Yoga for You, Tips & Techniques for Everyone by Prahlada Reddy, head of Toronto's Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center and Shameem Akhtar, acclaimed Mumbai-based yoga instructor, is a book for yoga aficionados that covers a range of poses and in-depth advice for practicioners.

By way of an excerpt, we bring you part of Chapter 1:

Sirsasana (Headstand)

This is one of the most exciting poses, both to teach and learn oneself. In fact, learning it pins one's discipline on the mat more firmly. That is why, unless the practitioner has a health issue for which headstand is contraindicated (see below), this pose must be taught. Also unlike other poses which may be taken for granted with practice, this pose continues to be a challenge even when mastered the student is led into increasing the duration in the pose, adding variations of it which challenge other muscle groups, even learning different ways of entering the pose. All of this ensures that the student' time on the mat is never boring.

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Since this pose puts a lot of physical pressure on us, leads to a blood gush in the brain, and has a direct impact on the nervous system, it is believed to relieve us of anxiety and negativity. No wonder the headstand is celebrated as the king of all poses!

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Method

-- To do the headstand, kneel on the ground, cup your hands at the elbows, the thumb and index finger of each hand flaring over the inner elbow of the opposite arm.

-- Place the locked elbows on the mat.

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Yoga: Learn how to do a headstand