I injured my finger from climbing so I decided to learn the handstand since it doesn't
require any pulling with my fingers and I heard that it's a really good way to improve
shoulder stability and balance, so starting from today, I will attempt to learn the handstand
until I can hold it for 10 seconds.
Oh, okay.
A little bit harder than I imagined.
Definitely harder than I imagined.
Oh ho.
Oh, ho ho ho, okay.
Hoo.
I watched a ton of handstand tutorial videos on YouTube, and every single expert teaches
a different way to progress towards the handstand.
I thought to myself, not a problem at all, I will try every single one of them and see
what works.
I tried back to wall kick-up to handstand, but it didn't work.
I tried chest to wall handstands, and it felt too scary.
I tried the frog stand; it felt impossible.
I changed my head position to look back, and it still didn't work.
I tried splitting my legs on top, no luck either.
On day 11, I tweaked my shoulders.
Fortunately, it wasn't a severe tweak, but I was out for 3 days.
In the meantime, I did an honest self-reflection.
The reason I wasn't able to learn the handstand is not that I couldn't figure out the technique.
It was because my push strength was absolutely terrible.
My wrists, elbows, and shoulders were just too weak to stabilize myself.
This is not like learning the muscle-up, where my rock climbing background actually gave
me a huge advantage, so my pull strength was never an issue and it was all about figuring
out the technique.
Handstands are different.
My rock climbing background is completely useless.
I am below average in terms of my starting point for learning the handstand.
If you do common push exercises, like push-ups, dips, planks, overhead presses or bench presses
regularly, which most people do but I don't, you are ahead of me.
I decided to get real with myself and set two intermediate goals.
The first one was to be able to do a headstand.
Factoring out my weak wrists and elbows, I can focus on understanding what it is like
to be upside down and also get a feel of how to hold the lower body in a straight line.
Even though I struggled a little bit at first, eventually I was able to find the balance
point, and successfully learned the headstand pretty quickly.
The second intermediate goal was to be able to comfortably hold the elevated pike press
for 20 seconds with open shoulders.
This was the safest position that I felt comfortable pushing 100 percent to strengthen my weak
wrists, elbows, and shoulders.
When I did back to wall handstands, I was unable to open my shoulders. I could never
balance myself.
When I did chest to wall handstand, I was too scared to open my shoulders because of
the fear of falling.
82 days later, yes, 82 days later, I know some of you might be laughing, but I finally mastered
the elevated pike press for 20 seconds.
I decided to start working on my back to wall handstand kick-ups again.
I immediately noticed a huge difference.
I was able to practice for 30 minutes straight without my wrists or shoulders feeling sore,
so I could finally focus on learning the technique.
On day 122, I could finally hold the handstand with the assistance of the wall.
Oh, did that just happen?
Hoo!
Even though the techniques to hold the handstand are repeated again and again on all the tutorial
videos out there, for completeness I will quickly go through them again.
Squeeze your core really, really hard.
Squeeze your glutes really, really hard.
Actively push yourself up instead of just putting yourself on your hands.
Look a little bit behind your palms to keep your head in line.
Keep your elbows straight.
Spread your fingers and balance yourself with the tip of your fingers.
However, it was still very difficult for me to kick up directly into the right position
without the assistance of the wall.
So many things had to go right at the same time, and it just seemed impossible.
After practicing the direct kick-up for a while, I concluded that it was not the way
to go because of my limited hamstring flexibility.
I was unable to lead with one of my legs straight while keeping the other leg low and straight
as the experts on YouTube suggested.
Therefore I decided to shift my focus to the tuck-up.
After a few more practices, I got to the point where sometimes it felt like I hit the balance
point, but then quickly lost it afterward.
It was very frustrating.
In the meantime, I also started to practice in an open space in order to get used to falling.
Scary.
I continued to practice, practice and practice.
Multiple weeks flew by and I still couldn't seem to make progress.
On day 154, I saw Anna, whom I learned later had trained at the San Diego Circus Center,
doing a bunch of crazy handstands moves that made my jaw drop.
I asked her if she could give me some tips.
She was super nice and decided to coach me for a session.
During the session, she told me there wasn't any obvious mistake in my technique but I
needed to find an experienced spotter to spot me so I could be upside down for a longer
time and learn to find the balance point faster.
When I practice by myself with a wall, the wall can only stop me from falling if I overshoot
my balance, but if I practice with an experienced spotter, she can give me proper cues from
stopping me from falling even if I overshoot or undershoot my balance.
Anna also showed me 3 drills called "push," "block," and "save" that will help
me find my balance point while I was upside down.
After 2 days of the session with Anna, this happened.
Yes!
Hoo.
Again, for completeness, here are the techniques to tuck up to the handstand.
Stack shoulders over wrists.
Keep the back rounded. Focus on rotating the hips to the handstand
line first before straightening out the legs.
Thanks for watching.
It felt amazing to learn another calisthenics move.
According to the comments on my previous muscle-up video, a lot of you want to see me learning
the front lever, so that will be my next goal.
If you want to see me learn something else, definitely comment below and let me know.
If you are looking for handstand or flexibility training, definitely contact Anna for coaching.
Her information will be in the description box below.
As always, make sure to like and subscribe.
See you in the next video.