Maybe my dream was prophetic

[flexagon]

...just a little bit, anyway. I had a great handstand class, complete with by far the best jump-ups to canes I've ever done. I had a guiding spot but not a helping spot, and I got up!!! Holy crap! Some legitimately good practice toward one-arms, too, and one rock-solid straddle pike hold on the canes.

I guess the writhing around I do on the floor is actually helping. No, pervert, not that kind of writhing, I mean the whole "moving between pike and hollow body" thing.

I thought happily about body alignment all the way home, and I started legitimately wondering: if I pressed down on the floor as hard and as determinedly as I pressed down on the canes tonight (I SQUISH YOUUUUU), wouldn't my feet leave the floor? Wouldn't I... press?

Comments

[nevers.livejournal.com]

huh, did the cue to press down hard on the canes/squish them come from you or your instructor? i've never thought about it that way. but basically, as i think about it now, the way that you press down hard on something is to shift your body weight onto it (the more fully your body weight is on it, the more you are pushing on it), so thinking of determinedly pressing down on the canes/floor means shifting your weight onto your hands and thus off of your feet. true? or is there anything i'm missing here?

[flexagon]

It came from my instructor in the context of partner acro, where another thing I can't quite do yet is jump up into low hand-to-hand (but I'm close, and suddenly with this cane success I have confidence: it will be soon). A partner's forearms are much less tolerant of lateral pressure than canes or panel mats are, so all the pressure into them during the jump has to be STRAIGHT DOWN. If I fall into my bad-habit pattern of pressing forward on them, they'll either collapse or have to fight me really hard (and in the meantime I'm doing a shitty inefficient jump that goes too far forward, and planches my shoulders too much for me to be able to save the handstand, and nothing good happens).

Consistent downward pressure on the base's hands is also a big part of every entrance into h2h but especially the advanced ones I'm trying to learn now (cartwheel in, front mount / inlocate in). Push down, maintain connection, keep those traps working.

So:

1) the cue to push hard works for me because I can't JUST shift my weight, I have to be in a strong extended position by the time the weight is shifted or I just collapse. So, this one time, the first time I ever succeeded in the jump-up, I was thinking of pushing down, forcefully putting the canes under me.

2) It is extra-important for the push to be straight down, in acro, where the base is not so strong as canes... but straight down gives the most efficient jump-up anyway, and I need every bit of efficiency I can get.

Two more things: did you see my video of 43-second hold? And, oh my god, I have a semiprivate with Sellam in just over an hour; he's visiting. Squee! I'm terrified, actually, having heard so many Sellam stories.