Tag Archives | Hand Balancing

AcroYoga Beginner Tutorial – Therapeutic Flying

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!

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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.

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

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.

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

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

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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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Better Late Than Never: Happy New Year!

Its the first full official week of the New Year and we wanted to make sure that we didn’t forget to wish you a Happy and Successful year in all of your endeavors!

Happy_New_Year_1_4_2016

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

If you need any helpful tips or even a pathway to keep you productive on your hand balancing journey pick up the Handstand Mastery Course!

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Great Tricks To Try

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.

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

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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Hand Balancing in Costa Rica

Mauricio Jara is a tricking master from Costa Rica. Tricking is a training discipline similar to capoeira which combines martial arts kicks with gymnastics and breakdancing. He recently shared a video on one of the aspects of this discipline – gymnastics, with a focus on hand balancing.

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

Sit back and enjoy this mind-soothing handstand compilation.

Interested in tricking videos by Mauricio? Check out his Facebook page here.

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2 Common Handstand Kick Up Issues (and how to solve them)

The freestanding handstand is not an easy move to perform, but to even get there you have to learn how to kick up (and make sure your handstand against the wall is solid, but that’s another story). Even though people usually don’t expect to have trouble with this part, underkicking or overkicking still proves to be an issue for many.

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

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to safely kick up into a handstand.

Ready for more advanced stuff? Learn how to walk and jump on your hands here.

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Creative Moves by Gravity & Other Myths

Today’s video comes from a bunch of people who look like they’re on a vacation, but still manage to pull out some amazing moves in combination of free running, hand balancing and other amazing stuff – like playing a piano with a hand balancer on top of you!

Tumbling Illustrated
Tumbling Illustrated on Amazon

This uplifting video comes from Gravity & Other Myths, a well-known Australian acrobatics ensemble.

Are you interested in any of my training programs or books? Then make sure to sign-up to my newsletter here TODAY and you’ll receive a special coupon code tomorrow (5/13/2015) for 30% off on my products!

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Crazy Hand Balancing Feats

Regular handstands just don’t cut the mustard for you anymore? How about hand balancing on rolling dumbbells or high-fiving a friend in between handstand push-ups on a barbell? Yeah, that should do it.

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

These and similar feats can get pretty taxing on the wrists, so think twice before trying to replicate them. It would be wise to master balancing on hand balancing stands first.

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Healthy Fingertip Progressions

The following is a guest article from Jarell Lindsey.


10 warriors, trained expertly and in unison, can overcome hundreds. Adversity in such war is your employer; the more hours you face it, the greater it pays you in strength, willpower, and endurance. In training, your body is at war with weakness, immobility, and comfort; your ten fingers are some of the best warriors you can use to change the tide of your lifelong fitness battle.

Tumbling Illustrated
Tumbling Illustrated on Amazon

To expertly train those ten warriors, however, requires safe fingertip training. Your fingers abound with tendons and ligament, some of the most difficult connective tissue to heal when injured. Don’t walk into your training either; a steady jog will do.

Daily gripper training got my crush grip to a decent level, but my fingertip strength for hand balancing was lacking. Here’s how my steady “jog” progressed: I decided to alternate pushups on my knees using my fingertips, the nail-side of my fingertips (man, that was tougher than I thought), and my wrists for 3D hand strength. Lifting one knee to increase the difficulty with each exercise helped until I could do each in a full pushup position.

I am now in progressions of elevating my feet on a chair for all the above exercises, even getting to fingertip holds in a handstand position. I couple these with an isometric fingertip exercise I do twice weekly with intensity, and my progress has been consistent and quite phenomenal, for my humble standards. I’ve been able to do things I’d only imagined or seen in comics, such as pushups for reps on my thumbs.

 

I don’t doubt that you’ve already noted the absence of set or rep numbers for the above progressions. That is critical to the point I’m about to make: you make your own sets and reps with this training. The focus of mobility training should be variation, so rather than trying to reach 100 fingertip pushups, elevate your feet to add variation whenever you feel like your finger strength can handle it. Your own strength will develop in an incredible way, with a limited chance of injury and a consistent path to progress. Progression is key; with that plus a focus on variation, your 10 warriors will be (wait for it) in good hands.

“Strength is more than just muscle” 

Find more from Jarell Lindsey at https://www.leanfunctionalmuscle.com/

 

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Impressive Hand Balancing Duo

We already had a video from Dan where he balanced on his head on a stump. Today it’s a little bit different as Jakes and Rhiannon join for some hand balancing coolness.

Jakes neck strength plays a very important role when Rhi performs the one-arm handstand on his head and even though it looks kinda wobbly, it’s all good.

Tumbling Illustrated
Tumbling Illustrated on Amazon

Check out the best book on learning how to perform the one hand handstand here.

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Front Splits One Arm Balancing

Some of you may know that I managed to fulfill one of my goals last year and achieve front splits.

Kim took the whole thing to the next level and actually balanced on one hand while grabbing her front foot and performing the front split. Pretty impressive stuff right there!

Learn How to Back Flip in 31 Days
Learn How to Back Flip in 31 Days on Amazon

If you’re suffering from poor flexibility I strongly recommend you to check out Focused Flexibility by GBM.

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