Tag Archives | Flips

How to Perform a Wall Spin

By on September 4, 2014 in Acrobatics, Parkour, Tumbling

The wall spin is a great flip to start with if you are just getting into parkour and tumbling. Even though it is a basic parkour movement, most people can’t figure out how to perform it on their own.

Here’s a great tutorial by Ryan Ford on how to do it. After you’ve found an appropriate wall with something soft beneath it (like grass, a mat, etc. ), you’ll want to hit it at the right angle – 45 degrees works the best. As you’re running towards the wall, you need to jump off with both feet about 4 ft (or arms length) away from the wall. Make sure to keep your top hand pointing towards the movement, while keeping your other hand pointing towards the ground.

At this point you’ll want to lean forward and once you’re in that upside down position, move your top hand out of the way to avoid falling down. At the same time, keep your bottom hand on the wall and basically use it as a pivot point. The momentum will take care of the rest if you applied enough force in your jump and you should be landing safely on your feet.

The True Art and Science of Hand Balancing
The True Art and Science of Hand Balancing on Amazon

At some point all of us wanted to learn how to do backflips, handsprings, aerials, somersaults and other tumbling movements. Why not learn all these awesome movements now? Check out Tumbling and Acrobatics Starter Package and start moving your body in amazing ways.

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Have you been watching the Olympics?

By on February 15, 2010 in Uncategorized

The Winter Olympics are here. Are you watching?

While I must say that I am a bigger fan of the Summer Olympics I very much enjoy these events as well.

Walking and Jumping On Your HandsWalking and Jumping On Your Hands on Amazon

There may not be many handstands but there sure are some crazy aerial acrobatics of many different kinds. Whether going of a jump on skies, snowboarding or even figure skating you have some advanced flips and spins.

Of course all the events are great in their different ways. You can watch some of the greatest athletes from around the world compete for one of the highest awards in the world.

Even if it’s a sport you know nothing about you can easily get into it. After all it’s the Olympics.

Good Luck and Good Olympics,
Logan Christopher

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Can Hand Balancing Help Doing Backflips?

By on May 29, 2008 in Tumbling

It looks like the last email unleashed a fury of new questions. Because of the volume of them I might not get back to you personally, but I’ll try to answer the good one’s here.

Hi Logan,

I’ve been making tremendous progress with my handstands. I can also do a lot of those presses that I’ve seen on your site and on youtube. I did have a question though. Will hand balancing improve things like backflips and other aerial tumbling moves? Will it help me build more nerve when it comes to flips and things like that? I’m very athletic and I can do a backflip, but I was just wondering if hand balance training would make it even better.

Thanks for your tips,

Nelson

Thanks for the question, Nelson. It’s an interesting one that I have given some thought to before. Here’s my take on it.

Any move you work on will only improve your skill in that exact move. There is some carryover between related skills, like doing a frogstand will help somewhat with doing a handstand because of the similar balancing aspect.

But when you have skills that are far apart like hand balancing and a backflip, there is very little relation and therefore carryover. The skills of one will not help the other.

Just because someone is a master of hand balancing doesn’t mean necessarily they can do high flying aerial moves. Or vice versa.

That being said, here’s the flip side (no pun intended). This sort of training helps you to learn control over your own body. To really know it and be able to make it do what you want.

I believe someone with your skills should be able to pick up various other physical skills easier than someone with no experience hand balancing.

No amount of hand balancing will give you the ability to do backflips, you have to work specifically on the skills you want. But learning to control your body one way or another will speed your learning curve.

Ultimate Guide to Handstand Pushups
Ultimate Guide to Handstand Pushups on Amazon

Plus the strength you build from hand balancing is likely to make many other moves easier as well.

Since this email is already getting long and most of the questions are in depth I’ll have to save them til next time.

But before I go I want to let you know about my other site. Just recently re-launched it and have some awesome things in store.

I like to keep this site well targeted on hand balancing and acrobatics, but that is only one aspect of the much larger world of physical culture.

If you want to learn more of my thoughts on strength training, bodyweight exercise, kettlebells, hand strength, old-time feats of strength, and much more you’ve got to check it out here.

Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher

P.S. Go to Legendary Strength and be sure to sign up for the email tips there too to regularly get all the up to date information.

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Acrobatic Conditioning Report is coming…

By on April 19, 2008 in Handstands, Tumbling

I’m hard at work finishing up a Special Report I’ll be releasing next week. I was almost done but then your questions from the survey came in and I realized there was a lot more ground to cover.

So if you want your questions answered head on over to the survey.

It’s real short. And I know it asks for two questions but if you only got one that’s good enough.

This report is on what I call Acrobatic Conditioning. Its going to cover ways to train to improve your tumbling skills even if you’ve never worked on them before. How you can get started and where to train.

I’m about to go write more but I just want to take the time to answer at least one question here.

“Which skills should I attempt to learn first? and Should one master the handstand before attempting skills like cartwheel, round-off, and handsprings?”

Hand Balancing and Tumbling skills are related but definitely separate skill groups. You don’t really need to be good in one to do the other. That being said many tumbling moves move through the handstand position.

It can help to work both hand balancing and tumbling at the same time though you certainly don‘t need to be a master the handstand first.

As for which skills to work on that is easy. Start with what you can do and move on from there. If this is just basic rolls than start with that. Any moves where some part of you stays in contact with the ground would be next on the chain like cartwheels, roundoffs, and handsprings.

Of course the aerial moves like flips take a bit more work and are something you have to be careful with. More on that later.

But the idea is like with any other training. You work tumbling progressively.

Alright back to the report. Oh, and there’ll be new videos soon too.

How to do the One Hand Handstand by Professor Orlick
ow to do the One Hand Handstand on Amazon

Good Luck and Good Tumbling,
Logan Christopher

P.S. Seriously hit up the survey if you haven’t already.

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Foundational Rolling Skills

By on April 17, 2008 in Tumbling

How we got on the subject I can’t tell you at this point. I was at a birthday party and one of my friends told me they couldn’t do a somersault. Really!?! Maybe I was naïve but I thought EVERYONE could do this basic move.

But the truth is not everyone can. I’m sure you have no problem with this skill but the reason I am teaching it here in this video is to set up the idea of using and actually working on your tumbling skills. Everyone should be able to do the somersault. Not everyone necessarily has to do handsprings or front flips.

Hand Balancing Made EasyHandBalancingMadeEasy_on_Amazon

[youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSUUFXhf5XU] 

But if you want to it begs the question; how to you move up to the more difficult skills?

The easiest method is by taking the basics and adding twists to them. This will build your control and make you a better tumbler.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. But it should give you something to play with and start sparking your own creativity.

More on this subject later but if you haven’t already, be sure to take this really small survey. Only three questions total. Won’t take much time but it’ll really help me out. Take the Survey here. Thanks!

Good Luck and Good Tumbling,
Logan Christopher

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