Let's explore the supported shoulder stand for plough pose!
How to do it:
So lay down on the back hug your knees and the chest, and then lift your legs up. Lift your hips up and support your back with your hands. Now, if you feel comfortable here, continue lifting the spine straight, as if you're pressing your feet towards the ceiling or the sky. And then after five long breaths, slowly with support, you lower yourself down.
Now some students actually find that it's easier to come up with some momentum. So you just simply tell them to bend the knees to the chest, then roll the hips up.
When you come down, bend your knees slowly come down. Instead of coming down with a straight leg, that will protect your back, you want to turn it into an exercise where you actually working the core muscles, you can instruct the students to hold the core muscles, bring the chin to the chest a little bit, and then lower and descend the legs down.
So one way is to simply lower down, bend the knees slightly and relax the feet down. The other way is to come from this pose from your supported shoulder stand. And then as you release down, keep the legs 90 degrees, start to lift the chin, and keep the legs straight as you lower down and relax.
Now opposite what we commonly place together with a supported shoulder stand is a plough. And that's the one where you have your legs all the way to the back, trying to keep your legs straight as much as you can.
Sometimes, it's too strong a pose for people with back issues. So in that case, you ask them to bend the knees and place the knees on the forehead. Here are two versions now.
From the shoulder stand, take your legs down. If you have students who have a problem with the lumber spine, just ask them to place knees to the forehead and as usual, only do what's comfortable for your students.
So if your students are not comfortable with any of these poses, then you can skip the pose altogether. Although this pose has many benefits, it's nice to start to build the confidence of your students.
What you can do is show them another variation, which is half shoulder stand. So for this version,Try to bring chest to your chin and just have an angle for the spine. So here you are.
Slowly lower down and release. Now sometimes you have students who have a problem lifting the lower part of their body up. What you can do is place them against the wall. The wall is there so that they can have something to push on so that they can lift up through the body. So that's it for your shoulder stand. and your plough pose congratulations.