Un-learning the back lever.

Like all wise men looking for solutions to real-life problems, I originally learned how to do the back lever from watching Youtube videos, or at least how I thought the back lever was supposed to be performed. Like a fool, when I got Building the Gymnastic Body, I skipped over the entire section dedicated to the BL thinking it had nothing to offer me, as I was able to already hold a full BL for awhile. Out of curiosity, I decided to check that section out the other day while re-reading through the book.

As it turns out, I was not only doing it wrong, but also, when you try to do it right, it's much, much harder. Basically, I was squeezing into my lats with my arms, therein making a BL laughably easy.

Since figuring out the correct way to do a BL, I've been working through the progressions pretty quickly, but I'm also having a problem breaking my old, bad habit of squeezing my arms into my lats. This usually means I have to get into the position via squeezing my arms into my lats, remind myself that that's improper form, then gradually spread my hands apart. So, to my question/point...

Is this a good way to do it until I'm no longer naturally squeezing with my arms? Could I just achieve the same position out of a German hang by raising up/through? Is spreading your arms away from your body slightly even the right way to do a BL?

Thanks in advance.

I figure most people squeeze their lats into their triceps during the BL. My arms aren't so close merely due to the fact that my shoulder extension flexibility is poor. I can skin the cat to german hang but it's not an ideal angle ( and a bit skewed on my right shoulder because of when I seperated that shoulder ).

Spreading your arms farther apart makes the BL harder which is good if you think about if you want to use it as a progression to bridge towards the cross.

It's fairly difficult to pull out of a german hang into the BL. It's not easy by no means unless we are talking about a tuck or pike position.

Instead of squeezing it to your lats, squeeze the rings just down and try to squeeze a litlle bit late.