Straddle-up handstands

[flexagon]

Occasional success in getting upside-down is only making me more aware of how bad I am at these. I'm pretty sure straddle-ups are not supposed to be a full-body maximum effort type thing. It's one thing to be strong enough to occasionally muscle oneself around, and another thing to have form and technique.

My favorite handstand page says Now, try doing a straddle press handstand with your back against the wall. Hmmp, that seems like a good idea, but since I'm not at that level, how about I do a straddle JUMP handstand with my back against the wall? Yeah, that works better.

Back to basics, I think. I'm going to work on real sets of straddle press headstands with my head on some books, which I'm good enough at that I can actually focus on form and on keeping my legs straight. After 10 or so of those can come the straddle-jump against the wall. I feel a little sad to be coming to this conclusion, but having actually straddled up a few times (five, now) I feel a bit less desperate about them. They are possible, just especially hard for me.

I've been meaning to post about last Friday's yoga class too. It was a 2-hour class on transitions. We did the following:

• Jumping out of high and low crane
• Drills toward jumping through hands with straight legs, using a towel under our feet
• Jumping into crane from down dog
• Jumping into tittibhasana from down dog (!)
• Some neat drills with coming up into handstand on an inhale, then down on an exhale, then spending another breath coming up into a lunge
• Jumping forward and back with straight legs
• Jumping through arms with one leg straight and one folded
• Jumping up into an almost-handstand with ankles crossed, then lowering down gracefully

...and I'm probably not even remembering everything. It was incredible to see people actually doing some of this stuff. It made me want to be about five times as strong as I am so I could do some of it too.

Comments

[nevers.livejournal.com]

i never did figure out how to do a straddle press hs with my back against a wall for support. i did it successfully maybe twice total and that involved pressing my head against the wall for leverage, which beth says is what you're supposed to do but it feels very very wrong.

straddle-ups will get so much easier and more effortless. i barely have to jump at all these days -- as the muscles that are required for a press handstand develop they can take over so you don't need momentum from the jump to get up. i think elevated headstand presses are REALLY helpful. of course you also just have to do the jump-straddle-ups, as hard as they are, to get the coordination down. if you can find someone to spot you on straddle-ups and also press handstands that will really help you get the movements into muscle memory.

your yoga class sounds great, but just reading about it is making my shoulders ache. argh, shoulders!!!

[flexagon]

Thanks, and yeah, I believe that someday they will get easier. My kickup is getting more floaty and controlled... there's still a little kick but it feels more like 'rock forward and press', rather than 'kick as hard as humanly possible and pray' which is where I was in summer 05.

Your shoulders, grrr! They are so upsetting they upset me. I really really hope that you can do something to get them better.