How to headstand properly?

All I can find is a video of someone who makes this look so damn easy. No cool englishman who makes it crystal clear and ordinary-mortal-friendly

1) Am I supposed to touch my forehead, or the top of my scalp to the floor?

2) Does mastery require transitioning from tripod to headstand, or is kicking up acceptable?

3) How do I distribute weight in the movement, is it supposed to be 100% on the hands?

4) Is it smartest to activate my neck muscles by tilting the head forwards or backwards

5) If I had a clock under each of my hands, what number do I point my left and right hand toward for best stability? (or is this a matter of personal preference?)

6) Any other best practices I should be aware of for best results?

 

I know that's a lot of questions, and maybe I'm overthinking this a bit, but I really, really don't want to twist my neck and end up in a wheelchair.

Hi Isak, here follows my suggestion:

1) you are not forced to train directly headstand, you can scale down the movement by extending the knees and the hips gradually but with no arc in the lower back

2)the forehead position leads to understanding the concept of the weight on the hands. i tend to use with people scared a position with the top of the head so that if you fall you simply roll into your upper back.

3(hands should be positioned so that they form with the head a triangle with all the edges equal.

4)use the muscles neck to avoid excessive extension of the cervical spine.

Once I figured out what you meant with scaling the movement by extending the knees, it just clicked for me. Seems weird now that I was so scared of this.

I fixed my balance simply by kicking up with only one leg, aiming for an imaginary wall, then slowly extending the other leg when I had balance.

Thanks @Alessandro Mainente!  Even just reading random posts by you on the forum gets me unstuck on things, like piriformis limiting middle splits.