Some of my Equilibre training for critique

[yuri marmerstein]

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Tips are always appreciated. Still struggling with the one arm handstands but I know I just have to keep at it

[Joshua Naterman]

That is awesome!

[whitemonkey]

That is awesome!

AGREED!

[Mikael Kristiansen]

You are doing really really well, as I expected. 1 arm levers look like a piece of cake, and you seem very confident and strong in your handstands. Your line is much better than last time I saw you, but still can use a bit of work. Shoulder stretching is slow, and can be a pain in the ass, but keep working it. The 1 arms seem also pretty good. It seems like you are starting to get the sensation of balancing, and you are able to keep your shoulder locked really well. Very good to see that you are working the flag exercises, they are worth GOLD later on, as they give you the ability to fight yourself back into good position when you fall as well as opening up a new set of positions.

What I can critique on the 1 arms is your hips/legs. It seems you are a bit "back" with your hips, so that you keep an ever so slight arch as you straddle. When staying with legs together it is easier to keep a very straight line through the body, since you can easily roll the hips under you and tightening the butt. In general, in a straddle, you will benefit more from having the legs slightly in front, like in a pancake stretch or the very begining of a press handstand. I need to emphazise that you are NOT going down with your legs, just that they stay a little more in the front. This helps a LOT with avoiding to twist the hips, and also it is easier to keep a straight back. At 2.38 you fall EXACTLY because of this. Your left legs goes back which makes you hips twist and you are out. I would like to see a video of a 1 arm from the side to better help you with this. It could be a shoulder flex thing, but it might also just be a habit .

Other than that I think it looks pretty good. Of course you also have other details to work on, such as the lifing of your arm, but I think you should put your main focus on your hips, because it will make things MUCH easier for you.

With a little work you are more than good enough technically to get into several good circus schools!

Good work! If you have more questions, just ask=)

Mikael

[yuri marmerstein]

You are doing really really well, as I expected. 1 arm levers look like a piece of cake, and you seem very confident and strong in your handstands. Your line is much better than last time I saw you, but still can use a bit of work. Shoulder stretching is slow, and can be a pain in the ass, but keep working it.

Thanks!! This is just what I needed as I never get enough critique and it is hard to critique oneself. My one arm levers have improved on my right, still a bit too much pressure on the wrist for the left arm. I should start working them with legs together probably.

I try to do a lot of shoulder stretching/prehab, but I guess the time spent trying to open my shoulders is rather insignificant. I will get to work on this.

As for the line, it still seems like I could flatten my back more, or does that come more easily with better shoulder flex?

The 1 arms seem also pretty good. It seems like you are starting to get the sensation of balancing, and you are able to keep your shoulder locked really well. Very good to see that you are working the flag exercises, they are worth GOLD later on, as they give you the ability to fight yourself back into good position when you fall as well as opening up a new set of positions.

The one arms have been a struggle but I try too stay vigilant. I feel the sensation of balance long enough to lose tension either in the shoulder or the hip. I will definitely try to keep advancing the flags, I didn't realize how important that exercise was.

What I can critique on the 1 arms is your hips/legs. It seems you are a bit "back" with your hips, so that you keep an ever so slight arch as you straddle. When staying with legs together it is easier to keep a very straight line through the body, since you can easily roll the hips under you and tightening the butt.

Would it benefit me right to work straight body one arm holds as well? Or should I keep working straddle until I am more solid in it? The old russian guy I talk to told me to work straight body ones so I can get a better feeling of using my hand to balance and not my hips. I do straight body holds on occasion, but not as much as straddle. Mostly because I do a lot of handstands in my room, and my ceiling is a bit low for the straight body.

Another issue I have is that sometimes I feel like I can balance better in a half straddle. Logically I know that my center of gravity is lower if my legs are wider, but there are days when that throws me off balance more. This could be because of my hips being back as you mentioned earlier, so I will experiment.

In general, in a straddle, you will benefit more from having the legs slightly in front, like in a pancake stretch or the very begining of a press handstand. I need to emphazise that you are NOT going down with your legs, just that they stay a little more in the front. This helps a LOT with avoiding to twist the hips, and also it is easier to keep a straight back. At 2.38 you fall EXACTLY because of this. Your left legs goes back which makes you hips twist and you are out. I would like to see a video of a 1 arm from the side to better help you with this. It could be a shoulder flex thing, but it might also just be a habit .

I see what you mean. I never really noticed it until you brought it up. I was wondering about this myself, whether it is advantageous to have a slight pike in the hips for straddle handstand, as I notice a lot of people do it, especially when on floor. I will work on this.

Other than that I think it looks pretty good. Of course you also have other details to work on, such as the lifing of your arm, but I think you should put your main focus on your hips, because it will make things MUCH easier for you.

Will do. Just curious, what is the issue with my arm? Am I not bending the elbow enough? Not lifting straight up?

With a little work you are more than good enough technically to get into several good circus schools!

Good work! If you have more questions, just ask=)

Hmm, never really thought about circus school, though that does sound interesting. Especially since I am at a crossroads in my life, having gone to school for physics but working as a gymnastics instructor.

Is there an age limit to get in to circus school?

As a final note, thanks again for all your input. I am very grateful for all your help and will begin working on fixing my mistakes immediately.

[Richard Duelley]

Very cool, this makes me want to put together a video update myself. . . I just need to actually take the time to set up my camera and get some footage. Usually, like today, just randomly go out and practice for an hour (I am writing my thesis so I need a break every so often :wink: ) and I just havent felt like bringing the camera to the gym. I really like the straddle flag work, I have been ignoring my straddle handstand for a while and this has prompted me to get practicing on it! 8)

[yuri marmerstein]

Handbalancer, your tip about fixing my hips was spot on.

I did a few one arm straddle holds today while consciously trying to keep my legs in front and I felt a lot more stable.

Thanks again!!!!!

[Mikael Kristiansen]

I will respond properly to your questions soon. I dont have access to a computer these days, and now I am in a hurry, but good to hear you are feeling the difference with the positioning of the hips. It will make all the leg positions possible later on as well.

Keep training!

[Mikael Kristiansen]

Start training levers with legs together. Levers are not that difficult once you understand how to balance from your fingers. You can easily learn(if not just do right away) kicking up to handstand from lever with putting the other hand down and kicking from your legs. You are very strong, so with a little timing it is no sweat at all. Training the timing can be kind of strange in teh beginning if you havent done it before, but it will come fast.

The thing with your bodyline is that you want to keep a very hollow body, so that your chest does not go out at all while the shoulders are completely extended and pushed out. The thing is that to be able to keep a completely flat back you need to have very open shoulders, so that your torso stacks completely on top of your shoulders. This is also why presses become easier as your entire weight is put on two pillars that are right underneath it.

Im glad the hip thing works for you as it is very important. I think you should work the legs together position as well, but look upon it as a goal for a longer term as it is much harder. you get a different sensation when doing this one as well as teh half straddle(both of which you need to keep a very straight line, do not keep the hips slightly in front as in straddle as you then easily will pike). Train all 3 positions, but keep your main focus on the straddle as you will(at least in my and my coach´s perspective) develop your sense of balance the fastest from this. It is true that you, in the end, should balance almost everything from your palm, but it is necessary to go through a development from bigger correctional movements to smaller.

The issue with the lifting arm is one that is almost always there if one is not concentrated. to create the least amount of movement when you take the arm from the floor it is good to still keep your trapezius flexed, while your arm relaxes as you go to fingers and then release. this actively keeps your scapula in place so that it does not change your center of gravity as you release it.

Hope this helps some, i will write some about circus school later, got to go! Keep up the good work

[Richard Duelley]

Great post Handbalancer! 8) Even though I am not ready to start working these more advanced skills it is still good to read up on future skills so I can avoid as many common mistakes as I can

[yuri marmerstein]

excellent advice...

every one of your posts is like an all you can eat buffet of great knowledge and advice.

I have been taking a lot of your advice, and it is working.

Right now I am working with the stunt team for a movie they are shooting in the area, and they want me to do a one arm handstand in one scene where a bunch of freerunners are training in the park. Because of this I have modified my training.

I am focusing less on form and more on balance for the moment. I haven't really gotten video of what they look like recently, but I am able to hold it a lot longer(by a lot I mean a few more seconds of course) and more consistently. From what it feels like, My legs are leaned over more than before and my head is a bit farther away from my shoulder. I still try to tuck my hips slightly to the front and lock out the shoulder, but trying to concentrate more on saving the balance. I can hold it even more consistently if I do it like livewire, but I don't want to go that far, I still want it to look somewhat professional.

I can see now how big of a role those flag exercises play in saving the handstand.

I will try to get some video and post it up, but unfortunately I spilled water on my computer last week and it is dead. Currently waiting on a new one.

[yuri marmerstein]

haha I lied

I took some video yesterday and it actually looks better than before. I also got several holds of around 10 seconds, was really happy about that.

I can't post it yet though because I am still waiting for new computer to get here.

[Mikael Kristiansen]

haha, good to hear! What you are learning now is the thing us handbalancers in school focus the most on and that is TO FIGHT! If you can stay in good position, start to fall, flag the hell out of it, and get back to good position, we are really talking. DO NOT give up when you feel you are falling, do everything you can to stay in balance. This will teach you to correct big mistakes, and not just the micro adjustments. I see a lot of this. Those who fight on 1 arm learn much faster, and get their flags fast, while those who just let themselves fall when they lose good alignment...well, they just miss the opportunity of a good negative 1 arm press every time they fall sideways. This is by the way how bboys learn to balance, and why they all stay in a half flag. Learning to do this with good shoulder position, which will get better with time, and you will be rock solid in flags.

Basically:

The better position you are able to balance in + the worse position you are able to balance in = Glory

[yuri marmerstein]

update:

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[jutajata]

...is the thing us handbalancers in school focus the most on and that is TO FIGHT! If you can stay in good position, start to fall, flag the hell out of it, and get back to good position...

I always wanted to know what's the major focus in the handbalancing schools and never could formulate the question to someone who actually practise in one of them because I didn't really know how to ask or to make myself clear, always thought they will answer "What? We focus on handstand obviously."

Your last post just answered this perfectly, I'm training handstands 2h/day and always suspected that my approach could be optimized cause I didn't fight too much when I start to fall, just do thousands of sets in the optimal positions but doesn't try to hold a falling one. I'll implement this approach ASAP and will return to you the feedbacks.

I'm feeling that this advice will be a rocket launcher for my stalled progress in one arm and flags.

Thanks a lot Handbalancer your participation here in the forum is just perfect for those who can't go to a handbalancing school or learn directly from a coach.

[Mikael Kristiansen]

Much, much better Yury. Your positioning has improved a lot actually. With letting the hips go slightly more over, notice also that your 1 leg goes more down that the other, which is exactly what it should. WIth consistent work straddle will be childs pay in some months, since you now have both placement and a sense of balance. For the next step, learn to control the free arm First by just straightening your elbow, as you are now bending. Then you can start to lift the entire arm out to 90 degrees(remember to isolate as you lift!), and then all the way up.

For the legs, I always reccomend to learn first straddle, then 1 leg bent, and then the diamond(or frog) where the pointed toes are touching. The diamond one gives you less to balance with from the legs, but still keeping the COG at almost the same level, so it is the perfect step before(or complementary to) legs together.

You are becoming able to keep a pretty good flag there too! Guys with your type of body have a tendency to get that pretty easily, and thats why you should train them a lot. Here too, try the one in diamond after a while, as it looks cool and is not so terribly difficult.

@Jujata

Thanks. I just know that I do possess knowledge that is very inaccessible to a lot of people, and I believe it is no point knowing things without sharing.

It really depends who your teacher is, as people tend to focus on different things. Our main focus with our teacher is to learn all positions and bulid up the skill level as high as possible However we students ourselves put a lot of effort into learning to NOT fall,no matter how bad your position is, since it is good to know on stage if you mess up, but also because we have seen the extreme benefits it gives in terms of strength and balance. I know for sure that all the balancers I have seen who do this all the time, learn much faster and become better in general than those who dont. Start learning to fight your way back from everything As for your level, it would be very good for you to focus a lot on flags, since they open up for many positions.''I will post a video on here shortly(within a week or 2) with some of my training where you can see many of the exercieses I am using.

Keep training!

[Richard Duelley]

A also appreciate your comments on everyones handbalancing work! Even though I am well below the ability of just about everyone here (I only started practicing seriously in July of 2009, so I have been only practicing for a year now) I really enjoy learning as much as I can, even if cant put of a lot of it to good use just yet. 8)

[Cole Dano]

So cool to see the quick progress yuri!

Amazing what a little GOOD advice can do, a rare commodity on the web.

HB my own balancing has also improved thanks to your advice here. Tonight i finally managed to get the feeling back after totally losing it a couple of years ago, only difference was before it was luck and now it feels like its on the way to being a skill.

[Morphs]

I come across the term "flag" a lot in this topic. It obviously refers to some one arm HS position.

Is it something like in the picture, where you lean over to one side really far, with both legs on the other side of the body?

[Razz]

morphs: yes

[yuri marmerstein]

update:

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[Cole Dano]

Awesome progress Yuri!!!!!! :!:

[Alessandro Mainente]

what type of stretching did you use in order to get your straddle??!! when i'm doing stretching i have the split but in dinamyc exercises i can't use it!!! is something concerned with the active flexibility?

[jl5555]

Yah, really solid looking (especially the 2nd one). Great inspiration, reminds me to take my time when I lift the raised hand...

[Richard Duelley]

Nice work!

But only right arm? :wink: