3 Ways to Get into a Wall-Supported Forearm Stand (Pincha Pose)
3 Ways to Get into a Wall-Supported Forearm Stand (Pincha Pose)
Suggested Prerequisite: Dolphin pose (kitty assistant optional)
Forearm stands are one of my favorite contortion shapes (because they are so fun to balance and there are lots of “options” for styling with your legs!) - but they can be daunting to try to tackle if you’ve never trained them before. That’s where learning some safe progressions can help build up your shoulder strength and flexibility, and your own confidence with supporting your body weight in this pose. These are 3 variations of forearm stands I like to work on with “begintermediate” students who are starting to work on forearm stands (similar to pincha mayurasana in yoga) for the first time.
Suggested prerequisite: can comfortably hold a dolphin pose
How To: Forearm Stand Against the Wall (3 Ways)
1. Walking Feet Up the Wall
This is the one I like to start students off with because it can be a slow and progressive way to load your shoulders - no surprise “hey shoulders, HERE’S ALL MY BODY WEIGHT!” you can get when you kick into a forearm stand.
Measure how long your legs are. Sit in a pike with your feet flat on the wall, plant one hand beside your butt to mark where your butt hits on the floor. Flip on over and plant your elbows right where your butt was. Your arms should make a “snow plow” position, with your elbows planted shoulder-width apart, palms flat on the floor, fingertips touching
Tuck your toes and lift your hips in the air, you’ll start to feel more weight in your forearms and shoulders. Keep pressing into your palms to push your armpits towards the wall
If you’re feeling comfortable, try walking your feet up the wall. Some people like taking small baby steps, some people like taking “big” steps - experiment with both!
Try a couple of rounds of “walking feet up and down the wall” (taking a rest when needed) to get used to holding weight in your shoulders
Once you feel ready, walk your feet down to hip height. Keep pushing into your palms to press your chest and armpits towards the wall as you start to straighten your legs (if you have tight hamstrings, you may not straighten your legs all the way, that’s OK!) Our goal end position is to be in an upside down letter L with hips stacked on top of shoulders stacked on top of elbows (your vertical line), and hips in line with your feet (the horizontal top of the upside down letter L).
Walk your feet back down to exit
Need to make it easier? Don’t sweat! This can be a challenging position (both strength and flexibility-wise) for people’s shoulders. Two adjustments you can try:
Option 1: Start with elbows a bit farther away than leg’s distance - this will make it easier for you to keep leaning your weight towards the wall (the downside is it’s more “active” - since you can’t stack your bones vertically like when your elbows are underneath your hips, your chest, shoulders, and abs have to do more work)
Option 2: Use a chair! Sometimes our feet are just really slippery (shoutout to my other sweaty-soled Sallys!). Placing a chair against the wall and trying to walk your feet onto the chair can give you some more support without your feet slipping and sliding. Just be careful that this doesn’t turn into an “accidental headstand” - if you find you end up smooshing your face or head into the floor, that means you’ve got to strengthen your shoulders a bit before they’re ready to support all of your body weight in this position. See the last section of this post, Help! My “Forearm Stand” Keeps Turning Into an “Accidental Headstand”
2. Pressing Up from a Headstand
Now if you want to be able to practice balancing, it’s helpful to be able to get into your forearm stand facing the wall (so the wall can be your “spot” from falling too far forwards). Of course you can kick up (I’ll cover that next), but if you can’t consistently kick up, working on being able to press up from a headstand is a great controlled way to get up.
Prerequisite: can get into a headstand with your forearms on the floor
Set up for a headstand with the back of your head 1-2 inches away from the wall. Make sure the crown of your head is on the floor, forearms on the floor, elbows shoulder-width apart, palms flat, fingertips touching behind your head
Engage your shoulders by pressing your elbows and forearms into the floor for stability, then kick your legs/hips up to the wall into your headstand
Press into your feet to push your butt/hips away from the wall - this will start to send more of your bodyweight backwards to stack closer to your elbows. If you keep your butt leaning into the wall, you’ll have to press way harder with your shoulders/arms to lift
With your butt off the wall, press into your elbows even more as you try to lift your head and look forwards towards your hands - if you can lift your head off the floor, congratulations, you’re in a forearm stand!
If you can’t get your head off the ground by pushing into your elbows, that’s OK - it just means you’ll need to keep working on your shoulder strength (you are, essentially, shoulder shrugging almost all of your body weight - not a simple feat!). See the section below, Help! My “Forearm Stand” Keeps Turning into an “Accidental Headstand”
3. Kicking Up to the Wall
If you ever want to be able to balance in a forearm stand without the wall, odds are you’ll need to learn how to kick up (with control). So learning to kick up to a wall is a great first step!
Start kneeling with your hands planted in a “snowplow” position (elbows shoulder width apart, forearms on the floor, palms flat, fingers touching) with fingers an inch or two away from the wall, head looking towards your finger tips
Come up on to the balls of your feet and walk your feet in, lifting your hips as high as you can (the higher you can get your hips, the less hard you’ll have to kick with your legs). Keep your head lifted off the floor (don’t let it turn into a headstand!)
Engage your shoulders by pressing into your elbows and forearms (your shoulder blades should wrap towards the sides of your ribs and shrug up your back slightly)
Keeping your shoulders engaged and head lifted, kick your legs up to the wall. I like to start with one leg bent (my “launching” leg) and one leg straight (my “flinging” leg), bending the launching leg and pressing off that foot to fling my hips and straight leg towards the wall. Keeping your “flinging” leg straight helps ensure that your whole leg and butt make it to the wall (sometimes if we bend that knee, our foot hits the wall too soon, it stops our jump, and we essentially just bounce off the wall)
Need to make it easier? Start with your feet higher so you don’t have to kick as big. A (sturdy) chair works great for this - just remember where the chair is when you’re ready to kick back down to the floor!
Want to make it harder? You can challenge your shoulders further by adding more external shoulder rotation (you may choose this to condition your shoulders). Instead of starting with fingertips touching on the floor (“snowplow” position), separate your hands so your forearms are parallel to each other
Help! My “Forearm Stand” Keeps Turning Into an “Accidental Headstand…”
This is usually a sign that you don’t quite have the shoulder strength/engagement to support all your body weight just yet. Drills like these can help strengthen your arms in the overhead position you use in forearm stands, and shoulder shrugs like these can help work on your shoulder pushing muscles to help lift your body weight.
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