Basic principles of handstands
For the majority of people who wants to learn how to do a handstand and starts training for it the journey looks the same. They kick up with the back facing the wall and or kick up on the floor hoping to find balance. This is in fact a great strategy, if your aim is to waste time doing a lot of work for almost no progress. I know, because I did the same thing.
Then, by coincidence I got in contact with a professional hand balancer and circus artist who gave me a couple of advices which had an impact that blew me away. I improved more in 3 weeks than I had done in 3 years. I'll share the tip that changed the game for me and has changed the game for many of my students further into the text.
Using a methodical approach and an intentional practice was proving to be more effective than kicking up and praying to magically find balance. Who knew?
The three basic principles of handstands
There are three and only three things you need to be able to do a handstand.
1.Center of mass over base of support
Unless you find a way to defy the laws of physics, regardless of position, regardless of if you are in a aesthetically pleasing line or in a crazy banana shape you must have your center of mass over your base of support otherwise you will fall due to physics.
2. Sufficient strength
You need enough strength to hold your body on top of your hands.
3. Hands
There is no such thing as balance. There will always be small, or big, movements going on and you need to find a way to counterbalance what's going on. This can be done with the legs, with the hip, with the shoulder etc. but if you want to be as efficient as possible, making it as easy for yourself as possible, you want to learn how to use what's closest to the ground to make the corrections. You want to learn how to use your hands. The magic is in the hands.
Do this to learn how to handstand
When it comes to handstands, when it comes to handbalancing, a big part of the trick is to.. Learn how to use your hands! It should be obvious but experience has shown me that it is far from it. That was one of the advices the professional handbalancer gave me.
So, what do I mean by learning how to use the hands?
What I'm talking about is to start to be aware of where the weight is in your hands and strengthen your fingers and forearms so that they can make small corrections so that you don't have to make larger corrections down (up?) the line.
Where do I start?
You start by first bringing awareness to the hands when being in your handstand. Pay attention. How does it feel? Where is the weight? The second step is to strengthen your fingers using exercises like heel pulls or crow stands. After you have enough strength you want to learn how to use that strength to make correction and you can do so by doing heel pulls (with a different intention) or toe pulls.
This, is where I will end this post. There will be a part 2, and probably a part 3, 4, 5, 6 and so on in the subject of handstand/handbalancing.
So, to be continued..