Hands to Stand On

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Despite years of trying to launch my hips above my shoulders, I still can’t seem to manage to get into a handstand on my own. It’s not for lack of trying, and after seven years of yoga, it might seem like karma owes me a favor. Please, please—I just want to feel that I have the power to completely flip my world view, even if it’s just for 15 to 20 seconds.

My real search for a handstand began about the time I moved to New York City in 2004. I lived in Manhattan, a broke and busy intern, and I was lucky to make it to class once a week, striving to reach the potential of my Shakti. Early Saturday mornings were the best, because then the usual two inches between individual yoga mats (slotted into every studio nook and cranny) stretched out to as much as 10 inches, and on a good day sometimes even a foot. I go to class to commune with my fellow yogis and yoginis, but I like having enough space to know that if I lose my balance, the whole room won’t go with me like a row of dominoes.

Most classes would lead to that moment—time to practice our handstands. I’d dutifully line my yoga mat up against the wall, wondering if this could be my lucky day. I’d place my hands in a short downward dog, the perfect upside-down V—halfway to my goal. My hands lined up a few inches from the wall. I kicked, one leg at a time, attempting to bring my hips in perfect alignment above my shoulders and my heels to the wall. Unlike many of the lithe bodies that gracefully floated up the studio walls, I’d push off with one foot, moving a few inches, sometimes a couple of feet towards the wall. But my hips seemed to have a weighted sinker attached to them. On those misfires, when my feet thudded to the floor, I’d push off harder, hoping my body might stay against the wall. It didn’t work. It was as if my body had a warning label glued to the sole of my foot—do not stand on hands.

Even though my hips seemed weighted, my life felt free and strangely unplanned. After slaving through seven years of a graduate degree that had become more torture than exploration, I completed my PhD and within a couple of weeks, traded college-town Midwest for Manhattan and a chemistry lab for an intern’s cubicle at a monthly magazine. My life had inverted within a month, but my body resisted any comparable flips in perspective.