HS/Pe1-im Form Check

Comments? Concerns? Critiques? I feel somewhat confident that my form is good enough to move on to headstands. (I don't have any issues with the tripod movement, I held it for two minutes with feet in a tuck, as well as the "frog" or "crow" pose for about 30 seconds for repetitions). This is my first upload (after a failed attempt at previous uploading of my video -- sigh), so seeing how people's insights apply, I'll likely be uploading more for outside input.

Are your hands shoulder width?

I think for mastery you need more flexion, think of making your armpits bigger when doing this drill.

My hands are shoulder with apart, but will work on opening my armpits. I have been able to do that in practice, I just didn't for this video as I wasn't certain of its necessity. 

Thanks

Hollow Man said:

Are your hands shoulder width?

 

I think for mastery you need more flexion, think of making your armpits bigger when doing this drill.

This. Both of these points;

a) Your hands do look a bit wide

b) Your shoulder flexion is not yet at 180 degrees. You get visibly better at it after taking your first breath there

Are you using any weight there?

Now that you have the video, don't look at your head position but instead look at how your arms line up with your torso.  Your arms form an angle that is greater than 180 degrees with the line of your back.  Notice in the demonstration video that the angle achieved is considerably less than 180 degrees.  Keeping the hands wider makes this easier, but eventually you want to get them to shoulder width.

Also, in the demonstration video notice that the athlete starts with the torso perfectly upright.  From that position he pushes the arms back, and only then starts to lean forward.  He does this pretty quickly in the video, but it's useful to think of the movement as having two parts as that makes it a bit easier to focus on pushing the arms back.

Yes, I'm using 9lbs. So not a sizeable amount, but more than the recommended 5lbs.