The Handstand is one of those skills that seems to find itself on many a bucket list. And Christian Ralston, who is here Saturdays in September to lead you gradually into achieving your life long goals of nailing a handstand in his workshops Highway to Handstands, points out two ‘F’ words that he doesn’t want to become your mistake in the process.
It often has heritage back in childhood where it was so much fun to jump around on grass or sand with friends doing cartwheels, half handstands, somersaults without giving a second thought about the fall or getting hurt.
It didn’t matter. It had a wonderful playfulness to it.
As an adult the handstand can connect you back to those childhood times.
It can feel great to be upside again, it’s amazingly energising and feels playful. It’s common, unfortunately, that some adults have trouble connecting to that sense playfulness and the carefree movement and it’s replaced by two ‘F’ words. For some only one ‘F’ word will apply, for others, both.
The first one is “fuck” I used to be able to do this and now I can’t. The second one is “fear”
Fear is the big one. Being upside down is foreign territory for most people so there is fear of the unknown and of course…what if I fall?
Overcoming these fears will be one of the greatest challenges you face with a handstand practice as an adult.
The biggest mistake is to go to the wall. It may well give you the confidence to kick up at first but you will bypass an essential stage. Learning how to fall. Falling is an essential part of any handstand practice. You wont learn it without falling many times. The wall takes away the chance to learn this skill. It’s a fear avoidance tool and will seriously delay if not halt altogether your handstand practice.
When practicing kicking up into a handstand you will experience three different outcomes.
1. A kick up that’s not enough. You didn’t get up high enough. (call this too short)
2. A perfect kick up, you’re in the handstand. (call this the middle)
3. Kicked up too much. You have gone past the balance point. (This is too long)
Your attempts to kick up should have a good balance between not enough and too much. Its common for kick ups to be dominated by not enough. (outcome 1) Fear us holding it back. Its when you kick up and its too much (outcome 3) that you get a chance to practice your falling out technique.
When you can fall out confidently and the fear of falling is gone your on the handstand highway. You can now practice anywhere anytime and you can now focus on really important part. Finding the middle and staying up.
To join Christian on this handstand adventure in September BOOK HERE.