Apr/080
Handstand Rolls
How does tumbling and hand balancing go together?
Here’s your answer in the simplest form. Combining the normal handstand with basic forward and backward rolls.
Of course, there are many other ways to combine them. Here’s just two examples. Back Handspring to Hand Balance and Dive to Hand Balance, Chest Roll Down. There are tons of ways to get into and out of a handstand. Use your imagination.
These are great because it will really work your balance coming into the handstand from all these moves. Especially since you’re going to have to stop your momentum most of the time.
One more caveat. As much as possible don’t do hand balancing in sand. It’s a lot harder and throws off your balance. Much better to find a surface that won’t give.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
P.S. If you missed it, the new countdown page to the Tumbling Course is up. The date and time have been set. It’s only a matter of time now.
Apr/080
How to do the Headspring
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
Apr/080
Acrobatic Conditioning Report is coming…
I’m hard at work finishing up a Special Report I’ll be releasing next week. I was almost done but then your questions from the survey came in and I realized there was a lot more ground to cover.
So if you want your questions answered head on over to the survey.
It’s real short. And I know it asks for two questions but if you only got one that’s good enough.
This report is on what I call Acrobatic Conditioning. Its going to cover ways to train to improve your tumbling skills even if you’ve never worked on them before. How you can get started and where to train.
I’m about to go write more but I just want to take the time to answer at least one question here.
“Which skills should I attempt to learn first? and Should one master the handstand before attempting skills like cartwheel, round-off, and handsprings?”
Hand Balancing and Tumbling skills are related but definitely separate skill groups. You don’t really need to be good in one to do the other. That being said many tumbling moves move through the handstand position.
It can help to work both hand balancing and tumbling at the same time though you certainly don‘t need to be a master the handstand first.
As for which skills to work on that is easy. Start with what you can do and move on from there. If this is just basic rolls than start with that. Any moves where some part of you stays in contact with the ground would be next on the chain like cartwheels, roundoffs, and handsprings.
Of course the aerial moves like flips take a bit more work and are something you have to be careful with. More on that later.
But the idea is like with any other training. You work tumbling progressively.
Alright back to the report. Oh, and there’ll be new videos soon too.
Good Luck and Good Tumbling,
Logan Christopher
Apr/080
Foundational Rolling Skills
How we got on the subject I can’t tell you at this point. I was at a birthday party and one of my friends told me they couldn’t do a somersault. Really!?! Maybe I was naïve but I thought EVERYONE could do this basic move.
But the truth is not everyone can. I’m sure you have no problem with this skill but the reason I am teaching it here in this video is to set up the idea of using and actually working on your tumbling skills. Everyone should be able to do the somersault. Not everyone necessarily has to do handsprings or front flips.
But if you want to it begs the question; how to you move up to the more difficult skills?
The easiest method is by taking the basics and adding twists to them. This will build your control and make you a better tumbler.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. But it should give you something to play with and start sparking your own creativity.
More on this subject later but if you haven’t already, be sure to take this really small survey. Only three questions total. Won’t take much time but it’ll really help me out. Take the Survey here. Thanks!
Good Luck and Good Tumbling,
Logan Christopher
Apr/085
Gymnastic Bridge Turn-Over
Going to step away from hand balancing today and a bit more in the coming weeks to focus on related acrobatics and various tumbling moves. And I’ll be sharing many of them in video form like today!
First up is a bridging movement that I’ve been throwing in my routine the past few weeks.
This move involves going from a back bend or gymnastic bridge than turning face down. In order to do this you support yourself on one arm and turn to come on all fours. From here you continue the movement turning back into the bridge.
I’m calling it the Gymnastic Bridge Turn-over.
Just doing a single one of these moves is great. It requires great shoulder flexibility and strength. Can you say stability? In addition it will engage just about every other muscle in your body especially your abs, back and legs.
If one is no problem for you then do as I do in the video, stringing a bunch together to complete an entire circle. If you want a real challenge try to do five full circles each way.
Don’t feel bad if you can’t do this one. If this is a hard move for you it means one thing…you need to work on your gymnastic bridge. By improving your shoulder flexibility in this movement you can work up to doing the move shown here with ease.
So get on your back, press up, straighten the arms, and try to extend your chest over your hands.
You may also find that you can flip one way but not the other. Keep working at it until you can move seamlessly in and out of position in every way.
Good Luck and Good Tumbling,
Logan Christopher
P.S. Got another video next time that covers the very basics and why they’re so important regardless of who you are. In this and all things the fundamentals are of highest importance.
Apr/080
Secrets of the Handstand Comments
The first comments have come in as Secrets of the Handstand Quickstart packages have arrived. Here’s a great one:
I really liked your quick start guide. I have been hand balancing for a while now and can perform a half dozen variations of the head stand as well as hold a gymnastics style hand stand. I am currently working the start and stop method to learn how to walk on my hands.
But one thing that seemed to always elude me was the tiger stand. I practiced this move a lot against the wall but after weeks of practice I could never consistently find that “sweet spot.” After seeing you do a tiger stand in the video, that same day, when I went to the gym it took me 2 tries and now I can easily and consistently find the “sweet spot” hold the tiger stand. I must of unconsciously picked up something when I watched you kick up and hold the tiger stand.
Another thing I learned from the video is that the kick up is way more important than I originally thought. I was basically muscling the handstand back from my kick up (which was way to hard). I could do it but it took a lot of energy. For the past few days I just worked my kick up over and over again. After only 2 days of working my kick up I am hitting my “sweet spot” 8 times out of 10 when before I was only hitting it 1 or 2 times out of 10 and the other hand stand attempts I was muscling back from an over anxious kick up.
So, your videos were helpful to even someone like myself who has been practicing handstands successfully for several weeks. Just seeing someone else do the move and step me through the process, which is something I have read about and knew all ready, helped me greatly.
Thanks a lot,
Ricky
aka “Nifty”
I’m glad to see you got a lot out of it ‘Nifty’ and you aren’t the only one.
If you haven’t checked it out, you might’ve been under the impression that it was only for beginner’s.
And you’d be right…partially.
That guide is to get beginner’s up into a free standing handstand as soon as possible. I’ve spent much time and effort helping the beginner’s because, well there are more of them, and its harder than anything to get started.
But its just the start. The launching pad for a program that will help out all but the very best in this art.
And of course that is the Acrobat Accelerator program. In the monthly DVD and newsletter I will delve into various hand balancing topics in more depth.
This month the first issue covered everything you could possibly want to know about kicking-up into a handstand. I share my story of holding a handstand for 30 seconds for the first time ever but then relate the fact that I was able to hold only about one out of every ten handstands.
The kick-up is of utmost importance to really dial in if you want consistency in your handstand ability. Even if you don’t get this DVD you need to understand this concept.
But once again that’s just the beginning.
From there I cover advanced variations that will make you even better. When you learn to control your body from any angle that it comes up in your hand balancing ability shoots through the roof.
The variations I cover in detail are opposite leg kick-ups, two leg kick-ups, raised kick-ups, and the cartwheel stall. Are you able to do all of them?
There’s about 30 issues left. If you want in on a trial membership just get your free order (except shipping) to try it out.
If you miss out, it’ll be your last chance to get the April issue.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
P.S. Next week I’ll post some new videos up on the blog on some moves closely related but outside of hand balancing which I am putting together right now. Stay tuned.
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