Shoulder to Shoulder Balancing

[John Sapinoso]

And a few other things in this video

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Any tips on the shoulder to shoulder balancing?

[George Launchbury]

Hey,

As usual, I'm way underqualified to make any comment other than from general experience.

My first thought was: Have you specifically practiced your bale-outs?

Literally having your partner purposefully 'fall' to front, side and rear. Especially as you are working with a partner, and gut reactions might get you in a tangle and wrench a neck/shoulder. I recall Ido stating this is part of the way he teaches flips, so that the fear of falling is removed to some degree.

I know when I used to climb my progress improved greatly after I spent some time building up to bigger and bigger falls. After this, I found I spent less time planning ahead to fall, and could keep going until I actually lost my grip, rather than planning ahead and pretty much giving up early for a super-safe fall.

Same with face-to-wall handstands. I couldn't really push myself to get as close as I could until I was comfortable stepping/rolling out.

Cheers,

George.

[Christian Sørlie]

Never done any shoulder to shoulder balancing, but man that looks like a fun gym to train at.

[Mikael Kristiansen]

Doesnt look too bad, but you should get her a little bit higher up on your shoulders. What you want to do is have her a little higher and have her lean slightly towards your head, which you push backwards with. This will create a tension between your bodies that will tell you where her COG is and makes it easier to balance. She is also piking a bit too much, possibly because she is a bit too low. Try having her split instead. Try also to get the arms a bit lower, and also feel how you can balace her with the tension there.

I looked again, she is definitelly not leaned enough on your head, and it looks like you are balancing her mostly from the arms. Try having her leaning more on your head, and remember to push back from your neck.

For the going down, learn to cartwheel her down, it is by far the safest. You bend your legs deep, tilt sideways and let her go down one side while she holds her legs split. Try it while you are sitting down first so that she can get a feeling of where to place her legs when coming down.

Also, you should know that doing this with the arms is almost 100% safe, but that people have actually died from the one without arms. Problem is that it is very easy to do, even without arms, when you have the technique, but if the flyer slips when he/she has the arms up, it can go bad. The flyer of a famous duo who did soleil fell down and died after performing it for years. Not to discourage, but just so you know. If you want to do arms off when you learn it well, keep the flyers arms down so she can catch herself in a handstand if she slips.

For your mexican handstand, try to initiate it more from the shoulders. That way it becomes easier to keep it balanced.

Cool to see! Keep it up!

[John Sapinoso]

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

@george, In hindsight, it was pretty irresponsible of us to do this without having learned a safe exit strategy.

@christian, dude that place is like heaven to me, if you're in the DC area you absolutely have to check it out.

@handbalancer, thanks for the tips. We had tried a cartwheel up but I was sitting down on a mat and had no viable surface to push up against so it failed. Will defintiely give it a shot like you suggested next chance we get.

We were wondering how to keep sufficient tension for that balance. It almost seems like the flyer HAS to be slightly over balanced, otherwise the neck press would push her off? Hmm much to think about and play around with...