[November 5th - December 31st] Handstands PvP

[Mad Hatter]

Hahaha in theory I have it under control. Actually doing it is a different matter. Still waiting for the day when I can handstand at will and for more than a few seconds.... So any advice is much appreciated.

[Harika]

Hollow Hold, it is a way of activating the core while doing other things/poses to have better form and make everything a core strength exercise?

[Mad Hatter]

Yes and no. The hollow body is a basic body shape in acrobatics that crosses over into many other skills. Of course it is important to have an active and strong core, but that's not necessarily the focus. In a handstand you want to hold the hollow shape but the handstand is not a core strength exercise as such, it's a skill. At least once the strength elements are in place.

 

Having said that it is perfectly possible to do handstands with arched backs, you see that in yoga or old pictures of gymnasts for example. But it makes it harder to learn advanced handstand skills down the line. And they don't look as nice. Unless it's contortion handstands but that's a different beast.

[quietmuse]

Yay, I DID IT! :-)  60 second wall hold!  Of course, I was shaking enough that I basically fell out of it and I was worthless for any significant follow-on attempt (25 s and 25 s or so), but I'm closer.  My tape mark says my hands are still about 28" from the wall, so I have to work that inwards, but progress!

 

Pretty sure I'm doing the arched-back thing.  Probably should straighten that out too?

 

At some point I have to figure out how to kick up.  You want to end up facing away from the wall when upside down, right?  Currently I start with my hands about 3 ft (or a meter...) from the wall, get my feet on the wall, then walk the feet up and the hands in to my current "best" mark (facing the wall). I think the barrier is mostly mental - I have the image of kicking up excessively hard, bouncing off the wall, and flinching in reflex/landing on head.  I'm sure there's a better way to do it.

 

Of course this weekend, I watched an 8-yr-old girl in our church child care room calmly kick up, hold the handstand, then walk around the room on her hands. Sigh...wish I had half that balance/strength...

[Abtacha]

Quietmuse, that's exactly what I want to be able to do!

And you're right it is mostly a mental thing. You obviously have the strength now to hold yourself up. So practice, practice, practice until your brain is so dizzy it won't object to being upside down

[Mad Hatter]

Stomach to wall = alignment

Back to wall = balance

Freestanding = awesome

And QM we WILL have that strength and balance. It just takes a bit of time that's all.

[Harika]

Yes and no. The hollow body is a basic body shape in acrobatics that crosses over into many other skills. Of course it is important to have an active and strong core, but that's not necessarily the focus. In a handstand you want to hold the hollow shape but the handstand is not a core strength exercise as such, it's a skill. At least once the strength elements are in place.

 

Having said that it is perfectly possible to do handstands with arched backs, you see that in yoga or old pictures of gymnasts for example. But it makes it harder to learn advanced handstand skills down the line. And they don't look as nice. Unless it's contortion handstands but that's a different beast.

Well, I tried the pose on the floor. I first did lifting from the ground, then I switched to starting high and seeing how low I could go. Twas about 2/3rds a meter between my hands or feet and the floor. From the moment I started my entire body was shaking. 

 

As for that last post, does that mean I have decent balance and awful alignment? I always feel more straight in the kicking one. XP That has a lot to do with starting close to the wall from a kick and not being able to walk my hands when inverted for the wall up.

[Mad Hatter]

If your body's shaking it means it's working. A slightly easier variation is to bend the legs to about 90 degrees, try that if the first one is too hard.

 

It's hard to say how your alignment is without photos or video. Are you kicking up to freestanding or kicking up to the wall? If you use a wall for support it will be impossible to get good alignment, even if your hands are all the way in to the wall. With your stomach to the wall you'll get better and better alignment the closer you can walk your hands, but even when far out you won't be forced to arch your back. And when you can get say 5" to the wall you will have to have almost perfect alignment, otherwise you'll fall over. It's great for building strength too. So I'd say do both! It's really helping me at least.  

[Mathieu *Gamer Unleashed*]

Yay, I DID IT! :-)  60 second wall hold!  Of course, I was shaking enough that I basically fell out of it and I was worthless for any significant follow-on attempt (25 s and 25 s or so), but I'm closer.  My tape mark says my hands are still about 28" from the wall, so I have to work that inwards, but progress!

 

Pretty sure I'm doing the arched-back thing.  Probably should straighten that out too?

 

Congrat:) 

I manage the same thing yesterday, holding 60 seconds, and I was a total mess after that. (25 - 20) and my arms felled like overcooked spaghetti all the evening. I am kicking up to tha wall assisted handstant, but I saw the answer were if I want to work on alignement I should get back to facing the wall and work on that.  

[Mdowning]

I took three pics during tonight's practice. I feel like my form is ok but if anyone sees anything wrong please let me know. Also, my toes are pointed up, but I'm really tall and they got cut off.

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[Harika]

I know I am missing quite a few days, but I am at least at 5 minutes on the days I do, and have been fairly good at making up the missed time, although days cannot be made up.

[Ignis Fatuus]

Held my flat-to-the-wall handstand for almost two minutes today.  I get just a tiny bit better each time.

[Elastigirl]

So inspiring to see everybdoy's progress  

 

My update for the day (copied and pasted from my thread due to tiredness/lazyness)

 I did a freestanding handstand   It was only about 3 seconds, and I couldn't duplicate it, But it happened. I was super excited and danced around the room, much to hubby's amusement   . He was helping me with doing kick ups, and I didn't make it to the wall, and he let go and I balanced. One of those that kind of snuck up on me, and I soon as I figured that I was balancing I fell   Still, it made me happy. Made me believe that this is actually going to work one day

[Abtacha]

Great progress everyone!

Mdowning, your handstands look ggod to me. But then I'm making it up as I go myself

[Cavilie]

handstand class was great! Max kick up/back to wall hold was just over a minute. I spent a lot of time with a spotter for free standing. And we worked on cartwheel/side step down to get out of handstand. I am now working with the cartwheel thing so I can get more comfortable getting out of freestanding handstands. I am too nervous/lack confidence with getting out of free standing handstands so I only practice at circus or gymnastics.  

 

Also, I did an 8 second free standing handstand at gymanstics last night which was great, then I promptly fell on my head. I was too excited about the hold and forgot about getting out of the handstand. Practice practice practice till it all becomes automatic...

 

other handstand success... I am getting a lot better at handstand to bridge!

[BlackWidowEowyn]

handstand class was great! Max kick up/back to wall hold was just over a minute. I spent a lot of time with a spotter for free standing. And we worked on cartwheel/side step down to get out of handstand. I am now working with the cartwheel thing so I can get more comfortable getting out of freestanding handstands. I am too nervous/lack confidence with getting out of free standing handstands so I only practice at circus or gymnastics.  

 

Also, I did an 8 second free standing handstand at gymanstics last night which was great, then I promptly fell on my head. I was too excited about the hold and forgot about getting out of the handstand. Practice practice practice till it all becomes automatic...

 

other handstand success... I am getting a lot better at handstand to bridge!

very cool!!

This is what I ave been working on too... it's not that I can't hold the handstand... i have trouble getting out of it without feeling like i'm going to break something. But going sideways is definitely easier for me. (thus far anyway)

[Ignis Fatuus]

Today while I was working on my form with my belly to the wall, my feet kept drifting away from the wall and I would be balancing.  I couldn't hold the balance, and would fall back to the wall, but I think I must be doing something right. Also, when I kick up now, i just lightly tap the wall with my feet instated of slamming into it.  Most of the time, anyway.

[Elastigirl]

Today while I was working on my form with my belly to the wall, my feet kept drifting away from the wall and I would be balancing.  I couldn't hold the balance, and would fall back to the wall, but I think I must be doing something right. Also, when I kick up now, i just lightly tap the wall with my feet instated of slamming into it.  Most of the time, anyway.

Great job. I tried to do that, just letting my feet drift away, but I can't find the balance point

[Mdowning]

3 stomach to walls 50 sec, 45 sec, and 35 sec. The progress has become quite noticeable. Now if only I could do that dang kick up

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[quietmuse]

Everybody is so cool!  Crazy stuff...although I'm doing my best to hold up my end of the bargain...

 

 

Today while I was working on my form with my belly to the wall, my feet kept drifting away from the wall and I would be balancing.  I couldn't hold the balance, and would fall back to the wall, but I think I must be doing something right. Also, when I kick up now, i just lightly tap the wall with my feet instated of slamming into it.  Most of the time, anyway.

 

That's awesome!  I finally got my hands close to the wall tonight and realized that it wasn't my feet that wanted to touch the wall.  I thought I was doing it wrong and pushed my toes back to the wall (which does funny things).  Maybe I was just ahead of myself and almost balancing like you!  Keep it up!!

 

Speaking of "my end of the bargain"

 

Wall holds, stomach to wall, 35 and 30 seconds tonight, hands 12" from the wall.  Not that I've measured and marked this on the floor.  No, not at all.  My strategy is line up feet about at the wall, "jump"/kick feet on the wall, then walk feet and hands back to the desired point.

 

Still working on the kick up too.  Though I only contact it half the time, I'm glad to have the wall close - kicking too hard and going over in a manner where I can't catch myself gets "in my head".  I got it right once tonight - kicked up, barely tapped the wall, and balanced momentarily before falling.  Maybe only 5-10 seconds, but I'll take it.

 

Mdowning, sounds like you're killing it!  My kick-up shortfall is that I don't kick hard enough.  It's a momentary mental reminder "kick _hard" on the times where it works out.  It seems to feel easier when I kick harder, though that's slightly counterintuitive.  I also found (like someone somewhere upthread) that it only works right on one leg.  If my left is the straight one, it might go OK.  If my right is the straight one, it'll never go.  Maybe that helps?  I'm also thinking I'll have to do it ten million times to get the correct feel.

 

I hope I'm a) doing it right so that I can describe it right...

 

Feels like I'm arching my back more than doing a hollow hold.  Maybe I'll have to set a camera and see.

[Harika]

I added a total for each person after the December final day. It just counts how many cells have anything in them, so excuses, comments, N/A and such are counted as well. The function I used is COUNTA(). For example, COUNTA(B2:B52) is counting all the cells under the first person that are not empty. I am using that function for a few of my goals, as I bothered to have a spreadsheet this challenge. Ah! My secret is out! I am temporarily not a chaosassin.

[Abtacha]

I took a video of my handstand practice today. It's rather long but there are some pretty good ones on there (if I may say so myself)

[QuirkyDM]

That was great to watch! 1:50 and 2:17 were very good ones. I actually said "Ohhh.. good one!" out loud when I saw them.

 

Thanks for posting. Now I've got something to look forward to in my progress.

[Paisley]

I added a total for each person after the December final day. It just counts how many cells have anything in them, so excuses, comments, N/A and such are counted as well. The function I used is COUNTA(). For example, COUNTA(B2:B52) is counting all the cells under the first person that are not empty. I am using that function for a few of my goals, as I bothered to have a spreadsheet this challenge. Ah! My secret is out! I am temporarily not a chaosassin.

great idea - I hope you don't mind but I modified it just slightly to be a COUNTIF function so it only counts the days you have an X (big or small doesn't matter).

 

my handstands are going OK.  I was sooo close to a 7 sec one today, I wish I could get a better way to count rather than just - well counting.  One day I will remember to video myself whilst doing them so I Can go back and find out just how long they actually are (not to mention how bad my form probably is).

[Harika]

great idea - I hope you don't mind but I modified it just slightly to be a COUNTIF function so it only counts the days you have an X (big or small doesn't matter).

 

my handstands are going OK.  I was sooo close to a 7 sec one today, I wish I could get a better way to count rather than just - well counting.  One day I will remember to video myself whilst doing them so I Can go back and find out just how long they actually are (not to mention how bad my form probably is).

Fantastic!

 

Perhaps, in the idea of counting functions, a ankle-mounted stopwatch that only counts when a magnet from the other ankle is against it?