Liminal (from Sunday)

[flexagon]

Trying to wrap up the week before it can wash away in a stream of new places and new experiences... it felt like a week of tear-down for the most part.

Oh, I did responsible shit that felt like build-up, too. I got a bunch of data together for my financial guy, and got all the windows in the condo unstuck and free of their decade-old plastic window wrappings (ten years had turned the clear, pliable tape into yellow strips of adhesive that were both brittle and sticky). I got some other adhesive off a ceiling, too, although I think I'll have to paint to completely get rid of any trace of the ill-fated string lights that were there once. Acetone, my favorite solvent, you did your best. And a guy came to soft-wash the exterior, in preparation for re-painting the outside. So: some house stuff. Some email and LinkedIn discussion.

But what's on my mind is handstands and circus, because after four years it looks like I'm breaking up with my distance coach. I want to work with Professionally Tiny Person, who just moved back to my area and whose approach to handstand pressing has always seemed really promising to me; and I want more freedom to program my own workouts, hopefully getting back to some stuff I've really missed; and anyway, four years of this coach's stuff hasn't gotten me to my press and it's time to switch up. I've upset him, sadly, and that's largely because I took a lapse in his response times as a reason to pause and talk about the larger picture. Natural as that is, it allows him to put it all together and think "I lapsed in my responses and now I'm losing a client" when really I think this has been brewing for a while, and in some ideal world I told him about Professionally Tiny Person months ago (instead of getting caught up in the mad dash of leaving Zillian and losing track of the timeline of her move). Meanwhile, the lapse is because he lost some staffers from his gym and has taken on a lot more in-person clients and is now asking way too much of himself. So that's a pain. We had a good run; four years and countless hours. Time to let me go.

As for my actual handstands, this has been a long long quest for the press, and of course maybe I just won't get it. However, I think there's technique stuff to be unlocked that Distance Coach doesn't even see as an issue, and spine/shoulder mobility I could be working on along with just strength strength strength. Some positions require not more tension to get into, but more relaxing; I did some surprising and very lightly-spotted presses with Spring in which I tried to keep myself completely limp except for my shoulders and arms, and wouldn't you know it.... gravity led to both compression and spinal rounding, and I wet-dishclothed right onto my hands. Clearly a promising direction.

Somehow I stumbled into an odd military SF kick in my reading, reading Some Desperate Glory (good, because it's also a coming-of-age story and a cult-escape story) while audiobooking the Murderbot series in an attempt to get through to the award-winner and fifth in the series, Network Effect. That one is good or at least amusing, because of the snarky autistic ace non-binary narrator. In both cases the military SF part is the boring part. I've brought what looks like a very good cozy-nasty horror book on this trip with me to break the streak.

(Also, in media consumption: we told the squirrel's 80-year-old mother about Frieren: Beyond Journey's End and she binged it for hours the next day. Haha. Spreading the word.)

Comments

[elbren]

after watching all the frieren available on crunchyroll, i bought and read all the collected volumes on viz before realizing it'd be cheaper to read the individual chapter, which had more story available, so now i'm caught up on everything available in english in any media

[flexagon]

Ooh, this gives me a good idea for a present for someone, so thank you!

[justplainuniverse]

I agree that after four years you aren't probably going to get anything more from distance coach and a new direction is in order!

You HAVE the spine/shoulder mobility, right? At least passively? Or in other positions, like a bridge, where you aren't multitasking and can just focus on opening? And you have a lot of strength too. I feel like you it's a neuromuscular battle for you more than anything. I bet tiny coach will have ideas!

[justplainuniverse]

looking at your 2024 training montage, your 1:36 compression is fantastic! have you been working that active compression too? and your shoulder openness at 1:16 also gives me no reason to think you need more mobility in that direction. but your shoulders don't generally open that much in a handstand. out of habit? do you know? have you been able to find 180 deg of shoulder opening in a handstand in certain circumstances (spotting, wall, various cues)? you're there in 3:08 but again i don't see that shoulder angle in your straight hss very often. it's like as soon as you have ALL your body weight, your shoulders want to close...

[flexagon]

Wow, I really really appreciate you digging that video up and taking a real look. Answers:

* Active compression has been an on-and-off thing for me. I know that Tiny Coach (we'll call her that for now) has very specific drills about that, to the level of "use your psoas, not your quads" but in the meantime: only sometimes. Passive has been consistent.

* Shoulders can get open to 180 but it's not super comfortable. I've gotten there in the pike-press-from-desk exercise, like you found, and on the wall if I'm back-to-wall and doing a backbend so my butt is on the wall and my legs are up -- somewhere, I have a picture -- but my comfort isn't there and control isn't really great. Regarding the straight position, I think I revert to a place where my balance is better and I'm not having to use 90% of my neurons to keep my ribs in and shoulders open. Maybe it would be better to work it until I can get there actively and be more comfortable?

I saw your post on Insta about losing your press and, when I look at your successful presses, I do see a position that I don't go through. Which is: shoulders allll the way open while your legs are still down, like me with my pike-press-from-desk except straddled. There is probably a big clue there.

Overall, I agree I probably have the pieces now and am not DOING the right things.

[justplainuniverse]

using 90% of my neurons to change some minor technique point about a thing i can ALREADY DO JUST FINE is about my least favorite thing, so i really feel for you. but also, i feel like we might be onto something. it sounds like maybe the moment you have all your weight in your hands and are responsible for your own balance, your body wants to close the shoulders in order to have more control. this IS what i see happening in your presses as soon as your toes lift off. and it's the opposite of what you'd wanna aim for in order to have a press where you are stacking your body parts in order (shoulders, ribs, hips, etc) versus planching. DW isn't conducive to sharing screenshots but lmk if that would be helpful and we can continue this convo elsewhere.

i bet tiny coach's drills will help! i'm not convinced the drills need to be all that specific - any and all compression drills are hard for me right now, after not training them, and i feel the lack of strength there when i attempt the press. all the drills i know of get at the same thing. still, maybe she's onto something i don't even know about :D

oh, i also wanted to respond to your "completely limp" experience! my standard press isn't the MOST rounded through the spine. i do planche a tiny bit. every now and then i have tried to refine it. a lot of the videos in my montage are from workshopping my pathway. and the thing that helps me the most is very similar to what you described. my focus stays very close to the ground, incrementally moving up my body, leaving the hips for last, trying to prevent the leg-ward half of my body from efforting and spoiling things.

[flexagon]

Now that I'm back from hang gliding, I'm continuing to appreciate this conversation! Yeah, I do see what you mean about the shoulders, and how their closing isn't good for stacking. I guess my neurons might just have to suffer. :-/

I've been working on my hand-to-hand entrance also, and yesterday we got it down to a Jefferson-curl type motion that probably is what my hs press needs to become. Pushing straight down, rolling and shoulders opening. My question -- the hips do have to rise a few inches SOMEHOW, and in the h2h entrance that comes from the base's tempo. When jumping into straddle hs that comes from my own jump. When pressing... it comes from.... from compression plus low back extension? What's your take on that?

I can imagine someone with a very flexible (forward-folding) spine being able to just ooze/drag it on up in "completely limp" fashion, but I think you're saying you don't quite do that, and I don't think I can do it either when a coach isn't helping somewhat.

[justplainuniverse]

Can't wait to hear about hang gliding!

When I press, I start in that classic position on my tippy-toes with spine rounded, and from there I kind of lock my abs to hold my spine/torso in that shape, lean forward till the weight's off my toes, and open my shoulder angle *without* changing the shape of my spine. That's how I get my hips up. For some people, like you said, the spine can kind of roll segmentally into a straight line. But for me, it works best to focus on opening the shoulders. The key thing is that once my weight's off my toes, I don't lose the cat-throw-up shape I was previously in. I open my shoulders while still in a spinal-flexion position.

Because there is no tempo, the body has to be balanced at all times. So as long as the legs are on one side of the equation, other body parts have to be on the other. Ideally, as MANY other body parts as possible. So not just the head and shoulders (that would be "planching") but also the upper back, even the mid back. Then slowly as the shoulder angle opens, the hips rise, and eventually both the shoulders and the hips move to the midline of the balance point.