free standing before walking: I find this extremely suspect

(I have NOT read this advice yet on this forum, but elsewhere and wanted feedback.)

From what I know and what I've observed human babies try to walk before they can free stand.

They lean against furniture or stairs or people and immediately try to walk, NOT stand still. They learn to stand for extended periods on their feet unsupported long AFTER they have been trying to walk. One guy who recommends this writes a lot about taking a lot of intermediate steps in learning to handstand, and taking an easy path so one does not get frustrated and quit, but then contradicts himself and takes this stance which introduces a large gap in the progression.

What's this board's opinion, and are there any valid ways to arrive at the "train the extended stand before trying to walk" advice?

Another thing occurred to me: even if going for the free standing stand first was the best practice for teaching handstands to most people, wouldn't there be outliers (like there always are) who have slightly different muscle strengths from the majority (or better neural control of different actions, or just a deeply rooted personal preference for movement over stability, or ...), for whom walking would be very, very easy and a good way to learn how to be upside down? So for me the blanket, one size fits all nature of that advice also rankles.

As long as you can hold proper position it doesn't matter too much which way you go, but they sort of grow together. A good walk is able to stop at any step and wait before moving forward again: it does not depend on forward motion for balance. You can see, I think, how a solid freestanding handstand will help here.

However, as long as you can maintain a good position there's nothing wrong with walking in the handstand in such a way that you can't quite control things as described above, because that will come with time as long as you are practicing both. Know what I mean?

The general consensus will always be that freestanding is more important to do first because it demonstrates the ability to keep a proper position, and if you learn to walk in a screwy position you will have a harder time learning a proper gymnastic handstand either statically held OR moving across a floor. Of course, if you don't care about having a proper gymnastic handstand then this whole discussion doesn't matter lol! It all depends on what you want. Benefits of a proper gymnastic handstand are vastly increased usage of medial delts and upper traps, both of which are somewhat neglected otherwise. An arched handstand uses the pecs and anterior delts to compensate for the former muscles being too weak to handle the position, and this leads to an inability to perform more difficult movements like proper handstand presses which are huge for shoulder health at a high level of performance.

Arched handstand is not WRONG, you are in a handstand, but it will not further your development of total body strength to the same degree as a straight gymnastic handstand.

So if you want gymnastic handstand you will want to wait on walking until you can hold a proper position when walking, which will mean you will be doing at least SOME freestanding work as well as a good bit of bodyline work on the wall with stomach towards the wall.

If you don't care, then you should start wherever you want!

thanks for the response

2 coaches where I'm taking lessons have suggested I start walking in good gymnastic form rather than just working on form against a wall. They were clear that I should only walk with good form, with a partner to monitor form and once I start losing form, quit for the day (instead of training with bad form to develop bad habits).

I definitely want to move on to more advanced gymnastics and tumbling and do it correctly ...

I'm trying to square what they're telling me with some of the other advice out there, while at the same time not getting slowed down by making things un-necessarily difficult.

They are pretty much right on, I mean as long as you can keep form you're good. Perfection comes later lol! If you can't walk with good form just work wall holds and other bodyline drills until you can, it will come. If you have people to spot you it will come sooner.

I have seen many, many people attempt handstands kind of just out of the blue, for fun, or part of a casual practice session. If they haven't read a guide or received instruction, they ALWAYS stagger around to find balance.

This is definitely the intuitive or natural way that people first attempt handstands, and probably easier to get started that way.

I have very small and weak wrists and taking steps is painful and has injured me before, but I have had absolutely minimal luck in the "stay still" approach to learning handstands.

This is especially true in the most difficult and critical part of a handstand; kicking up. When trying to keep your hands still you have to be extremely precise with the kickup, since finger-flexing really has only very limited power and is easily overwhelmed by a kick that was slightly too powerful, for example. Staggering or taking a step, however, can correct all but the most absurdly over-powered kickups.

Trying to kick up into a stationary handstand, in my experience, led to many years of frustration and disappointment. I don't ever suggest to people that they need to do that right away.

It should go without saying that finger, hand and wrist strength are extremely important for handstands. You will be surprised how much correcting you can do with your hands once you can do fingertip pull ups or 50 yards of fingertip bear crawls, for example. If handstand prowess is your goal, you need to focus on scapular movement and finger/hand/wrist strength.

The problem with walking first before balancing is that seldom will people not be able to balance but still be able to maintain proper body lines. Yes it's possible but happens pretty rarely.