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1 Min Tip: Acrobatic Attributes – Reverse Shoulder Roll

By Jon Magno on March 2, 2016 in Acrobatics, Flexibility & Contortion, Gymnastics, Hand Balancing, Handstands, Head Balancing, Mobility, Other Skills

For today’s tip, I’ll be going over an easy stretch that everybody does, yet with a little more detail than the usual. The move we’ll be working on today is the reverse shoulder roll. It’s probably something you all have done since your school days, in sports, or physical education(if you had it).

The first thing to keep in mind while doing this combo is that your main focus in on the lats and the traps. You want to pay attention to keeping the shoulder neutral and in a relaxed position.

Once you begin your reverse shoulder roll. Pay attention to your arm when it gets behind your back. From personal experience with clients, I found that once they finish getting their hand overhead they completely relax their arm and let it drop behind their back. Lets not try to do that and be more mindful of our movement!

As your bicep lines up with your ear, outstretch up to activate the lat and keep it activated during the rest of the rotation.

Check out the full video here!

Also if you are looking to really develop your foundational range of motion and flexibility for acrobatics, check out the GMB Focused Flexibility program here: https://lostartofhandbalancing.com/go/focusedflexibility/

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Some Inspiration from 47 year old Freerunner

By Jon Magno on February 27, 2016 in Acrobatics, Flexibility & Contortion, Gymnastics, Hand Balancing, Handstands, Mobility, Other Skills, Parkour, Tumbling, Uncategorized, Walking & Jumping

Hey guys! If you don’t know much about me, know that I started in on movement training at a later age. I’ve always done the martial arts and have trained in combat sports, but working on tying it together into a cohesive art of self expression didn’t happen till later. I’ve still got a long way to go, but its great to see what others have accomplished even later in life!

P.S. No highlights in this one. Just watch the video as it is, you won’t regret it!

The True Art and Science of Hand Balancing

Only a couple of days left to pick up the Advanced Bridging Course. You’ve heard us talking about over the past month and you can get it by clicking here!

Stay Inverted!
-Coach Jon

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Parkour From Scratch #1 – Shoulder Roll Tutorial – How to start Parkour

By Jon Magno on February 23, 2016 in Acrobatics, Bridging, Flexibility & Contortion, Mobility, Other Skills, Parkour, Uncategorized, Walking & Jumping

Hey guys! As you know, we’ve been looking for ways to really develop your acrobatic base and all your acrobatic skills. In this series, you will be getting the information you need to start in parkour from scratch! The first tutorial is all about the Shoulder Roll.

The first thing you want to do is focus on rolling out from your shoulder to your opposing hip. More specifically, you should start rolling from your trap or scapula and not the deltoid.

The next thing you want to do is either crunch or tighten your abs. That way you have a rigid surface to push off of the floor!

When putting it all together, create a diamond shape on the floor, pull your arm in, crunch abs, and roll forward from your shoulder to hip!

There you go guys! Here is the full video for you.

Acrobatics are about autonomy and being mindful of your own movement. The Advanced Bridging Course February sale is almost over so don’t forget to grab it in order to build that strong and dynamic core necessary for acrobatics. To get the course, click here!

Stay Inverted!
-Coach Jon

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“1 Min Tip”: Acrobatic Attributes: A-Frame Leadups

By Jon Magno on February 22, 2016 in Acrobatics, Flexibility & Contortion, Hand Balancing, Handstands, Mobility, Uncategorized

Hey Guys! In today’s post, I’m going to be expanding on the A-frame position. Each move in the GMB Elements program works on multiple attributes that one needs to develop for acrobatics.

Specifically today, I’ll be talking about how the A-frame teaches one to utilize the hip while either walking up or kicking up while utilizing the wall!

In the first position, drive up from your hips and try to align your hips above your shoulders. This will make it easier to get into the handstand than creating an arc from your feet to the wall.

If you utilize the same hip drive in the reverse wall handstand, you can create an angle where you can fully extend your legs and really stabilize your body.

Check out the full video below!

Also if you are looking to really develop your foundation in any acrobatic endeavor check out the GMB Elements program here: https://lostartofhandbalancing.com/go/elements/

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AcroYoga Beginner Tutorial – Therapeutic Flying

By Jon Magno on February 15, 2016 in Acrobatics, Flexibility & Contortion, Gymnastics, Hand Balancing, Hand-to-Hand, Mobility, Yoga

Hey Everyone! You know that there have been quite a few posts on Acroyoga this month. With it being Valentines (and Deadpool for those of you who caught my Saturday email) month we felt it would be great to showcase a different type of hand balancing with a partner. In today’s post, Noga is going to go over a more therapeutic side of acroyoga involving thai massage!

The first position has the base posting on the hips and shoulders of the flyer. They then bend their knees independently or together to open up the flyer’s hips. The flyer should stay relaxed the entire time.

Up next are flyer circles. The base will take the flyer into forward and back circular pattern to open up the shoulder and hips with increasing leverage.

In the next position, Noga runs her flyer through a spinal twist to gain an inverted thoracic stretch.

Another stretch is to have the flyer elongate their spine while the base lengthens their position from the ground,

Noga goes through many more positions in the video that you can catch below!

One last thing! Flexibility and core stabilization is key for both the flyer and the base. So don’t forget that Logan and I have a special February deal for the advanced bridging course. Increase your core strength and mobility by going here!

Stay Inverted!
-Coach Jon

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1 Min Tip: Acrobatic Attributes – Shoulder Opener

By Jon Magno on February 8, 2016 in Acrobatics, Flexibility & Contortion, Hand Balancing, Mobility, Uncategorized

Hey Guys! Here’s the next update to our Acrobatic Attributes series of videos to help give you a better foundation! One of the keys to that foundation is to have loose muscles that can react and move in 3d. The Shoulder Opener Stretch is a great way to open up your shoulders and increase mobility to your posterior side while up in an inverted position!

The Shoulder Opener is a great way to open up your rhomboids, traps, scapula, and lats.

One of the key factors to doing the move correctly is to make sure the shoulders stay in a neutral position. You can easily accomplish this by placing your shoulder blades on a wall and using that as a focus point.

Pull one arm across the mid-line of your chest and use the opposing arm to pull it in place. Rather than pressing the arm towards your body, think about pulling your arm to the opposite side.(For my martial arts folks, think sticky hands!)

You can watch the 1 min tip here!

Don’t forget a lot of these great tips were inspired by our friends from Gold Medal Bodies. So if you are looking to really develop your foundational range of motion and flexibility for acrobatics, check out the GMB Focused Flexibility program here: https://lostartofhandbalancing.com/go/focusedflexibility/

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Great Tricks To Try

By admin on December 21, 2015 in Flexibility & Contortion, Hand-to-Hand, Handstands, Head Balancing, Tumbling, Walking & Jumping

Skills like hand balancing, hand spins, tumbling, flexibility tricks are serious tricks that can only be achieved through continuous training and practice. Hand spins and flexibility tricks are good way to keep your body in shape even when doing a solo act. While advanced hand balancing and flexibility skills are nicer when done in pair or with a group.

Dan had been practicing some of these skills for the past 2 years, at least. Do you think you can do better in a shorter training time?

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Impressive Moves by Simon Ata

By admin on October 14, 2014 in Acrobatics, Bboy, Flexibility & Contortion, Gymnastics, Hand Balancing, Handstands, Planche, Presses & Pushup

Breakdancers, especially professional one have to be in an absolutely stunning form to be able to perform flawlessly and stay injury-free. For this they rely on incredible strength, speed, precision and endurance.

We already had one video from Simon “Simonster” Ata from Australia, but this one includes a couple of break-dance moves as well. Get ready for planche pushups (and what a great form too!), backflips, handstand presses and much more.

Grab your Tumbling and Acrobatics Starter Package today and with some practice you’ll be able to impress others while moving your body in amazing ways too!

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One Arm Compilation

By admin on October 9, 2014 in Flexibility & Contortion, Hand Balancing, Handstands, One Hand

I stumbled upon this inspiring compilation of one arm workout videos from Russia. Unfortunately, video embedding was disabled by request. But you can still click here and watch it on YouTube.

It seems like the art of hand balancing and bodyweight training is definitely not lost in Russia, as they perform very hard moves, including:

One arm handstand
One arm planche
One arm chin up
One arm superman
One arm horizontal pullup
One finger chin-ups! (1:10)
One arm hand-to-hand handstand
And many more

Click here to learn how to do the one hand handstand.

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How to Become a Performer in Cirque Du Soleil

By admin on August 8, 2014 in Acrobatics, Bridging, Flexibility & Contortion, Gymnastics, Hand Balancing, Parkour, Tumbling

What does it take to become a performer in Cirque Du Soleil?

16×9 crew followed Cirque Du Soleil members for four months in order to show you just how tough their training is and how good you need to be in order to become a part of the most popular theatrical production company in the world.

Even though this video is not entirely focused on subjects relevant to this website, like hand balancing and gymnastics, it’s well worth watching the entire episode. Enjoy!

P.S. If you’re not quite ready to become a part of Cirque Du Soleil, check out these resources and take that first step in the right direction.

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