"No way I can do arm balances!! I can't even do a proper Chaturanga. I just sort of... collapse halfway down."

I get this one a lot.

Someone wants to learn arm balances, but they've decided they need to master Chaturanga first... as if there's some yoga committee handing out arm-balance licences a...

Imagine I could hand you a perfect freestanding handstand right now.

No falling, no faceplants, no kicking your feet into the air a gazillion times wondering if you're actually improving or just repeatedly demonstrating the theory of gravity.

You just have a perfect straight-line handstand. Effect...

There's a point in learning an inversion where the wall stops being a prop and becomes a full-blown security blanket you drag everywhere.

You can reliably kick up to it. You can hold your Handstand there. It lets you post your "OMG 30 second handstand hold!!" Insta reels.

And then someone goes, "O...

Let's settle something that has confused a LOT of yoga students:

Is Crane Pose just Crow Pose with straight arms?

Because if you look at the two poses, it certainly seems that way. Same general shape. Same arm-balance-y-ness. Same "why the hell are my feet not on the floor?" energy.

So when your ...

If you've taken more than a handful of yoga classes, you've almost certainly heard the (probably slightly confusing) cue: "Engage Mula Bandha."

Usually, it arrives right before something that requires a little extra oomph.

Maybe you're setting up for an arm balance. Maybe you're about to kick into...

You already have Crow Pose. You know how to balance on your hands. You know how to bring your knees onto your arms and find that little moment where your feet stop feeling quite so attached to the floor.

Then you try One-Legged Crow.

You bring one knee onto your arm, start shifting forward, and su...

When most people think about arm balances they could realistically learn, they usually picture the same handful of poses.

Crow. Headstand. Handstand. Maybe Forearm Stand if they're feeling adventurous.

Beyond that, everything starts looking like someone paused Cirque du Soleil halfway through a pe...

I can teach both tripod and bound headstands in the same class and watch the room split clean down the middle.

Half my students float into bound headstand like they've been doing it their whole lives. The other half wrestle with it for a few minutes, switch to tripod, and immediately go, "Ohhh... t...

I've watched a lot of students struggle with flying pigeon, and almost every single one of them gets stuck in the exact same spot. They set up the figure-four shape, they get the shin on to the arms, they lean forward, and they manage to get airborne....

...but when they try to release the back leg...

After I shared my recent article about alternative arm positions in pincha, I got quite a few comments and emails recommending different prop setups for forearm stand (click here if you have not had the chance to check the article out yet!).

A lot of people suggested using straps around the upper a...