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?
The following, going to a handstand from sitting position, is an intermediate skill though it can be made easier or harder.
This video shows you a good example of how you can do this move.
This is probably the easiest form to do this skill in.
1 – Start in an L-sit position
2 – Tuck your legs
3 – Come to a tuck planche or bent arm tucked position.
4 – Press up to a handstand
You can reverse the positions and come back down from a handstand to sitting position as well. This skill is just slightly harder then the frogstand press.
To make this more advanced keep your arms straight then entire time. This may take a little less strength but more flexibility.
To make it much more advanced keep the legs straight the entire time. This requires much more flexibility to bring them through your arms, plus compressive ability.
To make this skill easier try it from parallel bars.
The handstand from sitting is a great hand balancing press skill no matter how you do it so start working on it.
Watch this video on an amazing hand balancing duo.
It’s French. It’s seductive. It’s also got some partner balancing I’ve never seen before.
Quite the complement of strength, skill and flexibility.
Thanks to Adam Glass for sending this to me.
If you have ever jumped in your life, you may have noticed that it is only the beginning of your journey. Depending on the length of your jump in the air you might need to change balance or reposition yourself. Once gravity starts pulling you down, you need to think about how you want to land.
If you are performing a long or high jump, landing is the most important part because executing it properly will keep you safe from injuries. In the video, you are able to see one of the Parkour pioneers David Belle, perform some of his jumps and effectively executing the roll.
The important thing to notice is that after landing on his feet, he rolls over his shoulder. This way, he effectively transfers the momentum and the energy that was used for his jump transfers to the roll.
By landing only only on his feet, he would risk injuring his ankles, feet and legs. The roll allows for flexibility that keeps him safe.
Try practicing on flat land, then from higher platforms and ultimately from a wall. Also work up to harder surfaces but start on something soft.
Even with these simple moves you can move up to a huge level of master. For more Parkour Training info click here.
While Parkour and acrobatic tricks may seem difficult, all of the people doing it had to start somewhere. By starting out with simple tricks and advancing later on, you build up confidence, skill and acquire a decent amount of tricks up your sleeve.
In the video, you are able to see that wall climbups are not that difficult to perform, and while looking cool are actually also quite functional. Even if you do not want to show off your skills, you might find yourself facing a wall that you would need to climb, by learning how to do it, you will be able to.
While climbing up, try to keep your hands straight, because by bending them you lose all the power you had. While performing 180s you should be kick yourself in the opposite direction only when you’re high enough. It’s rather simple, just needs a little bit of practice. Fun thing about is, you can go outside and practice right now.
For more parkour skills like these check out this DVD or the online course.
It’s a skill that has long eluded me. A straight arm press.
With my long limbs, I don’t have the leverage and flexibility to quite get the move. Bent arm presses are easy. Straight arm presses not so much. But I am making progress.
There are a number of ways you can work up to this skill. And today I’ll be discussing one which has been a big help.
The first straight arm press to work on is from a straddle. With the legs spread wide the idea is to bring them out and around as you come up into a handstand.
This skill takes strong arms, particularly the shoulders as you must support your body in a leveraged position. Plus you need the ab and core strength to raise the legs up while holding yourself in space.
As the legs start low, it makes sense that in order to make this move easier, you start off with the legs on a raised platform. From here it’s like starting in the middle of the move. The higher up you go the easier it becomes (that is until a certain point where it just becomes awkward due to the height).
As you improve you ability to raise off the ground in complete control, with no momentum, you can lower the height you start from. Eventually you’ll make it to the ground.
Follow this progression and you’ll be able to do straight arm presses from a straddle. From there you can move onto more difficult progressions.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
A number of people at the site have expressed an interest in building flexibility.
Hand balancing, acrobatics and flexibility all go hand in hand. Yet this is one area that I haven’t covered too much… that is until now.
But before I go and tell you all about it I want to know what you’d like to know.
Click here for the flexibility survey.
I have plans for a free report that’ll share with you the common misconceptions about stretching and much more. But that only scratches the surface of what I know.
Tell me what else you’d like to know.
It’s a short survey filled with multiple choice questions. Shouldn’t take more than a minute or two to fill out.
In the words of Jerry Maguire ‘Help me, help you.’
Click here for the flexibility survey.
Good Luck and Good Stretching.
Logan Christopher
A simple wrist stretch
I’ve shared a couple videos with you in the past week and today’s a little different. Instead of a video I’m giving you a report that covers what is many would-be hand balancer’s biggest obstacle. And that is wrist pain and flexibility.
Wrist Flexibility Report
(right click and choose save-as)
This is something I personally battle with. So instead of giving you a little tip you can have all of what I do to help out my wrists. The simple truth is without doing this stuff regularly I can’t do a handstand, but with it I can.
Perhaps you’ve already realized it, or you surely will after reading the report and seeing the references. Soon I’ll be releasing a new product. What you’ve seen is just small bits and pieces of the whole thing. And let me tell you it’s BIG.
This is the biggest and best compilation of hand balancing material ever released in the world.
It’s been called the Hand Balancing Bible.
You could call it the Holy Grail of Hand Balancing.
But I’ve done away the religious references and simply called it the Hand Balancing Mastery Course.
Tomorrow I’ll fill you in on more details on why this course is a must-have for anyone who wants success beyond the handstand.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
P.S. If this report helps you out please comment below.
The gymnastic handstand or straight handstand is a more difficult move then the natural or curved handstand. For that reason I believe a beginner should work on the curved handstand first and once they become proficient at that then they can move onto the straight handstand.
Working on the straight handstand will take a good bit of dedication as you must learn to maintain a straight body while upside-down, something that certainly doesn’t come natural. As with any move its best to learn it in the easiest possible way first. For that reason we go to the wall.
When working on the gymnastic handstand it is better to face the wall with your body rather then have your back to it. This makes it easier to get into the straight body position. You can cartwheel into position or walk your feet up the wall.
Once you are in the handstand get your hands as close to the wall as possible. Stick your head through your arms. This alone will help your back to stop curving. While keeping the arms locked push through with your chest to open up the shoulders. If this is difficult you may need to work on shoulder flexibility.
Another key part is the lower body. You want to maintain what is known in gymnastics as a hollow body position. That is you tuck your pelvis in. Think as if you were trying to reach your tail bone to your navel and shorten that distance. You may need to practice this position while not in a handstand if it is unfamiliar to you.
Once you have a good position hold for time against the wall. Work up to 2 minutes for multiple sets. If you can do this you have good endurance not just to hold the handstand but to keep your position while you do it. At that point the gymnastic handstand should feel natural to you.
The next step is to transition to freestanding. Instead of just kicking up out in the open start in the straight handstand against the wall and come off a little bit to find your balance. But that will have to be an article for another time…
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
An important part of handstands is having hand strength and flexibility so here are some wrist strengthening exercises.
I’ve always had some wrist troubles when it came to handstands due to an old injury. And recently my right wrist has been acting up making even a regular handstand hard to hold.
How have I been able to make progress towards overcoming this?
By doing more handstands!
Because a handstand puts you near or at complete extension of your wrist it’s a position most people never really use or have need for strength in. But for those of us handbalancing that’s different.
Very few other exercises can even get close to this position. So using the handstand itself is the way we want to use to build wrist strength and flexibility.
Of course, if you are just starting out putting your full weight on your hands may be too hard. In this case going from pushups, to elevated pushups and finally to the handstand is the progression to follow. I had to go back to the starting point in order to build up.
It may be uncomfortable. The idea is to push your boundaries a little at a time. Keep doing a bit more each time to expand your wrist flexibility. Of course, you don’t want to push too hard you injure yourself even more. The idea is to make progress slowly and over time.
If its no strain to hold the position, when you are in the handstand (ideally against the wall) you can dig in and press down into the ground doing isometrics to further build your strength, and therefore control when balancing.
Regular practice with these kind of wrist strengthening exercises will result in strong, flexible and healthy hands and wrists.
Good Luck and Good Balancing,
Logan Christopher
P.S. There’s also some nifty stunts by Bob Jones in Chapter 6 of The True Art and Science of Hand Balancing. Be sure to check those out to further build strength and flexibility in those hand balancing hands.
© 2024 Lost Art of Hand Balancing. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by WordPress. Designed by 
