Tag Archives | True Art

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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What is the Perfect Handstand?

By admin on April 3, 2008 in Handstands

There are two new articles up. But first a question from Larry in Hawaii.

“I am a little confused on the perfect handstand? which from what Ive read leads up to the one-handed handstand…Is it maintaining a perfectly straight body shown on page 92 or is it what is pictured on page 78 of “the true art and science of hand balancing” in fig.4 showing correct body position?? My goal is to balance on one hand. I have drawn out the diagram pictured on 16 of ‘how to do a one handed handstand’…hands seem kinda close…but above all what kind of body position am I striving for??”

Are you confused too? The first article answers this question in detail. If you‘ve ever thought you had to have a straight bodied handstand to do a one hand handstand the answer might surprise you.

Either way thought there are a few drills revisited that can help you alter your position.

Check it out: The Perfect Handstand

The second article is actually a small download. This one is for beginners.

The Ten Biggest Mistakes People Make When Learning the Handstand

And a small housekeeping note. The first Secrets of the Handstand Quickstart Guide packages will be mailed out tomorrow. If you want yours to go out with them order today.

Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher

P.S. If you’re having any trouble with the download just go to Hand Balancing Articles page and you’ll see it there.

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How to Kick-up into a Handstand

By admin on March 22, 2008 in Handstands

The kick-up is one of the most important skills you have to learn if you want to do a handstand, next to balancing with your hands and keeping your body tight.The question is, how consistent is your kick-up?I didn’t figure this out right away when I started, but if you can kick up the exact same each time then getting into and holding a handstand is easy.

If your kick-up is all over the place, then there’s no wonder why you have a hard time getting into a hand balance.

Of course, there are several different ways to kick-up. I cover all the basic ways for the beginner and even more advanced variation in the April issue of the newsletter.

My favorite regular kick-up I learned from Bob Jones in The True Art and Science of Hand Balancing. That one is shown here.

[youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usTC0oXqXtI]

There are a bunch of fine details that make a kick-up work. I am not gonna lie and say that I never miss a single one, but after concentrating on this for some time I no longer hit only one handstand out of ten like I use to.

If you’re having trouble with yours, start practicing. Better yet get the newsletter and learn all about how to get it done, the best method of practicing, and how far you can take it.

I wish it was ready to go right now, but I’m just putting the finishing touches and final edits on it before it the newsletter and DVD’s go to press.

In the mean time, I hope you enjoy these video clips.

Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher

P.S. You can learn more about Bob Jones’ 4-step method of kicking-up into a handstand here.

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Doug Hepburn Handstand

By admin on March 8, 2008 in Uncategorized

This is one of my favorite pictures of all time with Doug Hepburn balancing a 205 lb. barbell plus a 145 lb. man doing a handstand on top.. Just recently I came across the same picture from another view. A perfect blend of strength and balancing.

Doug Hepburn Handstand Balance

Not any strong person could hold this. Besides the 350 lbs. of weight it is really the responsibility of the under-stander to keep the person in the handstand balanced.

If you haven’t heard of Doug Hepburn you may want to check him out. Suffice to say he was an all-around strongman, setting many weightlifting records in his time, and this was starting crippled at a young age.

What most people don’t know is that he was also a fine hand balancer.

Early in his career he was capable of twelve reps in the handstand press and five reps in the tiger-bend.

That’s some strength there.

Seeing and hearing about people like Doug Hepburn and Bert Assirati all doing hand balancing you can’t possibly think that hand balancing is only for the small framed.

Large size is no excuse.

Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher

P.S. Can’t say that being small doesn’t help though. Professor Paulinetti weighed around 110 lbs which made the One Arm Planche possible. To duplicate some of his feats check out The True Art and Science of Hand Balancing.

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Photo Montage with Paulinetti, Jones and more

By admin on March 4, 2008 in Uncategorized

[youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wosNb3MuO7w]

I threw this video together this morning. A little bit of a test run for my editing software, which I am still in the process of learning.

It shows some of my favorite shots from The True Art and Science of Hand Balancing as a photo montage. Kind of a commercial.

If you don’t own the book you’ll definitely want to see these pictures. I said it once and I’ll say it again, “The pictures in this book alone are worth the price.”

Not to worry as there will be more informative clips coming soon.

Feel free to post your comments directly on youtube, give it a rating, or whatever. Here’s the page for that – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wosNb3MuO7w

Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher

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Fellow Hand Balancers

By admin on February 18, 2008 in Uncategorized

I spent this past weekend as an Assistant Instructor at the Russian Kettlebell Certification.

Kettlebells are a great tool and they could help your hand balancing, as described in part by Rif in the interview found in the Hand Balancing Mastery Course, but that is not the main point of this message.It just that at the event I was practicing a little bit of my hand balancing during some of the off time. Lo and behold some of the people in my group happened to be fellow hand balancers. And not just novices either.

One of them is actually working on a partner hand balancing act. She showed me a video of her and her partner’s hand-on-hand balancing.

How about holding a pretty decent straddle planche? Definitely past the beginner stage.

I also picked up an interesting variation of the forearm stand from yoga that I’ll share with you next time.

When they found out about my site they went ahead a purchased The True Art and Science of Hand Balancing on the spot.My point is that when you get around like minded people you are likely to learn some new things. I encourage you to get out and find other hand balancers to help you on your path. Its not always an easy thing to do but worth the effort.

If you can join a gymnastics class.

Just practice outside and you might get lucky and stumble upon someone. Who knows?

When you get together you can help one another out. You learn best by teaching after all. You may pick up a crucial tip that benefits you. Plus there is the challenge to out do each other.

If you are fortunate enough to have a like-minded friend then you know what I’m talking about. (On a side note you should tell them about my site so you can talk about and practice many of the tips together.)

If you don’t you gotta find one.

Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher

P.S. You can find out much more about kettlebells and many other great training resources right here.

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Chinese Acrobats do Handstands on Chairs

By admin on February 14, 2008 in Uncategorized

Chinese Acrobats Handstand on Chairs

Whoa!

This is just a sneak peak of what they best acrobats from China can do and one of many hand balancing tricks involving chairs shown in The Art of Chinese Acrobatics.

That’s 16 people doing handstands on top of more than a dozen chairs and some other apparatus.

My biggest question is how do you get into that? I’ve seen some crazy pyramid formations but this takes the cake. In this case it might actually be harder to get into position than hold it!

Now you may not be able to pull of this stunt, but there’s no reason you can’t use a chair to increase your handstand skills.

Try to press up into a handstand from a normal sitting position. Not a novice move but by no means a very difficult one either. It’s sure to amaze any onlookers though.

Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher

P.S. You can see a picture of Bob Jones doing a hand balance on a chair on page 121 of The True Art and Science of Hand Balancing. Except in this case it’s a rocking chair adding even more difficulty to the balancing. As you can see the sky is the limit in what you can accomplish.

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Tiger Bend

By admin on February 7, 2008 in Presses & Pushup

I was shooting some video a couple days ago doing a variety of hand balancing stunts. One of them was the Forearm Stand. Prof. Orlick also called it a Tiger Stand. From the stand you can do what is called a Tiger Bend, but we’ll start with the stand first.

This is a great trick in and of itself but its also a good way to work up to a full on handstand. Since you are resting on your entire lower arm and hand you have a bigger base with which to balance.

One you overcome the oddness factor of trying this exercise for the first time you can see the benefits. All the main points of holding a handstand are still there, like keeping tight, but you may have to arch your back a little more for this one.

Of course the ultimate goal with this exercise is to do what’s known as a Tiger Bend. An advanced exercise for sure. It involves going from the Forearm Stand up into a Handstand. With a little overbalancing and strong triceps you can get there.

Sig Klein doing a Tiger Bend

Since few of us will be able to pull that one off at the present time here are two easier ways. Do the negative movement which is dropping from a Handstand into a Forearm Stand. When you go for this don’t just fall into the position but control it as much as possible.

You can also do Tiger Bend Pushups. Get in a normal pushup position except you are resting on your forearms instead of the hands. Without any rocking motion pushup on to your hands to the top position and lower back down.

You don’t see these moves too often but that doesn’t mean they aren’t great.

Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher

P.S. For the super advanced hand balancer you can try to duplicate Johnny Weber’s one arm Tiger Bend. Find out how to do it in The True Art and Science of Hand Balancing. The picture above is of Sig Klein from the same book.

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Handstand Press

By admin on January 29, 2008 in Flexibility & Contortion, Presses & Pushup

Another thing I’ve devoted more of my time to recently is the handstand press. While a normal handstand does not take very much strength many of the presses do.

Handstand presses can be broken down into two main groups. Those done with straight arms and those down with bent arms.

The various bent arm presses take a high degree of strength in the shoulders, triceps and also the chest in many cases.

Straight arm press-ups still take strength but in different areas. Also you will need flexible wrists, hamstrings, and the ability to compress your body in half. In fact the more flexibility you have the less strength you will need.

For all these reasons most people will be better at either straight arm or bent arm presses. There are many people who can do the straight arm variety but will fall on their face if they have to bend their arms.

On the other hand most stronger people can do many bent armed presses. These take tremendous arm and shoulder strength to pull off successfully as you have to hold your entire bodyweight in mid air for a length of time. But for these people the straight arm presses can be elusive.

In the end you want to be able to do both. In order to do this you must train for both.

That’s why there’s chapters on the pressing in all the main books like Hand Balancing Made Easy and The True Art and Science of Hand Balancing.

Presses are not easy, especially if you’re not of the average gymnast size. But it can be done.

If you’ve ever wondered why hand balancers are so strong this is one of the major keys. So start pressing.

Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher

P.S. There are so many ways you can press up into a handstand. Have you mastered them all? Start where you can and work from there.

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A Night at the Circus

By admin on December 4, 2007 in Uncategorized

Circus Chimera had come to town. And I was not going to miss it. Last night, a group of friends and myself went to get in on the fun.

Sure its not Cirque de Soleil, but still, these guys and gals were good.

I knew that among the dancing, clowns, jugglers, acrobats, tap dancers from Argentina, and everything else there was bound to be some hand balancing.

The contortionists did not disappoint.

First up was a guy who started in the splits then moved into positions they probably don’t even have names for.

He crouched down on one arm and lifted up into a one-arm half planche. Now this skill is not very difficult (unlike a normal one-arm planche). Since your body rests on your elbow it does not take a huge amount of strength, just bodily control and balance. What impressed me was how this guy made it look. Perfect and steady as a rock, he got a big round of applause from the crowd.

After he squeezed into a small box as his finale, a Chinese girl came on stage. She went into the super limber back routine. A few kick-overs and turning about in inhuman ways later, she placed her hands on the ground.

She went into a hand balance with here legs spread wide. I can imagine, that doing the splits in air makes it easier to balance, since it lowers your center of gravity.

Bob Jones talks about the degree of bend in your back. Well this girl had her rear hovering just over her head as she balanced. You can find similar pictures in the last chapter of the book. Overall the show was well worth my time. It got me to thinking. What I have described was pretty much the full extent of hand balancing within this show.

If you could put together a nice little routine like the ones outlined in The True Art and Science of Hand Balancing, with your very best skill being a one-arm handstand, you could rightfully run off and join the circus.

I realize that may not be on your list of goals in life.

However, with a decent amount of practice you could be amazing people with your skills just like these performers anywhere you choose.

I suggest to all of you anytime you have an opportunity to see this kind of show you go. It will be sure to entertain and inspire as well.

Until next time,
Logan Christopher

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