Crows and Coconuts

High off of the sunshiny weekend I galloped (yes galloped) happily around the Bikram studio. I patiently waited for the 4:30 class to end, for the students to leave so that I could score some freestyle floor time. The room slowly emptied and I quickly laid my mat down, stretching all the way to the floor.
Nitin sat across from me, savoring the spare minutes in the heated room. He stretched his arms and then used his strength and pure core balance to push his whole body up in Salamba Sirsasana (Headstand Pose). I watched, almost jealously, as he maintained the position.
He slowly, methodically, rolled his legs down, toes touching the ground first and then came out of the pose. Refreshment washed over his face. He kindly offered to spot me in my attempt… my poor poor attempt, in which he practically held my legs in place. As I felt the blood rushing to my face he asked me if I could breath, I gasped out a little “no” and he slowly released my ankles. I less than gracefully rolled out and came to my feet.
Once I could breathe again I pushed myself back on my head and practiced bringing my knees to my chest. I realized that the key to this practice is core strength—I kept my abs hard and squeezed every muscle in my body, from my tippy toes to my fingers as I pushed up.
One can only stand on their head for so long (or I can only stand on my head for so long). So I came down to my mat and flipped on all fours, brought my knees to the back of my arms and pushed up into Bakasana (Crow Pose).
Now it was Nitin happily and jealously watching, waiting to take his turn. I tried to maintain that sweet balance, as to not come crashing to earth face-first. Nitin followed my lead and pushed into Crow one, two, three… and crash, face planted into the floor with a loud coconut bang. He looked up absolutely dazed, that “where am I” sort of look.
Once he reoriented himself, he laughed off his coconut crash.
We may be getting a little inversion happy, just last week I crashed and burned in a handstand. Regardless of these little accidents our practice is improving. We may have little battle wounds, signs of dedication; I wear them proudly and have to giggle away these little pains, so that I can gallop (yes gallop) into my next practice.