• broaden the collar bones and lift the chest upwards so the clavicular notch (at the top of the breast bone) can come into contact with the chin (jaladhara bandha) but do not force the chin to touch the chest as this will strain the neck;   

• do not let the elbows splay out; elbows should be no wider than the width of the shoulders;

• when you are positioned on the top of the shoulders, your body should be vertical to the floor as in Tadasana – Mountain Pose.  From a side view, outer ankles, knees, outer hips and shoulders should be in perfect alignment;
• once in the pose, you may find that you need to keep re-adjusting your hands down your back every now and then; keep lifting upward and keep pulling the abdominal muscles in.  (NB:  it is easier to work on bare skin as the hands tend to slip down especially on synthetic fabrics.); ensure that your palms are spread wide against your back and that all the fingers are working;  keep pushing the back ribs to the front ribs;

 keep the eyes quiet and soft and let the eyeballs sink deeply into the eye sockets.  You should not allow the eyes to become hard or watery as this detracts from the calming quality of the posture.  Your gaze point or dristi can be your navel or your heart centre if you are high enough on your shoulders.  Focusing on a still point prevents the eyes from wandering and is conducive to a meditative state.  It makes you grounded and enables you to effortlessly lift up from your core centre. (NB:  people suffering from hypotension or low blood pressure should keep their gaze on their feet.)  Relax the skin of your face , keep your forehead passive and your tongue soft so that the healing effects of Sarvangasana can wash all over you, from your feet to your head;

watch your breathing, your breath should be soft, regular and natural; the quality of your breath is an indication of the quality of your mind in the posture.
Shoulderstand, like any other posture, becomes easier with practice.  Practice makes perfect.  It is foolish and potentially very dangerous to aim for absolute perfection on the first attempts.  “Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.”

Martha Graham

Coming out of Shoulderstand & Variations

Walk your hands down your back as you bend the knees, round the back, bring the hips on the floor and extend the legs back into Savasana – Corpse pose, whilst keeping the back of the head on the floor; (NB:  a more advanced version is to bring both legs back down fully extended to the floor without arching the lower back or lifting the head, but this requires very good abdominal strength).

You do not have to come out of Shoulderstand straightaway.  You can either:
go from Shoulderstand to Plough and from Plough back to Shoulderstand several times if you want to.  (To go into Plough Position, first bring one leg at a time to the floor over your head keeping the hips square before bringing the two legs into Plough Position (Halasana) and then lifting them back up into Shoulderstand);
come into Bridge pose (Setu Banda) and back up into Shoulderstand several times if you want;
or do Shoulderstand variations (feet in Baddha Konasana in namaskar mudra, legs wide open, legs in half or full lotus, etc).

Only after you have established a strong and regular practice of Sarvangasana should you attempt any of the harder variations, since a supple and open neck is required for all of them.

David Coulter, in his excellent book “Anatomy of Hatha Yoga”, has these few words of caution about doing a lifted Shoulderstand: “The posture is unstable because the sternum is not compressed against the chin, (…).  The higher the support, the more unstable the posture, and the more care you must take not to fall (…).  Even though the lifted shoulderstand will protect the neck, the remedy can be worse than the cure if you lose your balance and fall.”  David Coulter then goes on to say: “We call this pose a lifted shoulderstand, and that is fair enough, but it is no longer sarvangasana, the all-member’s pose. 

It is a shoulderstand because your weight is still placed mainly on the shoulders, but unlike the classic shoulderstand it is more of a balancing posture because the erector spinae and muscles of the lower extremities do not have to maintain nearly as much activity to stabilize it.  In comparison with the classic shoulderstand, it takes almost no effort to straighten the body, especially if your mat is 2-4 inches in thickness (…)”.  “The empty space behind the neck in the lifted Shoulderstand presents one potential problem:  it allows the cervical region to round to the rear, creating a reverse cervical curvature”, (in other words, the higher the props used under the shoulders the more the neck will be forced into an unnatural curve).  “The classic shoulderstand, on the other hand, can be therapeutic because that posture flattens and stretches the cervical region.”A yoga belt can be used to prevent the elbows from splaying outwards but make sure that you do not tighten the belt too much to avoid injuring your shoulders; by supporting the torso, the belt enables you to lift the spine up more;  do not use a belt for Setu Bandha; Shoulderstand is also frequently taught against the wall to beginners.