Tag Archives | Legs

Yoga Arm Balances

By admin on October 30, 2008 in Handstands, Presses & Pushup

Yesterday morning, I decided to do something a little different from my normal morning routine, which involves spending some time upside down.

I had come across this yoga video of some fairly advanced stuff including a few yoga arm balances. So I popped it in the player and did my best to follow along.

I’d like to think I did fairly well considering I don’t actually do yoga and this was an advanced program. But there was a number of skills I could not do, mostly involving flexibility.

The lotus position, forget it. And doing it in a handstand was way beyond my level.

But I picked up some interesting moves I hadn’t done before. Not to mention the video helped me to identify a few weak points.

Try this one out. Its similar to a frogstand except both your legs are going to be to one side. So bend your elbows, put both legs to the outside of one knee and lift up onto your hands with the legs stacked on top of each other resting on the knee.

From here, drop your head to the ground and press from this side position up into a headstand.

Its just one move that stood out to me. Give it a try and see if you can do it.

How to do the One Hand Handstand by Professor Orlick

The point is that you should look outside your discipline at many things similar but also far different. For hand balancing you’ve got gymnastics, capoeira, yoga, break dancing, parkour and more.

It can help you change it up and look your practice through some different eyes.

Anyone coming from a gymnastics background can learn a lot from the origins of hand balancing. That’s why getting The True Art and Science of Hand Balancing can show you tons of moves you‘ve never even thought of doing.

And maybe in the future I’ll find some more resources to further help you branch out.

Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher

P.S. Do you have your costume ready for Halloween? Just finished mine and I’m pleased with the results. I’ll try to snap a few pictures tomorrow and post them on the blog. Whether I can manage a handstand in it or not, is debatable

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Basic Handstand Help

By admin on August 14, 2008 in Handstands

I’ve received quite a few questions lately, so today I’m going to dive into the proverbially mail bag. Remember you can submit your hand balancing questions here.

Here’s a few different questions from Cheryl.

“Which part of my body to focus for balancing when i hold a handstand. Do I use my backbend to balance? Do I inner or outer rotate my thighs to balance? Do I grip my fingers to balance? thank you very much.”

“How to lift to handstand as each time i kick up I will either past centre or cant reach the centre. Which part of my body should I engage and how? Thank you very much.”

These are good questions Cheryl and they actually overlap a bit.

You want your entire body to stay tight, from you toes through your back all the way to your fingers. At no point (except when doing certain tricks) should you be balancing by using your legs or back.

The True Art and Science of Hand Balancing

The balance should be maintained with pressure of the fingertips. You can maintain balance with your arms and shoulders but for a beginner you should get these just as locked out as the rest of the body and use only the fingers.

The kick-up is a skill in and of itself that must be specifically practiced like the handstand. Improve your kick-up and getting into the handstand becomes easy.

It’s really a matter of kicking up with the same amount of force each time so that you hit the sweet spot, not overbalancing, not underbalancing.

And like stated earlier when you are in position your whole body engages.

These are the basics of the handstand. Get them down and you’ll be holding handstands effortlessly.

Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher

P.S. If you want more help on how to do maintain the proper position, how to train the kick-up and extra exercises check out The Secrets of the Handstand Quickstart Guide.

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Don't Relax in Your Handstand

By admin on July 12, 2008 in Handstands

Relaxation

It something we all need. Especially living in this day and age. Too many people live their lives way to strung out, ready to explode at the next little thing.

There is a time to sit back and do nothing. Get a massage, meditate, shut down all the electronics and go for a walk.

These sort of things should be a common part of your life. You want to maintain a calm demeanor because life is just better that way.

But then there are times to turn up the tension. To act and act quickly.

When it comes to hand balancing, the art definitely falls into the later category. Yes you can teach your body to relax but standing on the hands is not the time.

Especially when you are starting out, the tendency is to have the legs to flop around, the back to relax and body to come out of position.

In order to stay up in the air you want to remain like a stiff board from the tips of you fingers to the tips of your toes.

This doesn’t mean you tighten up as hard as possible as if you were under a thousand pound load. But you stay tight so that gravity doesn’t have its way with you.

And don’t forget to breathe.

Without maintaining this tension you may be able to stand on your hands or walk around but not for long, nor will you be able to move up to anything harder.

If you’ve been relaxing this is your reminder to get back in gear.

The Secrets of the Handstand Quickstart Guide covers this difference between relaxing and staying tight in more depth.

When it was re-released last week I said that new buyers would get last month’s issue of Acrobat Accelerator for free along with this month’s.

Well, I forgot to mention when that ended. So here’s the date. You have until Tuesday the 15th. After that you won’t be able to get the June issue again.

If your on the fence, now’s the time.

Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher

PR: wait…

I: wait…

L: wait…

LD: wait…

I: wait…

wait…

C: wait…

SD: wait…

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Walking on Your Hands

By admin on June 14, 2008 in Handstands, Walking & Jumping

Here’s a good question from Tony.

“Dear Logan Christopher, I am a 44 year old male that just decided to do handstands since it was a great workout. I can do a handstand and pushups against the wall. I just read your 10 handstand tips and will work on these great ideas. My problem is when I try to walk on my hands my legs tend to fall toward the “wall direction” when I try to stand without the wall. I feel that it is fear of falling flat on my back. Sometimes my hand strides are a little too big as I am trying to go too fast and then my legs fall toward “the wall direction.” I can hold a handstand probably at least 30 sec. I am usually sustaining myself up after doing 13-15 handstand pushups through a short ROM. I initially thought it was my ab/core strength and I just started with Eddie Baran’s gymnastic abs dvd which is fun and challenging. I am improving but got a little concerned when you said that walking is easier than standing. Your hints have clued me into improving my body awareness with standing and increase my length of time. Any other ideas?”

I should have clarified the position on standing vs. walking. For most people the walking is going to be much easier. This is because you can shift your weight around and take a step with your hands toward any direction you are falling.

If you take the time to learn how to stand still, and remain in a good handstand position than you are much better off than someone who can merely walk on his hands.

When you are walking on your hands the legs tend to ‘fall forward’ in overbalancing. This is a good thing because that’s the forward momentum you want to walk with.

The key is to maintain control. You don’t want to be overbalancing so much that your hands can’t keep up or that you just fall out of the handstand.

To work on the control even more so, you should practice different size steps as Prof. Orlick teaches in Walking and Jumping on Your Hands. Go for small steps. Next try to clear a yard with each step.

You can also vary the speed with which you walk. Even try running on your hands!

But first and most important is to learn to stand on your hands. So that you can maintain a good handstand and not just stay on your hands by catching yourself from falling.

Just keep training and you’ll be able to walk, stand, run and hop on your hands without a problem.

Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher

P.S. Click here for more on walking, running and jumping on your hands.

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Three Man Hand Balancing Stunt

By admin on June 12, 2008 in Uncategorized

Got another picture from Stu Goldberg of a three man hand balancing stunt.

That’s him on the top. He’s been teaching me a few things especially on the one hand handstand, some things I’ll share with you later on. But for now let’s cover some handstand basics.

His comments on this handstand. Before you read them you’ll want to take a good look at it. In your opinion is this a good handstand? And what makes it so? You can learn a lot just from studying the position.

Stu Goldberg Hand Balancing Stunt

He’s is in what he refers to as a “High School Arch”. That is a slight arch but nothing excessive.

You can see that the legs are tightly held together. Certainly when you’re 8-10 feet off the ground you don’t want to overbalance because of loose legs.

Most importantly you’ll want to pay attention to the shoulder position. Notice how they are stretched out. Not only that but the arms are straight up and down, no leaning forward and back.

This is the position you want. Strive for this and holding a handstand will be a snap.

Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher

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Handstand Pushups and Handstand Hand Positions

By admin on May 31, 2008 in Handstands

Got two more handstand questions I’ll dig into today. I have to admit the quality of the questions has stepped up recently at least for the most part. Submit yours at https://lostartofhandbalancing.com/question.html.Here we go. The first one is from Ari.

“OK, Logan, I can balance on my hands, and I have the strength to do handstand pushups, but maintaining balance in an HSPU seems almost impossible. As I lower from the handstand my weight always starts to move to the ventral (stomach) side and unless I bend my legs at the knees so my calves counterbalance the weight, I lose my handstand. How do you maintain a straight bodywhile doing a handstand pushup?”

The first step is to make sure you have the strength to perform the move. When most people do handstand pushups against the wall it’s in an alignment that makes the pushup easier than the form you have to take for a free standing handstand pushup. This is a big topic in and of itself that I’ll have to dig into another time.

The important thing is to have an excess of strength. It’s not good to be burned out after two attempts, since you need to ‘practice’ the move. Onto the balancing.

It is going to be slightly different depending on how straight or arched you are. The thing is that your body will be at an angle and not perfectly vertical from the ground. When your head touches the ground it should be in a triangle formation with the hands. Like the headstand except you don’t rest on the head.

Because of this the upper body and lower body are on different sides of your center of gravity. As if you were lowering down toward the planche.

The most important thing you have to do in order to keep the balance and not fall toward the feet is keeping yourself toward overbalancing. The pressure must be toward your fingers at all times. If you go toward your palms you’ll lose it.

Of course the body has to be kept real tight at the same time. But keep the weight toward your fingers and you’ll be able to stay balanced while doing the pushups.

And here’s one from Ron.

“I’ve been doing handstand training for the past 4 months. For the purpose of experimentation, what are the effects of different hand positioning? In other words, if you spread your hands wider apart, does that provide any benefits, as opposed to keeping the hands at shoulder width?”

Here’s the words of Professor Orlick, from the beginning of chapter 11 in Hand Balancing Made Easy.

There is a two-fold purpose for learning these (that is handstands with different hand and arm positions). The first is for the stunts themselves, they look good, impress your audiences and give you personal satisfaction.

The second is for excellent balance they develop. When you vary the position of the hands you are forced to balance less and less with the fingers and hands themselves and more and more with the body as a unified whole. This may not be clear to you right here but after you learn a few of the stunts which are described you will understand exactly what is meant.

He then goes on to list 14 handstand exercises with different hand and arm position and even more in the next chapter. For details on the exact ones check out Handbalancing Made Easy.

But that explains it well enough. Changing your arm position will work your balance to a higher degree. These variations are good to throw into the mix from time to time.

Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher

P.S. Just to let you know there’s going to be changes to a few of the products next week.

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Fish Tail Press Up to Handstand

By admin on May 24, 2008 in Presses & Pushup

[youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAnuz6_3avc]
Fish Tail Press Up to Handstand

Got another video for you. This one is from next month’s Acrobat Accelerator.

A slightly more advanced move, but in the complete video you’ll be taken through the steps to get up to this move.

Here’s what it says in The True Art and Science of Hand Balancing about the Fish Tail Press Up.

Lie flat on the back, with the hands and arms close to the sides, with the hands flat on the floor, then by resisting with the hands, you draw the legs up slowly, and rigid, keep the legs going until you are up, resting on your head and shoulders, then change the position of the hands by placing them along side of the head flat on the floor; then let the feet drop about six inches, then drive them up, and push up to a handstand, the legs are kept rigid all the time.

That’s one long run on sentence but it describes the move well.

This move takes strong abs just to get into the plough position and hold it with your legs over your head. I suppose you could call this move the Plough press too. The more you drive with the legs the less you have to push with your arms but you have to do both.

Give it a shot and see how it goes.

On another note the May Sale is moving fast. Many items are sold out but others like the Paulinetti and Jones’ book and the Tumbling Course still have many in stock. https://lostartofhandbalancing.com/maysale.html

If you’ve stalled, wait no longer. The sale will come down late Sunday even if there’s a few items left.

Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher

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The 7 Values of Tumbling by Loken and Willoughby

By admin on May 8, 2008 in Tumbling

The past couple days have been crazy. I was amazed at the response to the Tumbling Course. Within a few minutes of putting the page up orders were coming in.

The good news is if you’ve bought your copy of the Tumbling Course before today, it is in the mail and on its way.

For those of you who’ve ordered, could you do me a favor and send me a email when it does arrive, with your initial impressions? Thanks!

There are quite a few left so if you’ve been waiting now’s the time to act. When I was looking over the course I couldn’t help but to think what a good deal it is.

In order to actually show you I’ve added a picture of all that you’ll get to the Tumbling Course page, but you can see it right here.

Tumbling Course

And that doesn’t even include the bonus tele-seminar. Right now, you have 5 days left to get it at $49.

Those that have ordered will understand the following. Here is a list of the benefits of tumbling, an excerpt from Loken and Willoughby’s ‘Complete Book of Gymnastics’.

The specific values of tumbling activities are:

1. Tumbling develops coordination and timing.

2. Tumbling develops agility and flexibility because of the nature of the movements involved in the activity, Much bending, tucking, and twisting is required to perform the stunts well.

3. Because of the running and springing necessary in tumbling activities, strength is developed in the legs. This is somewhat unique in that most other gymnastic activities tend to neglect the legs.

4.Courage and determination are developed in some of the more daring and difficult tumbling stunts. More advanced stunts involve movements performed with the body completely in the air.

5. Learning to control the body in basic tumbling skills has great carryover to the other sports.

6. The art of falling correctly, as learned in tumbling, is of great importance in many sports as well as normal daily activities. A relaxed rolling fall very often prevents or reduces injury and enable a person to regain his feet quickly after a fall.

7. Because tumbling is a natural activity, it is self-motivating and provides a great deal of fun and enjoyment for its participants.

Very well said, and succinctly too. As complete as list as there could be. If you want to get started quickly you know where to go, https://lostartofhandbalancing.com/tumbling.html

Good Luck and Good Tumbling,
Logan Christopher

P.S. I’ll be sharing with you some old hand balancing pictures this weekend that you haven’t seen before.

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How to do the Headspring

By admin on April 21, 2008 in Tumbling

First off a big thanks to everyone who took the time to fill out the survey. Your questions and comments are extremely helpful.

The Acrobatic Conditioning report is shaping up nicely. I expect it’ll be done later this week.

In the mean time one question that came up more than once went something along these lines. I can do forward rolls no problem, but how to you do a front handspring?

I may be risking starting to sound like a broken record but the answer is to work on a few stunts that’ll lead-up to it. In this case work on the HEADspring first.

And the video will show you how.

As you progress forward in tumbling you will realize that almost all the moves are a variation of some basic movement. In this case that is a spring generated from the back through the legs.

This is the foundational movement of too many stunts to name but here are a few, front handspring, kips, headsprings, snap-downs, roundoffs, etc.

If you can do a good headspring the handspring is not far off. Just lock out your arms and do the same movement.

Good Luck and Good Tumbling,
Logan Christopher

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Yoga Headstands

By admin on March 11, 2008 in Uncategorized

Yoga headstands, known as Sirshasana, are different than the standard gymnastic headstand. Instead of resting your palms flat on the ground you interlock your fingers and place them behind your head.

[youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rh-lIyJgqk]

The headstand is a great stunt. Very much underrated. Here is a more difficult variation of the headstand. In fact this would be an excellent exercise to move you forward to holding headstand with no hands at all.

I would recommend you start off this move against a wall as your base of support is quite a bit smaller than the regular headstand.

Kicking up can be tricky too. Instead of kicking up you may want to raise your legs from the floor at the same time. Good ab move too.

This is just one clip from the Handstand Quick-start Guide. I’ll be putting more video up as development continues.

As this is the first informative video, please let me know what you think.

Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher

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