Upside Down Club

[Ignis Fatuus]

Practiced in the park today.  A change of venue was nice.  Worked on rolling some.  Tried kicking up without any support.  It didn't work, but i did pirouette bails without even thinking about it.  I guess this kinda counts as progress.

[Haevyn]

Missed the majority of my workouts and handstands last week Work's been hectic, but no excuse! Restarted on Sunday. Monday feels good so far. 

[Arcanis]

Kicking up is actually pretty hard to master. If you have the upper body strength, learning the press to handstand may actually be an easier way to get to handstand.

The problem with kicking is that you have to kick up with the perfect momentum. If you fall short, you'll fall back down. If you go too far, you'll fall over. With the press to handstand you get the balance training you need without the unnecessary confounding from the kicking.

Below is a link:

[Arcanis]

Below is me doing what comes after mastering this version of the press handstand. Forgive me for struggling so much with it, its been a while.

[DinoBytes]

I have been working SO hard on the press to handstand, I still can't do it Here's how far I am right now but hopefully by the end of the challenge I'll be able to press up without the wall. if anyone has any pointers on technique I welcome any and all critique/constructive criticism/advice.

I wonder if it is all in the hip rotation and less about the flexibility which I believe I do already have... I'm not sure. have a look!

[Elastigirl]

Practiced in the park today.  A change of venue was nice.  Worked on rolling some.  Tried kicking up without any support.  It didn't work, but i did pirouette bails without even thinking about it.  I guess this kinda counts as progress.

Totally counts as progress.If you can automatically do the pirouette, you can practice anywhere and not have a fear of falling.

[Arcanis]

You are way more flexible than I am DinoBytes. My tips would be to load your weight on to your shoulders (this way your hands are the fulcrum upon which your leg weight is balance against your body weight) once your legs clear the ground, and as you are doing so arch backwards with your back (which i suppose is the hip rotation).

As your back goes up, legs are going to be exerting less weight on the fulcrum (hands) and shoulders will come in (since they have less to counterbalance), until it eventually becomes the traditional handstand. For those of you who are nerdier, I assume all of us, viewing any of these exercises in physics may make the mistakes that are happening more obvious.

[DinoBytes]

Haha I can see that for sure! Thank you for your compliments/tips I can see you're obviously very strong and though you said you struggled in your form, it looked pretty impressive to us! (Good job Silkie) I have been able to press up (albeit sloppily for now) from crow posture (yoga) by rotating my upper body down over my shoulders and my hips up before lifting my knees off of my arms . I'm still practicing presses against the wall but it's hard to imagine how to step away from the wall. I can go down correctly once I'm up but the liftoff is the most troubling. Thank you for your tips I will take those for a test drive today!

[Mad Hatter]

How are your presses from headstand and forearm stand? They can be worth practicing to get the movement right without adding the balance component.

[DinoBytes]

I can easily press up and down from headstand both v and pike forms. The forearm stand is a little more challenging but I can do the v press pretty decently with my nose brushing the ground (all the weight shifts to much forward and I end up leaning so far forward... ) the pike is a no go from forearm though. Not enough space.

[Mad Hatter]

Take what I say with a big pinch of salt as I'm nowhere near a press, but it sounds like you're leaning forward so much in the forearm stand in order compensate for lack of active flexibility. So even if it's good it can't hurt to work on it even more.

Is there a reason why you're working the press against the wall with bent arms? I can see how it might make the hip movement easier to practice but you already got that down.

Have you tried elevating your feet a little in the freestanding press?

[DinoBytes]

It is actually easier to do free stand press from a block under the hands or on the end of a balance beam or table. I can do it with bent arms or with straight arms against the wall too.. I'm doing a lot of hip and leg work this week, maybe as I stretch them out more this week with them warm it may help. I'll keep you posted. I understand it's a very long process and I am trying to be patient, but it's far too exciting to see little victories like pressing from crow or the slow lowering from v, pike and lowering into crow and sidecrow. Makes my head spin with the possibilities in the nearer future such as the actual v press up, pike press up, maybe even press up from sitting, or as part of a yoga vinyasa! *sigh someday I'll get there. But for now. Patience, steady, strong, and controlled.

[Mad Hatter]

Huh, that's interesting. I would have thought it'd be easier the more stacked the hips are over the shoulders. 

 

And it's indeed a very loooong slow process. I'm at a stage where I understand what I need to do to just to get a plain handstand but my body refuses to cooperate with me. Patience, right?

[DinoBytes]

You'd think right? But for me I guess it's about getting the toes free of the ground, then it's just muscle control from there.and yes lots of patience and practice... because what is patience without practice?

[Arcanis]

More fun applications of the handstand:

I love how easy the little kids make it look.

[Ignis Fatuus]

That's pretty sweet. I wanna learn to do that.  I took some video of my handstand practice today, and I was gonna post it here,but I can't get it to upload.  I'll try again later.

[Ignis Fatuus]

Here is some video of me practicing handstands.  I still can't figure out how to upload videos to this site, so I had to put it on youtube.

[QuirkyDM]

I tried to watch it, but it says this video is private.

 

As for uploading videos, I put photos in my gallery and then insert that. I assume it's the same with videos. (I'll try to find out soon) I couldn't figure out how to do youtube insertion, though, when I tried that. We're at opposite ends of the spectrum.

[Ignis Fatuus]

Okay, I change the settings, so you should be able to see it now.  To insert a youtube video, click the "Special BBCode" button in the top left of the reply toolbar, select "media," then put in the URL for your video.  I tried uploading the video to my gallery, but it kept giving me error messages. I don't know if this a problem with the NF site or if I'm just doing it wrong.

[QuirkyDM]

I just watched the video. Great work. It was funny though because when you start off screen and then pop on, my initial thought was that you were taking a running jump into the screen. I must be watching too much parkour lately.

 

We seem pretty close to the same level. I'm going to see about taking the wall out of my routine now and see how it goes to make it an official handstand. Things will either go really well ... or I'll have an update from the ER.

[Ignis Fatuus]

Yeah, I've been thinking about moving away from the wall, too.  Gotta take the training wheels off eventually.  Maybe I'll do that today.

[QuirkyDM]

I just tried no walls today. I started stomach to wall just to get form and remember balance, then kick up to wall to remember the right kick up strength and then I went for it. It's about as good as my kick up to wall, the pirouette bail provides lots of safety so I never felt out of control. If you can kick up to wall and aren't worried about putting your feet through the wall, I say go for it.

 

I have video, but it's sideways, so I have to flip that before I put it up.

[Haevyn]

Just moved to kick up! Can manage to balance and hold the handstands twice every ten kick ups or so..

[Ignis Fatuus]

Did my practice without the wall today.  I definitely have the pirouette bail down.  I managed to hold the balance for a few seconds a few times.  Not long enough or consistently enough to say that I have it, but I'm getting close.  I'm going to leave the wall behind from now on. I'll try to get some more video up tomorrow.

[QuirkyDM]

I read this article last week, which was a good reminder for my handstand skills. Specifically, there is a shoulder stretch to make sure you're opening up your shoulders properly and a progression for hollow body which I found helpful. Otherwise, it's a similar progression that I've seen before.

 

It's really been clicking with me the last few days and I thought I'd list what I've been focusing on to help. Today, I had a 5 second hold and a lot of 3 second holds, so if I can start getting the longer holds more than once a session, I'll be pretty happy.

 

1) Tight stomach and tight legs. When I really focus on these, it makes a huge difference to my hold time. If I can't maintain balance, this is where the problem usually lies.

2) Focus on one spot on the ground and don't waiver. This is true for any type of balance you use, not just on your hands. I find a good point is a few inches behind my hands. (ie. towards my stomach)

3) Good head position. At the very start I was arching my head too far back, then I started keeping my head looking straight forward without looking down at all. I'm finding a good spot for my head is just a slight arch back so I'm looking at the floor just behind my hands. (as listed in #2)

4) Remember to breathe. I take a deep breath when kicking into my handstand. And then I just hold it. My goal isn't "how long can I hold my breath in a handstand" so I am remembering to breathe normally and maintain focus.

 

Hopefully some of these same reminders will come in handy for some of you.