Ido Portal #2

[flexagon]

I'm glad I went to the second day of Ido Portal on Wednesday. He had us do some intensely painful drills that didn't have a lot to do with handbalancing but were kind of cool, like rotating from a squat to a backbend and around to a squat again. Then, at last, we did do an underbalance drill, and this is how he taught it:

Handstand facing the wall, about a hand-length away. Point toes and lean against the wall: congratulations, you are now underbalanced and must be saved.

The elbows don't bend. Rather, the line of the body breaks at the shoulders. First the shoulders come forward over the hands, then the hips, and finally the feet float into place. Snap into the straight handstand position quickly and fall back to the wall. Another way of saying it is that the line breaks at the shoulders, and then the shoulders straighten as the hips break (into a slight pike) and then the line straightens again.

It works, and I find it easier than bending elbows, so... good.

What I forgot to say about #1 is that we finished with a tabata in crow pose, and I was amazed at how hard it got by the end.

Comments

[nevers.livejournal.com]

interesting! i do save underbalances by breaking at the shoulders but i never follow it with a break at the hip. i figure better not to introduce any new breaks but just get the shoulders back in line asap. but i am curious about trying this. and crow pose tabata!! i have no desire to do this but i do desire to teach it :)

[flexagon]

Yeah, it was interesting. If you give it a shot (perhaps on the wall, and with a partner to keep you from going over, just so there's one less worry) let me know how you like it. Me, I want to do it several thousand more times, preferably alternating with the overbalance drill.

I once did 60 seconds in crow with no particular difficulty so I was expecting to totally rock that tabata, but I was a low and bedraggled birdie by the end. Sigh. I want to apologize to your students in advance for giving you the idea. :)