opening up shoulders.

Are my shoulders opened up enough for a handstand?

No, I see daylight between your arms and your ears and your elbows are bent to some degree.

Your hands schould be closer together - and arms straight as Blairbob said

Well, here's an another picture from a different position.

Also, my shoulders should be opened up like the previous picture, right?

Not bad, it's getting there. Take your shirt off, can't see your shoulders with your shirt on.

Anything?

Looks like you're pretty open. I would say try it with your hands a bit closer together just to make sure.

You seem to be doing pretty well if you've got a stomach against the wall stand going. How long can you hold that? Presuming you've already done back to wall handstand are you comfortable with your kick up? Can you pike up?

If you want to try freestanding handstand just make sure you have some pad or other thing behind you so if you fall over you don't kill yourself. Part of learning how to get into a free handstand is learning how to fall out of it if you go over. If you do over-do the entry and fall over you have to learn how to move your hands so you can either maintain balance or come out of it properly so you don't injure your wrists (and other parts.)

Get someone to measure the distance of your wrists from the wall. If they are 2 inches or less, then your shoulders are open enough.

I have heard a lot of people talked about opening the shoulders when in a handstand. What is that exactly? How can you see if the shoulders are opened? Looking at the picture I can not honestly tell a thing.

Titan, opening the shoulders means flexing the shoulder girdle. Look at the first picture.

Phken, your shoulders are still not in your ears. If I can pull on your ear, you are either not putting your shoulders in your ears or there is a lack of shoulder mobility.

Darn...it still isn't perfect....but I'll practice it more. Also, can you post a picture of a handstand you're imaging, Blairbob? I'm seraching google images, but most of them look similar to my handstands in my opinion.

I'll look for one tomorrow or maybe shoot one. I thought my video on youtube shows it but it's kinda dark.

Titan,

Look at this clip of Ido's friend Yuval.

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Look at the shoulder angle of his handstand right at the beginning.

Here is a picture of a person named Yuval, but not sure if it's the same Yuval in the video.

Both of these examples show an open shoulder.

Now, look at the demonstration by this guy.

http://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/CrossFit_TuckerCoreControl1.wmv

Notice how his back is not quite perpendicular to the ground, compared to Yuval's? This is because his shoulders are a little closed. Also, look at the head position. Yuval can't see the ground as well as the guy in the Crossfit video who has his chin almost poking out in front of the arms. Again, this is because the Corssfit guys shoulders are slightly closed whereas Yuval's are open.

Here is a picture of an even more closed shoulder position.

Actualy, beyond the quite obvious open/closed shoulder angle there are a lot more details seperating Yuval's posture in the video as opposed to his photo. (Yes its the same Yuval - the photo is in the beginning of his career - open shoulder, cause he was a gymnast, but not the best line he can achieve from an Equilibre point of view and the video, much later on and after a substabtial improvement)

For the untrained eye, those details are invisible, but for someone who understands what is going on, the improvement is obvious. I will go into those details in future publications about the art of equilibre.

Ido.

That's odd. To me his posture looks aweful in the video, compared to the photo which looks almost perfect.

What do you find wrong with his posture in the video?

His back looks more arched in the video than in the photo, and his feet are leaning over more. His body line looks straighter and more perpendicular to the floor in the photo.

Then this must be better from an equilibre standpoint. What I see is that the toes are more over the knuckles in the video but over the wrists in the picture. Also, in the the video back is slightly past perpendicular, whereas the pic the back is perpendicular.

I was simply amazed by the video of Yuval's training. It was very inspiring. I noticed the wooden board he was training on had stripes that appeared to be the size of his hands. Is this a common training tool? Would it be of any use to a beginner?

This entire thread has made me think how far I have to go to getting the shoulders open.

Wolf with one Ear said:

I was simply amazed by the video of Yuval's training. It was very inspiring. I noticed the wooden board he was training on had stripes that appeared to be the size of his hands. Is this a common training tool? Would it be of any use to a beginner?

This entire thread has made me think how far I have to go to getting the shoulders open.

I believe Yuval has commented about his little training board on the videos youtube comment section. If I recall correctly he said he made it himself and he takes it when he travels so he has a consistent surface to practice on.

Sorry I haven't posted for quite a while. I had a very busy Thanksgiving weekend. I made a video of my free-standing HS, so I'll post a video of that tomorrow.

phken4343 said:

Sorry I haven't posted for quite a while. I had a very busy Thanksgiving weekend. I made a video of my free-standing HS, so I'll post a video of that tomorrow.

How long have you been working on the handstand? Was the wall HS all you did?

Nah, I haven't been doing much gymnastics lately mainly because of a research paper I need to write about volunteerism. I wanted to find more information, but I had to volunteer and work during the break.

No I mean how long you have been working on the handstand? 1 month, 2 month, etc. And did you only did wall HS to build it up?