Chris Chavez opens his 2020 "Pro Tips" video on pincha mayurasana the way a good session drummer counts in a song: quietly, with the tempo already set. Before anyone leaves the floor, he has viewers rolling their wrists, lifting onto their fingertips and easing their arms into external rotation, because the forearm balance lives or dies in the shoulders. The video, which runs a little under nine minutes, is a staged teaching sequence rather than a demonstration of a finished pose. It moves from preparation, to forearm alignment, to kicking up against a wall or partner, to a fourth stage that asks the student to bring the head into neutral. Along the way Chavez names the points where students typically go wrong, and he is blunt about the consequences. For a pose that looks effortless on social media, the instruction is unusually concrete.
Wheredoesthenamepinchamayurasanacomefrom?
Chavez starts with the name, which he connects to a peacock feather. In his telling, the pose takes its name from the shape the body makes when it is up: a gentle curve, "exactly like a feather." It is a small piece of context, but it sets up the aesthetic he keeps returning to. The goal is not a rigid stack of joints. It is a line that arches and stays alive. The forearm balance is commonly known in English as forearm balance, and Chavez uses that name too, calling it "an arm balance" as he wraps up.
That arc matters because the shape is also the source of the difficulty. A feather curve means the hips are high and the chest and head are angled forward, which pushes the body's weight onto a small base: two forearms and the crown of the hands. Everything that follows in the video is an attempt to make that small base trustworthy.
Whydotheshouldersneedtoopenbeforethepose?
Chavez spends real time on preparation, and he is careful about how he frames it. He shares two shoulder openers that he describes as his go-to for shoulders and therapeutic work. The first brings the palms face up, the hands together, the knees slightly behind the hips, and then a gentle shift of the hips back toward the heels. The external rotation, he says, creates "a widening in the upper back," and that opening is exactly what the pose requires.
The second opener takes the palms face down, shoulder-width apart, and lifts onto the fingertips with the wrists raised. The key cue is stillness in the structure: do not let the fingers, the elbows or the hands slide out. Then he sits back slowly. He is explicit about tempo: "you want to take this one slow, you're stretching out your rotator cuff muscles. These are very, very tiny muscles and they're easily pulled." That warning is the video's first safety note, and it sets the tone for the rest. The sequence is not about forcing range. It is about giving the small stabilizing muscles time to report back.
Howshouldtheforearmsbeplacedonthemat?
This is the foundation Chavez spends the most time on, and he films it from two angles so viewers can see both sides. The forearms go down parallel to each other, in line with the shoulders, with the fingers pointing forward. He identifies the most common failure at this step. "Typically what happens is the hands will slide in," he says, and he ties the slide to tight shoulders. If the hands drift toward the midline, the base narrows and the body loses its platform. He admits that sweat can make the hands harder to hold in place, and he advises doing your best while acknowledging the difficulty.
The second placement is the one that carries the most weight. Once the forearms are parallel, the shoulder must sit over the elbow. Chavez calls this line "crucial," and he explains why in a single, vivid image. If the body collapses forward past that line, "there is a thing called the ground, and your face will hit it with the velocity that will surprise you." The remedy is not a bigger kick. It is patience with the staging.
Whatdoeseachstageoftheforearmbalanceteach?
Chavez frames the practice as a ladder that each student climbs at their own pace. "Everybody has a stage to work out," he says, and the structure lets a beginner and an experienced practitioner use the same video without either being misled.
Stage one is a check on the foundation. The forearms are placed, the shoulders rest above the elbows, and the hips lift while the gaze stays forward between the hands. As the body rises, the legs travel a little further back to compensate for the head position, and the student walks the feet forward to find the balance. Chavez lifts one leg, then the other, and asks the student to hold the shoulder position steadily before moving on. If the body slides or shifts forward, he says, stay at this stage until it holds.
Stage two introduces a wall. Chavez places his fingertips at the edge of the mat and, for home practitioners, suggests imagining a wall there. The hips lift, the shoulders remain above the elbows, and the lifted leg hops to tap the wall a few times before releasing. The wall is not a crutch in this framing. It is feedback. A clean, steady contact tells the student the hips are stacked and the weight is centred. Chavez also notes that a partner can serve the same purpose.
Stage three asks for both legs to rise. One leg goes up, then the second joins it. Chavez's most useful line in the video comes here, and it is worth quoting in full:
"The key is to go up with control. If you're not going up with control, that's generally a sign that your body's a little bit unstable and possibly not strong enough yet. It's okay. Whatever stage you're able to be stable and steady, that's where we want to work."
— Chris Chavez, "Pro Tips: Pincha Mayurasana," YouTube, February 2020
That passage reframes the whole pursuit. Control, not height, is the measure. A student who rises slowly and holds is further along than one who kicks high and wobbles. Chavez also gives the exit: when the shoulders begin to collapse forward, bring the feet down and sit back. Once the collapse starts, he warns, the momentum builds quickly.
Stage four is the advanced step, and Chavez is clear that it is for those who can already balance at stage three without help. Instead of looking forward, the head comes into neutral so the body lines up in one straight vertical. He describes how the gaze helps calibrate balance: "it's much easier to know where we are when our head is facing the position that it's used to facing," and the world looks normal. Moving the head to neutral changes the line of the body, so the legs must counterbalance by travelling slightly back as the head comes forward. He demonstrates it, notes that it is much harder, and invites viewers to practise whichever stage challenges them most.
WhatisthesafetytakeawayfromChavez'sapproach?
The video's closing lines and its description reinforce a single principle. The video description ends with the line "GRAVITY IS REAL!!!" followed by a call to "play safe, have fun AND live your truth." That combination of levity and caution is characteristic of the video. Chavez never tells a student to force the pose. He tells them to use the wall, to use a partner, to hold a stage until it is steady and to come down before the body takes the decision out of their hands.
For teachers, the structure is useful beyond this one pose. It names the stage at which a student is working, it identifies the failure modes that appear at each stage, and it provides a clear exit. For solo practitioners, it offers a way to measure progress that does not depend on how high the legs go.
Wheretogofromhere
Start with the shoulder openers and the forearm placement, and do not move on until the shoulder sits over the elbow without drifting. Work the stages in order, at the wall or with a partner, and treat the ability to rise with control as the goal. When stage three feels steady and unforced, the head-neutral variation of stage four is the next question to explore. Watch the original video for the camera angles and the full sequence, and keep the cue Chavez repeats throughout in mind: whatever stage you can hold steadily is the right place to practise.
Source: Chris Chavez, "Pro Tips: Pincha Mayurasana," YouTube, published February 7, 2020.
Chris Chavez is an Istanbul-based yoga teacher, creator of the CY Method and co-owner of Cihangir Yoga, who also works as a musician and trains teachers worldwide.
Chris Chavez uses pincha mayurasana and forearm balance as names for the same arm balance, and he ties the Sanskrit name to a peacock feather because the body forms a curve like a feather when it is up. The pose rests the weight of the body on two forearms with the hips lifted.
Chavez recommends two shoulder openers before the pose, including palms face up with external rotation and a slow fingertip-lift opener with palms down. He warns that the rotator cuff muscles are very small and easily pulled, so these should be taken slowly.
Chavez says the hands typically slide because of tight shoulders. He advises placing the forearms parallel with the fingers pointing forward and doing your best to keep the hands from moving.
Chavez describes stage two as the wall stage, where the lifted leg taps the wall a few times. He advises staying at a stage until the body holds steadily, and he notes that a partner can provide the same kind of contact.
Chavez says that going up with control is the sign of stability, and rushing up usually signals the body is unstable or not yet strong enough. He encourages students to work at whichever stage they can hold steadily.
In stage four, Chavez brings the head into neutral instead of looking forward, so the legs can rise in a straight vertical line. He says this is much harder and should only be attempted if you can balance stage three on your own, with the legs counterbalancing slightly back.
