Forearm balance in Sanskrit is called Pincha Mayurasana. Pincha Mayurasana means the feather of the peacock and represents the peacock starting its dance.
In the East, the peacock is the bird of kings and gods - Lord Krishna carries a feather of the animal on his head, it is the vehicle of Brahma… But it is also used as a symbol in the Western world, a less appealing one however as it symbolises worldliness, pride and vanity. That said, there are examples in Christian art, of the peacock symbolising the beauty of the soul and resurrection. According to an old Jewish legend, the peacock was the only bird that didn’t eat the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden and was rewarded with eternal life, thereby becoming the mystical bird, the phoenix, signifying resurrection, rebirth and a vision of eternity.
The paradox of the symbolism of the peacock can now certainly give rise to reflections when you practice the pose - will it for you represent vanity or the beauty of Heaven? I will leave you with these thoughts… I do tend towards the second one of course.
One thing that is sure is that when we practise Pincha Mayurasana, we need to find lightness like the feather of the peacock.
How do we find that lightness? By practising it regularly, naturally, but along with that, being aware of the essential parts of the body involved and working to make them stronger will help. But it is the state of our mind that will make it a yoga pose.
I. The most important part of the body in Pincha Mayurasana is the shoulders. They not only need to be strong, they must be opened and, balancing both qualities, they must be stable. The main muscles involved, the deltoids, the muscles that form the rounded contour of our shoulders, have the biggest job as they keep our shoulders flexed and prevent the elbows from splaying. Other very important muscles that will keep the alignment of the arms and support the weight of the body are the rotator cuffs - a group of muscles covering the shoulder joint, the triceps and the biceps, as well as the serratus anterior, a very important muscle for inversions, which lies mostly hidden under the scapula and prevents the chest from collapsing through it. The upper body is therefore the main part of the body involved.
When you work on finding your balance in Pincha Mayurasana, it is important to bear in mind that the shoulders must be stable but also open. Of course all the chaturangas (done properly!) will strengthen your shoulders, as will side planks, but practitioners with rounded upper back and a lack of flexibility in the shoulders have to focus on shoulder opening postures: downward facing dog Dharma Yoga style, cat and cow pose, puppy stretches on the mat or against the wall for instance.
Not only the shoulders but of course the core must be strong. So make sure that your core muscles are engaged when you practise forearm stand. Mula Bandha will therefore be switched on at all times!
Although a forearm balance is not a pose that stretches the body much, it helps to have flexible hamstrings as they will help extend the hips and help you float into the pose more lightly. Once up, the inner thighs, the adductors, must be engaged to help the legs work together and help access the core.
Remember that what is key for this pose is repetition, to build understanding of the pose for yourself. Yoga is an intelligent practice. Use your intelligence and get to know your fears, your own body, and through that knowledge, you will access a deeper knowledge of yourself.
II. Whatever the bad press some inversions have with some teachers and practitioners, Pincha Mayurasana, from the words of Sri Dharma Mittra, ‘is a very powerful pose’. It is a time-honoured, established inversion, taught in many lineages, that requires one hundred per cent of the practitioner’s attention. In some poses, your attention may wander to your shopping list and you will maintain the form. In Pincha Mayurasana if your attention wanders, you will lose the pose. Therefore its practice requires you to be fully present and engaged in the present moment. And that is Yoga.
I am teaching a workshop on Pincha Mayurasana on Saturday 23 January, on Zoom from 4 to 5:30pm. You can sign up through my website. I hope to see many of you there! I will thereafter upload the workshop on my website, which will allow those of you who can’t join to practise it whenever is convenient to you.
Reference: To read more about the symbolism of the peacock, please see Hatha Yoga - The hidden language - symbols, secrets and metaphors, by Swami Sivananda Radha.