The human flag involves supporting your body on a pole or some rigid structure and making your body shoot straight out from it, like a flag on a pole, hence the name. This require complete body control and strength especially in the abdominals to support the legs at the disadvantaged leverage.
As seen in this picture it can also be done with a partner. Due to the position it looks slightly easier in this version than without a partner.
This has to be one of the most amazing feats I have ever witnessed. I’ve show-cased Shaolin monks and the finger balancing abilities before. But this is amazing and I have no doubt to its authenticity. Watch and see the ‘Two Finger Zenist Kung Fu’.
Today marks day 15 of the 30 day challenge.
On the site I’ve shared a bit about my own progress, several tips, a few videos and old pictures.
While progress was quickly made in gymnastics, getting back into the flow of things, there were some setbacks in training, due to being too sore. Still I have practiced at least a little everyday so far.
Now that I’ve return to a bit more normal training schedule and the soreness has gone away I’m spending more time each day in a handstand.
I’ve been working my handstand position. Just playing around with different ways to hold it. Changing body position, mostly working towards a straight handstand, and seeing how that affects the balance.
On top of that my main goals are the one arm handstand and the one arm half planche. Happy to report both arm coming along, although the latter is making quicker progress.
How are you doing so far?
With all the wide variety of hand balancing skills you can possibly do what should you focus on?
This is the topic of one of the eight special reports found in the Hand Balancing Mastery Course, but I’d like to give you a few details on it now.
The more time you spend practicing the more skills you can focus on. In fact, you’ll need to spread that time out into a variety of moves.
This may be obvious but it is nevertheless important.
If you don’t practice very often or for very long you’ll be better off just focusing on a single skill or two. Now this may involve doing several assistance or lead-up stunts that will the main skills. But its all in the efforts for just one goal.
That’s the other big part of what to focus on. It depends on what you want to accomplish. I believe simply by having a goal, especially with a deadline, you’ll make progress probably twice as fast.
That’s it for today. If you don’t have a set goal why don’t you figure out what that is and write it down. Then figure out the best way to approach it.
My goal is to hold a one arm handstand with real balance for at least five seconds by the end of this year. What’s yours?
Maybe you’ve heard of slacklining before. Maybe you haven’t. Either way this slackline video shows some of the best tricks I’ve ever seen.
Before this I had never seen backflips, front flips and other crazy tricks on the slackline.
Considering I tried to mount a slackline one time and it took about 20 minutes before I could even stand on it with some steadiness I give these athletes a big shout out for their skills. It takes an entirely different form of balancing.
Anyone out there practice slacklining regularly?
I still kick myself to this day. Back when I first purchased my original copy of The True Art and Science of Hand Balancing by Paulinetti and Jones they had another course on head balancing. At the time I was only interested in doing handstands so I only got the one book. Since that time I have never seen another copy of the head balancing course offered even though I’m always looking.
While the regular headstand with the use of the hands is an easy stunt just about anyone can do, doing it without your hands is an entirely different matter. It takes tremendous balancing ability throughout your body. Here is a photo of Rafael Guerrero balancing on his head in good style.
I think the best way to work up to this stunt is to start with your hands and slowly do away with the fingers, similar to an approach you’d make with the one arm handstand.
For all acrobatics and hand balancing you need strong abs. The stronger the abs the better.
In this new article you’ll find out one of my favorite ab exercises and four progressive levels to do it in.
Yesterday was my second day back at gymnastics.
I have to admit it’s a lot of fun. Join the class and do a series of drills across the floors. Different kinds of cartwheels. Handstands. Handstand roll out. Handstand rollout to standing. And so on.
The different people there have different strengths and weaknesses in these drills. Some are easy. Some are not, but you try anyway, and even if you fail in many cases you are getting better.
After the various warmup drills we were free to work on what we wanted to.
I didn’t do any back handsprings the previous time so I figured that was a good place to start. It’s nice to come back to gymnastics rather than starting from scratch. Much easier this time around.
A few preliminary drills, a spot on one back handspring and then I was doing them by myself. Couldn’t quite get the ideal form I was trying for but I was getting back to my feet. Will have to work on those more for sure.
Back to Back Flips
This is why training in a gymnastics center is so great. One of the drills involved stacking a whole bunch of pads, including a wedge shaped pad at the top. This was close to shoulder height. The objective was to jump up and back. As soon as you touched the pads, or even before, you would tuck and roll back (the wedge helping you to do so). This allows you to work the jump and tuck while eliminating the entire second half of the move.
Wish I had taken a picture. Where else are you going to be able to do this?
I get a spot on my first real back tuck. It’s done off of raised mats onto a pad. Success. I find often times a single spot is all that is needed, not so much to help in the move, but to calm your mind, and allow you to do it without fear. After that you’re good to go. Just replicate the same action.
Gradually I lowered the mats until it was even. Then I did away with the mats and pads altogether and did a back flip on the floor. Back in action.
Seeing as I easily did these before I knew it wouldn’t be much trouble. Just had to get back into it step by step as I describe in this article on back flips. This time the steps were a lot quicker then when I first learned.
In a few sessions I’ll have all my skills back (and even be better in some ways.) I look forward to the new skills I’ll be learning how to do and sharing that all with you.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
Rudi Macaggi a performing acrobat and comedian demonstrates his hand balancing ability by doing a one arm handstand on a guitar.
Don’t try this at home without many years of practice. You could hurt yourself and the guitar!
Another question came in recently regarding breaking through handstand pushup plateaus.
I’m now able to balance about 15 seconds at best, but I do see progress.
Focusing my weight on that first row of knuckles helps a lot. I also started doing more forearm stands as a balancing drill which have helped.
… On another note, I have been plateaued at about 10 handstand pushups max (but not all the way down). This is against a wall and going down to touch a yoga block about six or eight inches off the ground. If I go all the way until my head hits the ground, I can get just one rep. I’ve been at this level for a couple months. Any suggestions to break through the plateau?
Thanks,
Dean
An isometric handstand pushup
From the book in Chapter 11 – Common Problems:
Use the exercises in the beginning of Chapter 6, such as negatives, isometrics and others. Using these moves especially to work harder and to work on sticking points will make you stronger. As long as you can do just a little bit more than last time you are improving. Sometimes improvements come fast. Sometimes they are slow.
If those do not work try switching up your routine. Often just going from normal HSPU’s to Reverse HSPU’s will work wonders. Or change your set and rep scheme. If you’ve been doing 5 sets of 5 try 8 sets of 2 or vice versa. Or maybe you should break from the HSPU’s altogether and use weights for a while.
So there you have it. There are four ways you can change up what you’re doing to make faster progress. Not to mention in the book you’ll find a lot more regarding positioning of handstand pushups that can make a HUGE difference.
Good Luck and Good Handstanding,
Logan Christopher
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