Mad Hatter does handstands

[Mad Hatter]

Today's handstands

 

Animal walks warm up

• Inch worms with pauses for scap push ups and side planks for variety
• Side monkey hops
• Bunny hops
• Walking kick ups

5x5 Kick ups

Freestanding handstands

3x5 Tuck jumps

(3x5 Push ups)

 

I also discovered I can no longer do pull ups.  Guess no climbing does that to ya.

[Mad Hatter]

As you might have noticed my outside of class handstands consist mainly of kick ups and freestanding holds. Normally I'd add in more drills, but since I'm waiting for the Handstand Factory program I simply want to get used to being on my hands and *hopefully* get to a level where the program is not completely useless for me.  For now I'd just rather freestyle and keep it low pressure and add drills once my program is here.  

[Lara]

5 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

I'm waiting for the Handstand Factory program

Ooooh, they have one for beginners...

 

Following along!

[KB Girl]

On 8/27/2019 at 8:45 PM, Mad Hatter said:

Handstand walk drill - this one was hilarious! You kick up into a handstand, your back facing your partner, hook your knees on their shoulders, step onto their feet, and then you walk together.  Like when little kids dance with their dads, except on the hands.

I really love this teacher of yours! 

 

Silly question maybe, but what is it that makes life worthwhile for you? The thing that makes you fight this fight each time? 

Gotta say I have endless respect for how you're dealing with it <3 

[raptron]

On 8/28/2019 at 3:38 AM, Mad Hatter said:

As you might have noticed my outside of class handstands consist mainly of kick ups and freestanding holds. Normally I'd add in more drills, but since I'm waiting for the Handstand Factory program I simply want to get used to being on my hands and *hopefully* get to a level where the program is not completely useless for me.  For now I'd just rather freestyle and keep it low pressure and add drills once my program is here.  

Makes total sense to me!

 

I, like everyone, also love that co-walking drill. Heheh.

[Mad Hatter]

On 8/28/2019 at 3:44 PM, zenLara said:

Ooooh, they have one for beginners...

 

Following along!

Yay!

 

On 8/28/2019 at 11:10 PM, KB Girl said:

I really love this teacher of yours! 

 

Silly question maybe, but what is it that makes life worthwhile for you? The thing that makes you fight this fight each time? 

Gotta say I have endless respect for how you're dealing with it <3 

Me too.  

 

Whoo boy, I'm not sure I'm in a good state to answer that right now. :/ 

Partly cold logic. Statistically I'll be alive for quite some time (the alternative is not an option) and it would suck to stay in this state for all that time. I also eventually reach a state where it gets too fucking boring.

The other part is furiously holding on to the memories of the good times and remembering that this is not permanent.

If you mean a grander purpose in life, I got nothing, and I suspect that's one of the triggers. 

 

Truth be told, on most days I'm trying to at least not make things worse, but there are days where I completely switch off.

 

On 8/30/2019 at 4:36 PM, raptron said:

Makes total sense to me!

 

I, like everyone, also love that co-walking drill. Heheh.

So fun and silly! 

[Mad Hatter]

Thursday was a rest day as my shoulders were a little sore from handstands plus acro the day before. I think it was all the cartwheels on squishy surfaces.

 

Friday I did a few handstands but nothing much.

 

Saturday I filmed some handstands and the piling/arching I do to hold my balance is ridiculous. I’m not sure how to get rid of it either. I think it gets exaggerated in longer holds when I’m breathing more. Part of it is slow reaction times with my fingers that should get better with time, in theory. 

 

 

Sunday I did nothing, except for a short morning swim. I read books and watched Dr Who all day.

 

Monday more handstands. First kick ups and then chest to wall as I’m thinking that if I get really close to the wall I can use it as feedback to balance less with my hips and more with my fingers. I think the idea is sound, but since getting into the position fatigues my shoulders significantly more I can’t get as much practice in. On the plus side more conditioning is good for me.  

I followed it up with some crow toe taps, push ups, pull up negatives and light squats.

[WhiteGhost]

Thanks for sharing the handstand video.  I have no idea what is driving the piking/arching but it looks like you have a very good shoulder alignment.  Pretty straight from the wrists all the way to the hips

[Mad Hatter]

48 minutes ago, WhiteGhost said:

Thanks for sharing the handstand video.  I have no idea what is driving the piking/arching but it looks like you have a very good shoulder alignment.  Pretty straight from the wrists all the way to the hips

It's just where my body finds it easiest to balance. Balance in a handstand is a series of many many little (and not so little in my case!) corrections. Ideally the corrections should be fast, which allows them to be small and not very noticeable, and they should only come from the wrists and fingers, for a more muscularly efficient and cleaner looking handstand. But if your reactions are not that quick and well developed yet and your fingers can't handle the big weight shifts something else has to start compensating. Bending the elbows and moving the shoulders backwards and forwards is super common, so is walking on the hands. I happen to be using my hips a lot, that's all. Probably because my shoulders are weak. It's the same as standing on two legs vs one leg, on two legs your adjustments are so quick and subtle they're practically unnoticeable. On one leg you might find yourself wobble a lot more, maybe only your foot and ankle will move, or maybe you'll find yourself in a position where that's not enough and you'll start wobble more and will have to use your arms for balance for example. I think it will go away on its own with time but of course I'd like to find ways to speed up the process if possible.  

[Elastigirl]

Thanks for sharing the video. I'm impressed with how long you can hold it. Looking forward to seeing your progress

[Mad Hatter]

5 minutes ago, Elastigirl said:

Thanks for sharing the video. I'm impressed with how long you can hold it. Looking forward to seeing your progress

Thanks! I hope that maybe this time I'll be able to channel your consistency super power and actually make some progress!  

[Mad Hatter]

My colleague gifted me a pin today to cheer me up and I adore it! Look how cute it is!

 

[@mu]

Awesome pin

Your balance is very good though because I find that tilting of the hips really hard to balance after just a couple of tilts (for me banana -> pike -> banana -> over to floor). It's a bit hard to say for sure because your line is super straight from the shoulders, but it looks like you elevate-sink-elevate-sink quite a bit? I see it from your neckline coming up and down a wee bit. That would go towards shoulders getting tired (so more obvious on longer holds too). Do you feel something like that or not at all?

[Mad Hatter]

2 minutes ago, @mu said:

Awesome pin

Your balance is very good though because I find that tilting of the hips really hard to balance after just a couple of tilts (for me banana -> pike -> banana -> over to floor). It's a bit hard to say for sure because your line is super straight from the shoulders, but it looks like you elevate-sink-elevate-sink quite a bit? I see it from your neckline coming up and down a wee bit. That would go towards shoulders getting tired (so more obvious on longer holds too). Do you feel something like that or not at all?

I do I do. Well spotted.  And when I do I often shift my hip position a little to compensate => more compensations. I’m trying not to do this but it’s hard.  I also lack the endurance I think to keep the push for a long time. Another thing is that when I do end up in a slightly arched position I think I could technically just hold it there in a stable position, but I always try to get back to neutral. Often not quite successfully and I end up in the pike and then it’s very hard to stabilise the fish flopping as you say. Lots of little things! I’ve only just (re)started though so I’m not exactly concerned. Just keeping the nerdiness going haha!

[Mad Hatter]

Tuesday = handstand class!
 

It went something like this:

Teacher - Oh hey, it's not a disaster! Go do this next thing freestanding with this other person spotting (that is  pretty good.) 

Me - Lose literally all capability of freestanding handstands and being spotted makes it 10x worse as I lose all proprioception and have to crawl back to the wall. Oh well, such is life.  

 

As always I might be forgetting an exercise or two but it went something like this:

 

Warm up

• Partner "contact improv/submission" warm up similar to last time, but this time one person is kneeling down, starting with their arms down and palms facing up. The partner clasps their fingers and moves their wrists and hands in a way that forces the shoulders in as many positions as possible. I really, really enjoy these warm ups, the equal part resistance and stretch really wrings out the shoulders in all directions and it feels so good! Plus it gets you warm very quickly. 
• Same but standing up.
• Horse stance rotating side lunges. So you start in horse stance, rotate the upper body to one side as much as possible, then lunging with the back leg as far down as possible. Tricky because the body really wants to compensate, either I lose the rotation, or my back leg starts rotating in. Also it makes my butt hurt.
• One person is in a standing straddle, while the partner is placing small wooden blocks (could be anything) in a circle around the person. The first person's task is to make a circle around the block with their hand. The partner keeps moving the blocks to make it harder. Bending the legs is absolutely fine and necessary and it's also ok to put down a hand for balance.
• Stick drill where one person is kneeling holding one end of the stick in an overhead position. The partner just holds the stick level and very very gently pushes once they feel that the person kneeling is pulling their shoulder back. Super important is to keep form here, straight arm in external rotation and ribs down. I didn't find this drill hard as such but it really requires a hella lot of concentration.

Drills

• Spinal waves against the wall. The partner pokes the neck and back as feedback and you have to push against the finger, preferably without moving everything else. Hard! Especially around the mid back.
• Straddle HS against wall.
• Straddle HS against wall tensing the legs for 8 counts and relaxing them for 8 counts. Relaxed mostly means me falling over.
• Straddle leans. This is the one where I got told to work with someone else and botched it and had to go back to the wall.  The instruction was to first bend and then push up, and I tried SO SO hard to push. When I came out of it the feedback from my partner was to not forget to push...  It's surprisingly heavy even for a small side bend.

[WhiteGhost]

Your handstand classes sound like a lot of fun.

[Mad Hatter]

7 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Your handstand classes sound like a lot of fun.

They are, I really, really like my teacher! Never any boring exercises.  

[Mad Hatter]

Today I woke up early and for the first time in MONTHS I was excited to get out of bed rather than dreading the day.  I went for a morning swim and it was windy and wavy and awesome and afterwards I realised that I was feeling not bad and it made me cry a little. I'm afraid to be too hopeful but maybe, just maybe things are finally turning?

 

Since I have class later I didn't want to go ham at the gym so all I did was a warm up plus 5x kick ups, 5x tuck jumps, 5x straddle jumps in a circuit 4 times. For the kick ups I focused only on getting into a slightly split leg entry and didn't even try to bring my legs together to try to break down the movement a little.

 

And then I finally did MyFlex! Go meee! I did the straddle module as it's the most relevant to handstands and it's got all of my "favourite" movements.

 

<rant> Good thing I'm in a good mood today because I happened to report an issue with a service we're using and got roped into the most stupid outage call with 18 (!!!!) people trying to solve it. Well maybe 1 person is doing something. Maybe. I've been sitting here for 90 minutes so far listening to incompetent people discussing things without actually solving our fucking problem. My favourite part was when one person started of the meeting with "the first question we'll have to know is how many users this will affect?" FFS, the first question is how do we fix it!!! And the solution does not involve me, because for us it's essentially a black box. Yet I have to stay on this stupid call. Gaaaaaah. I'm gonna eat a sammich now. </endrant>

[WhiteGhost]

52 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

I did the straddle module as it's the most relevant to handstands and it's got all of my "favourite" movements.

Straddle is my Kryptonite.  I can't do any of the movements and I cringe every time she says "get into a comfortable straddle" because she might as well be saying "put your saddle on your unicorn" because no way that exists.  Hip extension and shoulders are my favorites.

 

Great to see you in a better headspace  

[Mad Hatter]

Just now, WhiteGhost said:

Straddle is my Kryptonite.  I can't do any of the movements and I cringe every time she says "get into a comfortable straddle" because she might as well be saying "put your saddle on your unicorn" because no way that exists.  Hip extension and shoulders are my favorites.

  

Great to see you in a better headspace  

Haha. I mostly like it because it has the most hip rotation exercises and my hips don't rotate very well. The side butt exercises huuuuuurt though.

 

Thanks!

 

Also, I'm still in the meeting. There are not enough face palms in this world to represent how I feel.

[CourtnieMarie]

what huge wins today! from the little i know about mental health, the change probably won't be linear but so so glad it's turning. minus stupid 18-people meetings...

 

Spoiler

 

also this made me think of you  

 

 

 

 

[JuiceeTarget]

4 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

I'm afraid to be too hopeful but maybe, just maybe things are finally turning?

Whatever tomorrow brings, hold on to that memory. I know for me, when I am down, I tend to forget that life can be sweet and awesome. Keeping that kind of memory keeps me in the headspace of, "See it can and will get better"

 

And I think your handstands are great so far. I wish I could hold one for more than a hot second  I'm jealous you get to go to a full handstand class... sigh... that would be awesome

[raptron]

On 9/3/2019 at 1:01 PM, Mad Hatter said:

Drills

• Spinal waves against the wall. The partner pokes the neck and back as feedback and you have to push against the finger, preferably without moving everything else. Hard! Especially around the mid back.

SO HARD.

 

On 9/3/2019 at 1:01 PM, Mad Hatter said:

• Straddle leans. This is the one where I got told to work with someone else and botched it and had to go back to the wall.  The instruction was to first bend and then push up, and I tried SO SO hard to push. When I came out of it the feedback from my partner was to not forget to push...  It's surprisingly heavy even for a small side bend.

Are these leaning to one side? Or some other kind of lean? Just curious!

 

On 9/4/2019 at 9:29 AM, Mad Hatter said:

Today I woke up early and for the first time in MONTHS I was excited to get out of bed rather than dreading the day.  I went for a morning swim and it was windy and wavy and awesome and afterwards I realised that I was feeling not bad and it made me cry a little. I'm afraid to be too hopeful but maybe, just maybe things are finally turning?

<3333

On 9/4/2019 at 9:29 AM, Mad Hatter said:

Since I have class later I didn't want to go ham at the gym so all I did was a warm up plus 5x kick ups, 5x tuck jumps, 5x straddle jumps in a circuit 4 times. For the kick ups I focused only on getting into a slightly split leg entry and didn't even try to bring my legs together to try to break down the movement a little.

Nice.

On 9/4/2019 at 9:29 AM, Mad Hatter said:

And then I finally did MyFlex! Go meee! I did the straddle module as it's the most relevant to handstands and it's got all of my "favourite" movements.

WOO.

[@mu]

On 9/4/2019 at 7:39 PM, GoodDoug said:

And I think your handstands are great so far. I wish I could hold one for more than a hot second  I'm jealous you get to go to a full handstand class... sigh... that would be awesome

 

No way you could find a class? is it a time problem or a class problem?

 

On 9/4/2019 at 3:29 PM, Mad Hatter said:

 I went for a morning swim and it was windy and wavy and awesome and afterwards I realised that I was feeling not bad and it made me cry a little.

 

And yeah for myFlex!

[Tobbe]

2 hours ago, @mu said:

 

No way you could find a class? is it a time problem or a class problem?

 

 

Can't be a class problem  https://www.nerdfitness.com/rings-and-handstands-superpack/