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Gene Jackson Walking on His Hands down the Railroads

By admin on October 17, 2007 in Walking & Jumping

Another amazing hand balancing stunt straight out of Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

Gene Jackson from New York walking across a single rail of railroad track. You can see more of Gene Jackson’s stunts in The True Art and Science of Hand Balancing on pages 122 and 124

Gene Jackon Walking on his Hands

The next time you are by some tracks give it a shot. You will find it is quite a bit more difficult than walking across a flat ground.

The main reason for this is that you will have a narrower base than you usually have when walking. Instead of just falling forward or back, which happens in normal handstands, your body now can fall to the sides as well.

Even if you don’t walk the railways on your hands, by incorporating some kind of narrow base handstand work into your training you will increase your balancing skills even more.

It is also a great way to build up toward a one arm handstand.

Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher

P.S. I am putting together a free gift for you if you are willing to help me out. You’ll hear about it real soon.

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Robert Jones Celebrates His 50th Birthday

By admin on October 10, 2007 in One Hand

When I was visiting my brother down near Los Angeles last weekend I noticed one of the books he had on his bookshelf. The name Ripley’s Believe it or Not was displayed on the spine.

Knowing that Bob Jones had been featured by Ripley‘s nine different times, I decided to see if one of his feats made the cut in this book.

I flipped to the index and found his name. He was on page 87. I turned expecting to see his most famous stunt the thumb stand on top of Indian clubs which you can see for yourself here.

I was surprised and elated to see a feat I had neither seen nor read about before.

For his 50th birthday Bob Jones cut his birthday cake while holding a one handed handstand.

Not only is it hard to hold a one hand handstand, but to do it for probably at least a minute while cutting a cake is something else.

It also listed one of his other feats (but had no picture), which was holding a handstand with 200 lbs. tied around his waist! How you even get into the handstand with that kind of weight is beyond me.

If anyone can duplicate these feats let me know.

Good Luck and Good Handbalancing,
Logan Christopher

P.S. There was more than one hand balancer featured in this book. If you own a copy of The True Art and Science of Hand Balancing his name will be familiar to you. You’ll have to wait until next time to see and read about it.

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Handstand Hold for Time

By admin on October 3, 2007 in Handstands

Here is a great way to finish off your workouts whether you are doing just hand balancing or anything else by doing a handstand hold.

Its really simple, too.

Just kick up into a handstand against the wall and hold it there for as long as you can. Try to stretch your toes upward and maintain good posture the whole time.

If you want you can even do a couple sets.

This is great because it will build your endurance in your arms, shoulders, back, everywhere.

As you steadily increase the amount of time you can hold a handstand you will find you get less fatigued when you practice your hand balancing.

It will test your mental toughness too. You can always stay up one more second if you really wanted to. A great way to finish off your training is to leave it all behind.

Good Luck and Good Handbalancing,

Logan Christopher

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Underwater Handstand

By admin on September 19, 2007 in Handstands

Is doing an underwater handstand a good idea? Read below for that and other questions from readers like you. Remember that if you want your questions answered just email them to me. I can’t personally reply to all of them but I will post them for all to see.

Here’s the first one:

Thank you so much for the good tips. I am just a beginner of the hand stand on land. I already know how to do headstand (“King of Yoga” ). I also do good hand stand and hand walk underwater in the swimming pool at my local LA Fitness. In fact I handwalked the entire length of the pool in one breath few days ago. But I find it much more difficult to do hand stand on land. Shall I keep practicing underwater hand stand and hand walk while trying to learn hand stand on land? Will I pick up “bad habits” while doing the underwater hand balancing?
Best regards, Brian Ko

Now I have never heard this one before. Not having practiced in the water it is hard to say for sure but here are my feelings.

Water is going to give you some resistance for you to push off of. This is why it is easier. When you balance on land you cannot push off the air in this manner. I imagine that you will be balancing with your body rather than your hands for the most part. If you want to be able to do a handstand on land then you should be practicing that.

The other thing is holding the breath. Obviously this must be done if you are underwater, and unless you have great lungs you won’t be able to balance for a long time. However, in hand balancing you do not want to hold your breath. A big key, and also something hard to learn, is to be able to breathe normally when you practice.

My advice is to stick to the land. It is harder but you will get the hang of it. There may be some benefit from practicing underwater but I the time would be better spent on solid ground.

And from our friend Seth:

Hello, I was wondering where is the best place to look while you are in a handstand, I find myself always looking at the ground, but recently I started trying to look forward and keeping neck straight. Which way is correct? Thank you for all your help it is very much appreciated.

Both are correct depending on what you are going for. Most of the time I look at the ground. I find this position easier. Remember that the back tends to follow the head, so if you are looking at your hands then you will naturally arch.

Now if you look forward then your back will straighten out and this will give you the straight handstand look and feel. Once you get use to this position it can be just as easy as the other one.

It all depends on what you are going for but both are correct for hand balancing.

That wraps it up for today.

Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher

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Make Haste Slowly

By admin on September 14, 2007 in Handstands

If there was a pill that you could take, that would immediately transform you into a world class hand balancer, would you take it?

YES I would! Sadly, there is no such pill.

Becoming great hand balancer requires work. Lots and lots of work.

The problem is that the more you want it and push for it sometimes the farther away it seems.

The worst part of learning any new stunt is the frustration when you just can’t get it right. So you keep on pushing and only get worse it seems.

When you are going after a handstand, and mind you this applies to any trick, as soon as you fall out of balance you may want to kick right back up again. Trying to force the situation will never help.

Whenever this happen take the time to step back. Take a deep breath and think about how you can do better. Don’t over think the process, but analyze your technique and realize if you are doing things correctly.

Now go at it again with optimism.

If you throw yourself into a hand balance you may feel like you can get more work in a shorter amount of time. Perhaps you get one in ten to stick and you feel like you are progressing.

The question to ask yourself is do you want to go about this haphazardly or in the correct manner?

I am hoping you answered with the second option. You need to start slowly in order to make progress in the long run.

Going after the handstand with no prior skills is a hard way to do it. Learning the position and hand control with exercises like the Frog stand and Head Stand will give you two steps in the right direction.

Don’t just go after the One Hand Handstand by getting into a normal handstand and raising one hand off of the floor quickly. Practice handstands with a smaller base of support or with one arm elevated up.

Don’t be too anxious to get to your goal or you are putting obstacles in your own way.

If you needed to cover a distance of 30 feet would you try a broad jump or walk each step at a time?

I am as guilty of this problem as any of you. What we need to do is realize how much assistance exercises and lead-up stunts can help, use them, and in the end we will make progress faster.

By breaking your goal into easier steps along the way you will get there with haste.

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