I love the feeling of holding my body up on my own two hands. It’s empowering to go up in to a handstand for the first time. Most of us as children had no fear of going upside down, but as adults, it can be different, if we haven`t done it for a while.
The best thing about learning handstand is it can turn our perspective upside down and gives us a great rush of energy. It makes us go out of our comfort zone, which means that it gives us a positive boost both mentally and physicaly. It`s like when we are restarting our “computer”. Not to mention that handstands look cool and are considered trendy these days.
If I’m ever feeling super exhausted or sad, I just kick my legs up overhead and everything feels a bit brighter!
How to Practice Handstand
This might be different from how others are teaching it, but we all have different perspectives of how to do things. The main thing is to achieve a goal. My approach is that you should try headstand first, because it will help you get used to the feeling of being upside down first. Headstand is considered to be easier than handstand.
Find a pillow and find a wall. Face the wall. Come on to all fours, put your head onto the pillow, place your arms on both sides also on the pillow. Kick your legs upwards until you reach the wall. The best way to do it is to keep your upper body in straight line with your legs. Hang out in there for a while and enjoy the moment. Try this for a few days to get used to the feeling. (Try to avoid being upside down if you are pregnant or have high blood pressure).
Next. When you feel comfortable being upside down, then then come on to all fours with your heels at the wall, make sure you keep your shoulders directly over your wrists and lift up in to a shortened dog pose. Then bring one leg up at a time so your foot is in line with your hips keeping your knees bent.
When you feel comfortable in this position, then straighten both legs to bring yourself into the pose. This brings you into a stand which looks like a letter L.
When you feel comfortable in L stand, you can play around with moving one leg directly straight up to the ceiling. Work on holding L and L with one leg and REMEMBER TO BREATHE! 🙂
“Donkey kicks” get the core working and help us feel bring the weight over our hands. I love these kicks, because they feel energising, fire up our metabolism. Bonus: it boosts our cardio.
When you feel ready to come in to full handstand, make sure you get your hips forward enough to the wall so you don’t stay hanging back and have no momentum to get your legs above your hands. You really have to imagine you’re going to lightly smash your back in to the wall to get the power and lift your legs up. Don’t be afraid to use your core muscles!
Lift one leg up at a time and hop with the other foot as if to kick your heel towards your butt 🙂 and your heel will reach the wall. Once here you can then extend it up to meet the other straight leg that also hit the wall.
Once you get used to doing handstands next to the wall, then you can start making small steps with your hand while keeping your body straight up.
Enjoy playing around and remember practice makes perfect.
Have a great weekend 🙂
Ariana
