. Press your right hip into the floor as you raise your right leg up, perpendicular to the floor. If you can’t straighten the leg, or if your right buttock lifts off the floor, take your foot further away from your head. Pull on the belt to draw the balls of the toes down toward the floor, and extend from the back of your right knee up through your right heel. Keep the bottom of your right foot parallel to the ceiling and the toes and knee of your left leg pointing straight up.

Now move the belt back to the heel of your right foot and press the inner edge of your right heel into the belt reaching the ball of the foot toward the ceiling. Press the front of your right thigh to the back of the leg to fully straighten the leg. As you push your heel up into the belt, pull on the belt to draw the right thigh down into the hip socket. Keep the outer edge of your right hip grounded as you press the left thighbone down toward the floor. Extend from the left calf to the left heel. Make sure that the right knee is facing straight ahead as you reach up through the ball of the right big toe.

Bend the right knee toward your chest and then extend the leg on the floor before doing the pose on the left side. You can repeat this pose several times on each side to relieve pain in the knees.

Upavishta Konasana (Seated Angle Pose)

Sit on the floor with your legs extended in front of you in dandasana (staff pose), then hold your inner knees with your hands to spread your legs wide apart. With your hands besides your hips, lift your torso upright. Keep your knees and toes facing straight up toward the ceiling. If you find that your legs turn out or your lower back sinks, place a couple of folded blankets under your buttocks until you can maintain a natural concavity in the low back, and lengthen the front of the spine from the bottom of the pelvis to the top of the throat.

Press the fronts of the thighs into the backs of the thighs, and the entire backs of your legs into the floor. (If you’re sitting on blankets, reach the backs of your legs downward.) Keeping your heels on the floor, lengthen your calf muscles away from your knees toward your heels. After sitting in this position for a couple of minutes, you may be able to spread your legs wider apart: press your fingertips into the floor directly behind your hips, raise your buttocks a few inches off the floor, and push your pelvis forward so that your feet slide a little further away from each other, then lower your buttocks back down. With your legs wider apart, you may feel a stretch along the inner thighs and the inner edges of the knees. Make sure that your feet and toes are still facing straight up. Raise the sides of your waist and ribs away from the pelvis and open your chest.

To come out of the pose, hold the inner edges of your knees with your hands and pull on the legs to bend the knees; then bring your legs back together.

Parshvakonasana (Side Angle Pose)

In parshvakonasana, the bent knee should track directly in line with the middle toe of the foot. Oftentimes, because of tight adductor muscles   and/or limited external rotation in the hip, the knee falls in, putting extra strain on the inner knee. Turning the thigh out properly from its source, the hip, enables you to safely and evenly bend the leg. In the process, tight inner thighs are stretched while the outer hip region is strengthened, helping to stabilize the hip joint.

From tadasana, spread your legs and arms wide apart and align your feet under your hands. Place a block behind the right foot. Turn your right foot out 90 degrees and the left foot slightly in. Turn the entire right thigh out so that the centerline of the leg, from the hip through the center of the knee and the center of the ankle line up with the middle toe of your right foot. Press the outer edge of your left heel into the floor and straighten the leg. Keep revolving the right leg as you bend the knee to a 90-degree angle, without letting the knee bend beyond the ankle. Keep the center of the right hip, knee, and ankle in line with each other.

Keep pressing your outer left heel down as you exhale and extend your torso to the right, to place your right hand on the block at the outside edge of the right foot. Bring the outer right hip forward toward the inner thigh and press your right knee back against your right upper arm. Bend your left elbow and place your hand on your left hip. Continue to root down into the left outer heel so that your weight is evenly distributed between the two legs. Roll the left shoulder back and revolve your chest and front of your pelvis toward the ceiling. To come out of the pose, press down through the left heel as you pull up through the left arm and straighten the right leg. Repeat on the other side.

Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana (Extended Hand to Big Toe Pose)

This one-legged balance pose helps develop more stability in each hip through conscious alignment of the ankle, knee, and hip joints.

Find a wall, a shelf, or a ledge that is approximately hip height and stand facing it about one leg’s distance away in tadasana (mountain pose). Place your hands on your hips and put your right heel on the ledge directly in front of you. Straighten your right leg, and make sure that your left foot is still facing straight forward. If you can’t straighten your legs or keep your left foot facing forward, try a lower support. Press the inner edge of your left heel into the floor and press the front of your left thigh back toward the back of the leg, keeping the kneecap facing straight ahead. It should feel like the left hip is directly over your left ankle, so that the leg is perpendicular to the floor. Press your right thigh downward. As you stretch both legs, press back from the tops of the thighs (close to the hips) rather than from the knees. Keep the fronts of the thighs and knees firm, and engage the quadriceps, pulling away from the kneecaps.

Don’t sink into your outer left hip by allowing it to jut out to the left; instead, keep your weight balanced over your left inner heel and move the outer thigh toward the inner thigh. Without disturbing your left leg and hip, move the outer edge of your right hip down toward the floor and lift up out of the right side of the waist.

Exhale, bend the right knee and place the foot back on the floor into tadasana. Repeat on the other side.

In the second variation of this pose, you’ll extend the leg laterally to the side. Turn 90 degrees to the left so that your feet are parallel to the wall or the ledge. Place your right foot on your support with the toes and knee facing straight up. Keep your left leg straight and pressing back from the top of the thigh. Straighten the right leg and roll the outer right hip and buttock down toward the floor. As you rotate the right leg outward to keep the knee facing upward and the hip descending, make sure that you aren’t sinking into the outer left hip. As in the previous variation, press the inner left heel into the floor and move the outer left hip and thigh toward the inner leg.

Breathe smoothly and lift your waist and chest away from the pelvis. Release the pose and stand for a moment in tadasana before repeating on the other side.

Virasana (Hero Pose)

Virasana can address asymmetries and stiffness in the hips, knees, and ankles, while providing deep relaxation to fatigued leg muscles. Although the classical pose can prove challenging for those with joint problems, this propped variation is accessible and therapeutic. You will need four blankets and one block.

Roll two blankets together lengthwise to make a thick roll. Roll another blanket alone to make a roll half the thickness of the first one. With your knees together and your feet apart behind you, place the bottoms of your knees and the tops of your shins on the thin roll, and your ankles on the thick roll. Lift your buttocks and place the fourth blanket, folded flat, into the backs of the knees. Your feet should be pointing straight back with the toes on the floor. Place the block horizontally underneath your buttocks and on top of the ankle roll as you sit on it in between your heels. The buttocks should be able to settle downward; if you feel like you have to hold your pelvis up slightly out of the pose, add more support to your seat. As the tops of the thighs and inner groins descend, lift your torso and chest up away from your pelvis. You may feel a stretch along the fronts of your legs, but there should be no pain in the knees.

In coming out of the pose, the goal is to straighten the legs without twisting the knees. First lift your buttocks and remove the block. Place your hands on the floor in front of your knees, tuck your toes on the floor behind your blankets, and push up into adho mukha shvanasana (downward-facing dog pose). Firming the thighs and knees, press the fronts of your thighs toward the backs of your legs as you fully extend the backs of your knees. Lift your hamstrings toward your buttocks as you lower your calves and heels toward the floor.

ABOUT Marla Apt Marla Apt is a senior-level Iyengar yoga teacher based in Los Angeles, California.