If you’re like me, before yoga I really had no reason to voluntarily be upside down. Sure, as a kid I would try my best to perform a handstand after some cartwheels while in a padded gym, but that inclination tapered off fairly quickly after grade school. In fact, it wasn’t until about three years into my yoga practice that I tried Rodney Yee’s Intermediate Yoga routine that I performed my first adult attempt at a forearm balance/handstand. And let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty. In fact, it went kind of (exactly) like this.

However, it doesn’t have to be this way. Here are some tips that I wish I would have followed and can hopefully help you work up to your inversions:

1. Don’t force anything — make sure you really want to do inversions before you work up to them. No one should coerce you into these poses.

2. Start with Downward Dog — this is particularly true if being upside down gives you anxiety. DD is a great primer for inversions.

3. Move on to Dolphin pose — this is a great beginner pose for working towards forearm balance with little risk of falling over. If you do it with your heels to the wall you can progress by slowly walking forward and then try kicking one leg up at a time.

4. Learn how to fall safely— this is very important, and yes you can absolutely learn how to fall well which you can practice from Downward Dog..

5. Be patient — learning inversions can take time and there is no reason to rush your practice. Enjoy the process!

Inversions are valuable poses which can help improve your core strength and focus. However, they can also lead to injury if proper progression is not followed to ensure correct technique. I hope these tips are useful in helping add these terrific poses to your practice! Namaste.