Mar/100
High One Arm to Arm Handstand
Rafael's High One Arm to Arm
Here is another great picture from Rafael Guerrero. It’s an interesting hand to hand balance. Similar to a one arm handstand but at still quite different.
Regardless, its a balance you don’t see very often. For those of you who are experienced hand balancers give this one a try if you have the partner to do it.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
P.S. Don’t forget the Free Success in Hand Balancing Teleseminar I’m doing this Wednesday night with Beast Skills’ Jim Bathurst. Sign up and ask your questions here.
Feb/100
One Arm Handstand Lead-Up Stunt
The One Arm Handstand
Today I’ll be giving you a tip towards working on a one arm handstand. I’ve been doing this hand balancing skill a lot lately.
Professor Orlick lists it as one of the lead-up stunts to the one arm handstand. And this one utilizes both arms. What is it? It’s the handstand done on the fists.
Now how does this help with the one arm handstand? As explained in How to do the One Hand Handstand:
Handstand on Fists
“Now, lean forward and very carefully kick your feet up into the handstand position. Do this easily and gently because your base will be even smaller than before and you won’t have the use of your fingertips to help hold you up. If you kick too hard you are liable to topple right over. At first, the weight of your body resting on your knuckles will probably hurt but just grin and bear it for soon you will get used to it. Once again be sure to stretch up as high as you can and lock-out at the elbows and shoulders and point your toes up toward the ceiling. The position is shown quite clearly to the right in No. 22. Like the others, this too is a fine lead-up stunt so keep it up until you master it.”
The reason this can help move you toward the one arm handstand is that you’ll get use to balancing on a smaller base of support. You just can’t apply the hand pressure you can in a normal handstand when you’re on your fists. A small amount of wrist pressure can be used but you must learn to keep your body stable and balance from the shoulders.
Mixed with other lead-up stunts and the proper progression this will help you eventually reach the one arm handstand. For much more check out the Hand Balancing Mastery Course.
Give it a try and let me know how it goes.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
Jan/102
More Questions Answered
I figured I’d dive into the email file and answer a few questions today.
“I’ve been working on the one armed handstand pushup and have gotten one armed handstand planks. Do you have any tips for faster progression with the one armed handstand pushup. I’m at partial ROM at the moment.”
Jesse
First off congratulations Jesse, you are much further along then most everyone, including myself.
I can’t give you my personal experience as I haven’t got to that point yet. But I can offer what others have said will work.
The basics of progressing from two hands to one would be to use your off hand less and less. You can do this by raising it on an object or just using less pressure (like going on to the fingertips. This way your ‘working’ arm must do more work.
For more on the one hand handstand pushup I recommend you check out the book Convict Conditioning by a man who was able to work up to this awesome move. You can read my full Convict Conditioning review here.
“I only started hand balancing because I thought it will make me taller??? I’m 16 and 5′9 will I be 6 ft if I do hand balancing???”
Naqib
This is the first time I got this question. And its interesting. Does hand balancing make you taller? Probably not. Hand balancing and inversion can offer many benefits and keep the spine straight and aligned. This probably won’t make you taller but it certainly won’t make you shorter. Considering that you’re young its likely that you’ll still keep growing.
“I have been practicing handstands for 3 years. I probably practiced it the wrong way because I can barely hold it for 5 seconds. What can I do to extend the life of my handstands?”
Brian
Don’t mean to be harsh but yes you must be doing something wrong. It took me about a year to work up to thirty seconds and I think that was too long!
You must be neglecting something basic like keeping the body tight. Without seeing you do a handstand I can’t advise you better than that. No matter what it is though, I encourage you to revisit the lead-up stunts as described in the Secrets of the Handstand Quick Start Guide.
Sir I am practicing yoga since 1 & 1/2 years. I can do difficult postures excluding this handstand. In yoga all boys generally perform curved Handstand instead of straight Handstand. Sir I have one question, What is the role of our back while performing handstand? Is it responsible for balancing Or Handstand is only depends on power in our hands? Also I am 20 year old. I listened that age is one of the barrier in practicing the handstand. Is it true? If possible Please tell me sir, at what age you have started the Handstand?
Aniruddha
Whether you have a straight or curved handstand the back is not involved in the balance. IT is used to keep you stable, but you do not arch more or less in order to stay balanced. Balancing comes from the hands and also the shoulders. (For beginners I recommend keeping the shoulders immobile and focusing on the hands.)
As for age there’s a few things going on. Kids are better off at gaining skills. They have more myelin which allows them to gain skills quickly. And by starting early you have more time to build your skill. (Full details on this can be found on the Skill and How to Build It CD found in the Hand Balancing Mastery Course.)
They also weigh less and are closer to the ground. So yes, younger people are much better off at hand balancing. But age is no barrier. You can become good, even great, if you’re dedicated.
That’s enough questions for today. Pay attention to the next post for something special. Until then…
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
Nov/090
Advanced Progression
A One Hand Balance in the Old Style
Here’s a question from Matthew on the difficulties and progression of advanced hand balancing skills.
“What would say is the difficulty of a planche vs a handstand, one handed handstand, 2 man planche, how should I be progressing if I am fairly competent in all of these skills?”
Each skill is very different from the next. The skill and strength it takes to do a planche is very different from that it takes to do a one handed handstand. Some people will find certain skills harder then others and to give them arbitrary difficulties wouldn’t really help.
But as a basic idea so you can know what you’re getting yourself into I would say the one hand handstand (and the planche too) are about 100 times as difficult as the two hand handstand.
How should you be progressing? The same as everyone else. Whether you are working on a basic handstand or and advanced skill like the one arm handstand you can progress by adding a second at a time.
If you are competent at the skills you listed, first off, congratulations. You are doing great. If you want to know where to go from that point there is a wide variety of options.
You can work on a one handed planche. You can learn to hop on one hand. How about a tiger bend? And if that’s easy try it on one arm!
(By the way, all these skills are found in The True Art and Science of Hand Balancing.)
The sky is the limit. Just keep progressing. It’s the name of the game.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher.
Oct/091
Block Building Handstand
Rafael Guerrero's Block Building Handstand
One very impressive handstand stunt is to raise yourself off the ground by block building.
Start in a handstand with a stack of bricks or similar objects nearby. Shift over to one hand and grab a block with the other. Set that block down, shift your weight onto that arm then repeat on the other side. You build yourself up one block at a time.
This is an advanced skill as you’ll have to be in a one arm handstand much of the time even in just momentarily.
But its sure to impress anyone watching. And once you reach the top you can go down the same way or maybe jump off your blocks.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
P.S. The Halloween Sale is going strong. Check out how you can save on all hand balancing and acrobatic programs here.
Aug/093
One Finger Handstand
Is a one finger handstand even possible?
Most would say that no human could possibly do this feat. But then most would agree Shaolin monks are anything but normal people!
This video shows a 91 year old monk Hal-tank from the Sil Lum Temple in China perform that feat.
As I’m sure you’ll agree this move goes beyond just finger strength, requiring intense focus of chi.
There are many other monks who have mastered a two finger handstand like this picture shows. Thanks to Gay Ng for sending it to me.
Two Finger Handstand by Shaolin Monk
(You can also witness this feat from another Shaolin monk in the awesome DVD Shaolin: Wheel of Life available for cheap on Amazon.)
But getting down to a single finger handstand takes many more years of dedicated practice.
Its sure to be an entirely different approach but there’s a full chapter by Bob Jones, famous for his thumbstand, on doing fingertip pushups and handstands in The True Art and Science of Hand Balancing.
You can get started with the basics. Whether you’ll work up to two or one finger handstand like the monks do is up to you.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
Connect With Logan
