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4 Stages of Handstand Practice

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Page 1: 4 Stages of Handstand Practice

The 4 Fundamental Progressions to a Freestanding Handstand

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Facing the Wall• Place your hands on the ground so that you can get both feet up on the wall.• Walk your hands in until they are just a couple inches away from the wall.• Lock your knees out straight and flex your ankles to 90 degrees so that your toes or balls of your feet are touching the wall.

• Tuck your chin to look at the wall, and maintain the good hollow body position

Facing Away from the Wall• Now that you are facing away from the wall, your hands will need to be a bit further out than before, so that your hips/butt won’t be against the wall.

• Either kick one leg up and let your other leg float up to meet your kicking leg, until

both feet are on the wall; or use the frogger jump described below.

• Maintain the same hollow body positioning as before, focusing on being as tight as possible throughout your body.

• Push your hands firmly into the ground, extend the shoulders, and make sure all the other body • Push your hands firmly into the ground, extend the shoulders, and make sure all the other body positioning cues are in place.

The L-Stand• The key point in the L-stand is keep your hips/butt over your shoulders and your shoulders over your hands, creating an “L” position.

• This position locks your upper body in the proper support for your lower body.

• Look straight back towards the wall as you kick one leg straight up in the air.

• Then lightly push off from the wall to get both legs up above you.

• This is a great movement to test your overall body strength in the handstand and will let you know how much more work you need to do!

Freestanding Handstand• When you’re ready to start practicing freestanding handstands, it is VERY important that you know how to bail out of a handstand, and that you have a spotter if possible.

• To bail out of the handstand when you feel like you’re going to fall, I recommend using the cartwheel.

• To get into the freestanding handstand, you can use the standard kick-up (same as described above, but I really recommend having a spotter around to make sure you don’t fall over), or the frogger jump.