1️⃣ Build skill instead of relying on luck
Kicking up without shoulder and upper body stability isn’t ideal — especially when you’re on your head. Randomly kicking up and hoping for the best is just frustrating when you’re trying to learn.
2️⃣ Learn to lift, not kick
Lifting up trains leg and hip strength instead of relying on momentum, while also building upper body strength and stability. Better to build a strong foundation first.
3️⃣ Find the straight line
It’s hard to avoid the banana shape at the wall in the early stages of learning. L-shape is actually harder on the shoulders — hips stack over shoulders — but that’s the alignment we’re training toward.
To build a solid inversion, we want the hips and legs doing the work.
I particularly like this version with wall ropes instead of feet on the wall. It teaches you to move your feet away from the wall by shifting the hips and controlling the legs — hips even, legs straight and engaged. When you do that, the upper body gets more stable too.
At home, I hang a rope over a door or shelf — works just as well.
Bonus: this same drill carries over to Handstand and Forearm Balance.
Want the full breakdown? Comment “HEADSTAND” and I’ll send you the full guide — 9 videos, over an hour of content, breaking Headstand down step by step.
Cora Lee Yoga
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Cora Lee Yoga
Born and raised in Hong Kong, mother of 2. Loves yoga, travel, write, eat and cook. A reformed banker. Motherhood and yoga changed my life.
Originally from Hong Kong, I am a yoga teacher and life coach in Singapore and mother of 2. Now I am living a life I love - being mom, teaching yoga, and coaching. My mission is to empower people to build practices to optimise health, energy and life with a mix of yoga, ancient wisdom and modern science.
01/08/2026
We all think we know our own industry. Until someone shows us we don’t.
My friend Yen (Yen Feng | The Yoga Editor) and I are both yoga teachers. We happened to both be in London, so we went for a class together.
Before it started, we spent a whole hour talking shop. The studios. The playlists. We were confident, in that mildly bored way you’re confident about something you’ve spent over a decade inside.
Then a teacher neither of us had trained with walked in and quietly took the room apart.
Ninety minutes later, neither of us could finish a sentence.
We walked out and just... kept walking. Fifteen minutes, not a word between us. Then I turned to him and asked the only honest question I had:
“So what makes it yoga?”
Neither of us answered. Which is its own kind of answer.
Two people who’ve spent their careers teaching this practice, suddenly unable to define the thing we teach.
I don’t have a tidy answer. But I think it’s this — the moment a practice stops being something you’re doing, and starts doing something to you. Without your permission. Without your curation.
What’s the last thing your practice revealed to you that you weren’t looking for?
Comment “PLAY” and I’ll send you the full reflection in my weekly newsletter, The Playground. 🤍
I remember the first time I went upside down. Suddenly I had no idea where I was in space.
Which leg is up? Which is down? Am I too close to the wall — or too far? Where am I??
Inversions aren’t just about strength and skill. They’re a mind game.
That’s where a good assist comes in.
A good touch isn’t just support — it’s direction. It tells your body where it is when your brain has lost the plot.
Here’s how I help students find their way up into headstand ⬇️
And once that “aha” moment lands? Like riding a bike — it stays.
Comment HEADSTAND and I’ll send you the 9-part video series on building your headstand from the ground up.
The wall is a great tool to learn and practice inversion, but overtime we need to “wean” ourselves off the wall.
I remembered times when I was just desperately kicking my feet all the wall and try to balance. Hoping for the best and trying to catch that one second.
Turns out I was doing it all wrong.
To balance off the wall, the movement comes from the PELVIS, not the feet.
Learning that is a game changer. In class I would say
“Put your mind in your butt”.
Cringy. But it works.
Instead of kicking with straight legs, bring yourself slightly away from the wall with bent knees.
This is a much better way to wean yourself off the wall with control and skill instead of randomly kicking and pray for the lucky moment (there is no much, only hard work, my friends).
This way to practice also helps you find the vertical line instead of a banana arch. It does take time and practice.
I am showing this in Headstand but this exercise works for Forearm balance and Handstand too (but significantly harder).
If you get frustrated, remind yourself, we are not used to stand on head, forearms or hands and feet up. So it’s a proprioception and interoception training.
Recording yourself can be helpful, or have a friend tell you whether your line is straight. Or send your videos to me, I can help troubleshoot!
Again, inversion practice does take time, skill and patience, comment “HEADSTAND” for 9 step by step videos to learn and progress in HEADSTAND.
So you can finally get it out of your HEAD 🤯, and find stability and ease.
26/07/2026
We all need teachers. But at some point, we need to learn to be independent with our practice.
In yoga, salamba means supported — like Salamba Sirsasana, supported headstand. But there’s also the opposite: nirlamba. Unsupported. It means taking ownership.
I think in yoga, and in life, we need both.
My teacher Jason Crandell puts it well: “It’s like driving your own car versus being chauffeured — when you’re driving, you have a greater responsibility to pay attention, to choose where you’re going, and to respond to what happens as you travel along.”
Developing a self practice is a means of self care. Practicing on your own helps you learn to self-regulate and self-soothe.
Here are 5 signs you might be ready for one.
I’m teaching a workshop, Ignite Your Practice, with Lucy Wood this Sunday, August 2nd. Join us for practice, discussion, fresh air, and sun in the beautiful countryside just outside London.
You will all have a Practice sequence template and my “Essential Practice” library with 4 full 60 min classes to take home.
Link in bio.
A bit of a personal travel 🧳 blog of my past 2 weeks in NYC!! 🇺🇸🗽(and my hot spots to go for practice!)
Every year summer is the time that I take break from teaching - be a student, spend time alone, with my family.
I love taking yoga classes in NY. Here are my highlights.
🧘♀️My favourite studio is SOUK with the most amazing teachers and community. Yoga here us not just a physical practice but deep rooted in philosophy!
🔥 Another hidden gem is bodē nyc hot yoga where you can find traditional Hot26 classes (60/75/90 minutes) with teachers who have years of experience and perfect dialogue but personal touch.
💪 My daily strength training on the reformer is parked at SLT Strengthen･Lengthen･Tone Flatiron - my favourite Megaformer studio in the world. Instructors here are WORLD CLASS and the best (this studio has been around since 2014!!)
❄️ My daily reset at Othership - the Guided practice with meditation, Breathwork, sensory experiences are so special.
It’s something I am truly going to miss.
But it’s not just the teachers and studios, but my friends who make this place full of love and hugs 🥰 Special hug to my best yogi friend Amy Tadelis.
A big surprise 🤩 is to get to practice with Rodney Yee and COLLEEN SAIDMAN YEE at SOUK .
I love yoga, but that’s not everything. Good food, good company, time with people you love ❤️ and care about.
My cup is so so full.
And the trip continues. Next is London 🇬🇧!
I wrote a blog piece about “How to Stay in practice during travel” in my newsletter this week with a Post Flight/Jet Lag practice video as a gift 🎁 . If you are not in my newsletter, it’s time to subscribe!!
That said, I reposted on Substack. Go ahead and read it in linkinbio.
See you from London!
25/07/2026
I travel every summer, and one question always comes up:
“How do you keep practising while you’re away?”
The truth is... sometimes I don’t.
Travel is meant to change your routine. Some seasons are for movement, some are for rest. There’s no prize for ticking every box.
But if you do want to stay connected to your practice, it doesn’t have to look the way it does at home.
Visit a local studio. Roll out your mat in a hotel room. Follow an online class. Take a long walk. Sit quietly and breathe.
The practice doesn’t disappear just because your routine changes.
I put together a few simple ideas that have helped me over the years, plus my favourite way to recover from jet lag.
Comment JETLAG for my jet lag recovery video ✈️
If you haven’t tried using a chair to practice inversion, I can tell you, it’s a GAME CHANGER.
This setup is one of my favourite. It uses the front of the chair seat to support the upper back.
A trifold blanket is an extra addition. You don’t need it, but it adds extra support for the head and space for the shoulders.
Best thing about this version is learning to balance off the wall. Because of the extra space created by the chair between you and the wall, it helps you learn to balance without arching the back or the random kicks to balance off the wall.
With the support of the chair and the wall, you feel steady in the shoulders in the upper back, stable in the arms, so you can build skills to learn balance.
The chair is my favourite prop. I have made a Headstand Guide with 9 videos including the use of chair.
Comment “HEADSTAND” and I will send them over.
Want to deep dive about chair, I am running my 15 hours Chair CET for the 7th around back at my old home studio PURE Yoga Singapore on Dec 4-6. Details in linkinbio.
This exercise will truly reveal whether your upper back is participating in headstand. I promise you will get an a-ha moment about where you are with your foundation.
Warning ‼️: This version does not make it easier , but it will make your headstand better.
Make sure you watch the video till the end!!
I have been sharing various videos how using blocks and the wall can help to build stability in the upper body in headstand.
Go back and watch the other videos.
Or comment “HEADSTAND” for a library of 9 curated videos to learn headstand from preparations to refinements.
20/07/2026
Practice with me in 🇬🇧!
You love yoga but wonder… does this instruction really fit my body? If you don’t go to class, can you actually practice on your own?
Ignite Your Practice is a 1-day workshop built to bridge that gap.
Morning: we break down essential poses — the actions behind them, not just the shapes. You leave with a full sequence to take home.
Afternoon: Asana Lab. We go deep on inversions, supported backbends, and hip openers — the poses most people want to explore at home but feel unsure doing alone.
And we will have a lot of time to make friends, connect and have conversations about practice and life.
My teacher said “We learn how to practice”
Lucy and I share same teachers, and have similar values and interests with our students.
Whether you are a yoga teacher or an enthused yoga practitioner, we all need that little 🧨 to inspire our practice sometimes.
Our wish is to share our practice with you, so you can leave with a bit more clarity 👁️ , a lot of nourishment ❤️ , and a little 🔥 to ignite your practice — on the mat and in life.
One day. In person, with Lucy Wood in the UK.
Link in bio for details.
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