Straddle-up handstands
Oct. 8th, 2006 11:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flexagonOccasional 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:
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
