Just the other day I received this amazing story from a professional hand balancer by the name of Jonathan Ferland-Valois.
I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the story but that doesn’t make it any less of a good story. And I do hope its true.
Hi! I heard a story you might find very interesting. I work in a circus, I’m an acrobat that trains in hand balancing, aerial straps, and strength stuff (per example, I’m working hard on my one arm handstand push-up). I already talked with you like one year ago, when I was still in Montréal (I told you I was an ex-gymnast). Today, I was training with other performers for a show we’ll have soon, and one of them told me that cool story:
One of his friends, a good hand balancer, went in China, where he wanted to train with a master of hand balancing. That master was in his 60’s. The student showed him his one arm handstand, which was already very good and solid. The master went in handstand right beside him, then he used one of his hands to slap him, telling him to do better. The student tried to correct his position, and then the master stayed in one-arm handstand, and started pushing him with his free hand, saying: “You’re not enough stable.” The student felt back in a regular handstand, but the master kept pushing him with his free hand, telling him he wasn’t stable, until the student just fell on his back. All the time, the master stayed in one arm handstand, pushing and slapping the student.
When the student (the performer’s friend) came back, he had crazy good hand balancing. And his numero was absolutely incredible. There was a 8 foot high stand, with handbalancing canes on it. To go on the stand, there was pegs, climbing with about a 45 degrees angle. Do you know how the guys was going on the stand? Not climbing the pegs on his hands, it would have been too easy. He was doing it in Thomas flares! And another crazy trick he had in his routine was a one arm back handspring, stopping in one arm handstand. That’s nuts, isn’t?
So, I asked my friend to find a video of that. Cause I really, really want to see. If I ever get the video, I’ll ask their permission to send it to you. Cause you already know very good western hand balancer. But maybe there’s a couple of very crazy hand balancers from far east that you’d like to know about! Anyway, now I want to go train in China, ha ha! And I’ll probably do it not this summer, but at the end of the next summer.
Good training, for pulling that firetruck!
Thanks for sending that in and I hope you get a hold of that video.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
