The posture of inversion

Turning your world upside down may be a good thing, writes Wendy Champagne.

Gomez from The Addams Family used to do it, so did Richard Gere in American Gigolo. Indian yogis have been doing it for thousands of years - inverting, in the form of headstands, handstands, shoulder stands and other postures that allow people to see the world from a different perspective. Upside down, nothing looks quite the same.

Someone who knows about the upside-down life is 36-year-old Marika Cominos. Also known as the "Queen of Inversions", Cominos, a former circus performer, has spent a good part of the past 20 years looking at life the wrong way up. She now offers workshops and private consulting in inversions, which she considers a tool for physical, psychological and spiritual "transformation".

An inversion refers to any posture or position that places the head below the heart. The reversal of gravity's effects helps to take pressure off the heart, decompress the spine, improve circulation, stimulate the endocrine system - and just make people feel good.

Cominos began inversion work at 14, when she was chosen to perform in the famous Fruit Fly circus based in Albury-Wodonga, her home turf. About that time, the Fruit Fly was expanding because the Nanjing acrobatic troupe had been invited to train its school-aged performers. In 12 months' intensive training with the Chinese acrobats over two years, Cominos became an expert at the Tower of Chairs - performing a handstand on chairs precariously balanced six metres high "That was the turning point," she says. "We went from ordinary, basic skill levels to extraordinary levels - by Australian standards, not by Chinese standards. It was such an amazing foundation and that is really crucial in creating a good practice."

Over her career, Cominos has worked with Circus Oz, pioneered circus performance at corporate functions, been an events manager and worked in the fitness industry. She came to yoga in the mid-'90s. Today, her work fuses her acrobatics skills with her yoga experience. "Like most people I came to yoga from an exercise point of view and somewhere along the way I really discovered the gems of what yoga practice has to offer - the breath and how transformative every posture can be."

Inversions are not unique to yoga, Hippocrates strung patients upside down with ropes and ladders, and inversion therapy became a fad in the United States. In the late 1970s people rushed to buy gravity boots and doorway poles to help relieve back pain and to slow ageing, thought to be exacerbated by gravity.

Marc Cohen, professor of complementary medicine at RMIT agrees that inversions can bring benefits associated with reversing gravity, such as improved circulation, but he recommends caution. "I would consider inversions advanced yoga asanas," he says. "Perhaps you shouldn't be doing them on your own because if you are not doing them properly you can damage your neck."

The fear of neck damage may be one reason many yoga aspirants fear handstands and headstands. "Everyone talks about this fear of inversions," says Cominos. "If you are going to support your whole body upside down on two hands, there is definitely stuff that comes up. My observation is that in yoga circles people are more cautious and at the other end I am more playful. I believe the fear is just silly - given time, the right techniques and encouragement, people progress quickly."

The key, says Cominos, is persistence and dedication. In her workshops she draws on her acrobatics skills to give students a "toolbox" to use in developing the technique. The workshop lasts 12 hours, broken into four sessions. Everyone works with a partner and she works one-on-one with each student.

Cominos believes there are health and psychological benefits to be gained from regular inversion and hopes the scientific community will step up its research into yoga. After 20 years of practice she finds that inversions deliver more than just fresh blood to the head.

"There is a particular way I teach people to move into a headstand that reveals a lot," she says. "I use yoga as a tool for people to potentially change things in themselves, otherwise it is just exercise."

Marika Cominos runs workshops nationally and internationally. Her next one in Sydney runs from April 15-17 at the Qi Yoga & Natural Therapies Centre in Albert Street, Harbord. http://www.yoga-play-byron-bay.com