Intro
I’m 24 years old and I’ve been practicing handstands since I was 18. I haven’t done gymnastics (or anything similar) as a child, so I was starting pretty much from scratch.
I’m writing this article to share my honest, bumpy journey and things I wish I knew when I started.
There are three parts to this article:
- Timeline: a step-by-step progression of my handstand journey
- Summary: lessons I learned on the way and wish I knew back when I started
- Resources: a list of all resources that helped to learn how to do a handstand on my own
Timeline
September — November, 2014
My handstand journey begins in 2014, when I join a pole fitness studio. There I learn how to do a forearm headstand against the pole and after sometime, how to lean back from the pole and touch the floor with my hands. While this is nowhere near a real handstand (my thighs do most of the work holding me up), I get very excited and make it my goal to be able to do a real, freestanding handstand one day.
April, 2015
As I continue to take pole classes, my upper body gets stronger. This allows me to start practicing handstands by kicking up against the wall without the fear of collapsing. At first I rely on the wall to hold my weight and as the time goes on, I am able to take my back and legs off for about a fraction of a second before coming back down.
Since most of my practice is self-guided and unstructured, I never end up learning proper handstand form and don’t do any handstand-focused conditioning drills. Unfortunately, as I will find out years later, this is a big mistake.
For example, in this screenshot below, you can see that my back is forming a “banana” shape because my core is completely relaxed. This not just makes it impossible to hold a handstand without the wall but can also cause back pain:
July, 2017
For the next two years, my handstand remains the same. I keep on practicing by kicking up against the wall, don’t do any specific strengthening exercises, and honestly, still expect that some day I will be able to magically do a handstand without the wall.
Not only do I not get better but I also get extremely attached to the wall. Every time I even consider practicing without it, I get terrified. I try to practice by going up the wall the other way around (with my face facing the wall) but I get too scared of tipping over.
At some point, I get frustrated with the fact that it has already been 2 years and nothing much has changed. I find a mat area at the gym and decide to just go for a freestanding handstand and break my attachment to the wall.
The first time I try it, I obviously can’t keep balance so my body instinctively saves itself by falling into a wheel. (Note here: I’ve done some yoga at the time, so I assume going into a wheel was my body’s first go-to reaction). From that point on, this becomes my one and only exit strategy and I can’t imagine doing it a different way.
I still have no control over the process, so every time I just hope that my body will figure it out. It becomes both mentally and physically stressful and surely enough, I almost end up spraining my wrist a few times. As time goes on, I, don’t feel more comfortable doing a freestanding handstand — in fact, I paradoxically get more and more nervous every time I do one. Several weeks later I go back to the good old wall and now I’m hesitant more than ever before to practice without it.
August — November, 2017
Around August 2017, I make some significant changes to my workouts — instead of doing pole and running, I decide to try boxing and do more strength training. Over the course of a few months, I end up losing nearly 20lb while maintaining (or maybe even slightly increasing) my upper body / core strength and endurance. Getting into a much better physical shape gives me confidence to give handstands another shot.
While I still practice against the wall, I am now able to hold it for longer periods of time (30–45 seconds instead of 5–10). This allows me to start develop a better awareness of my body upside down.
I also start searching for handstand drills and tutorials online, which makes me realize how little I know about proper form and technique.
April, 2018
This marks one of the most important milestones in my journey. I go to New York to visit a friend of mine and while there, we decide to take a handstand class with Samantha Star at Body & Pole. This is my first handstand class ever and first time I have guidance from an experienced instructor.
In that one hour I end up learning more than I did in the past three years (!)
The most game-changing thing I learn is that there are different ways of getting into a handstand. Up to that point I would always bring my hands over my head prior placing them on the ground, however, Samantha told us that some people prefer to rather lunge into a handstand while keeping hands down by their side. This gives more control over the momentum and therefore, less risk of tipping over.
Here’s an illustration that will hopefully help to show the difference:
April, 2019
Paradoxically, over the course of the following year I lose some interest in handstands and only practice Samantha’s drills about 1–2 times a week. At this point, I probably already have enough physical strength to do a handstand and be able to hold it; however, I lack desire to put more effort and time into getting it and I’m not confident in my ability to do it.
Occasionally I try a freestanding handstand and while I know that there are other, more controlled ways of getting out of it (for example, cartwheeling out), I’m too nervous to try it without an instructor and still end up doing the wheel method. Frankly, I have a bit more control and awareness of my motion which makes me less fearful of doing a freestanding handstand and I can keep on going over and over and over again.
At this time, I also begin discovering mental benefits of doing a handstand. I find that even holding it up just for 20 seconds against the wall really helps me clear my head out. There are numerous times when I end up thinking at work “I wish I could do a handstand now…”.
March — April, 2020
Another year flies by and nothing changes. While I definitely feel strong enough to hold myself up in a handstand, I feel stuck when it comes to finding balance. I still practice only 1–2 times a week.
And then, as we all know it, lockdown. I become one of those lucky people who are able to work from home.
Several days in, I realize that despite unfortunate circumstances, this is a perfect opportunity for me to invest more time and effort into handstands.
First, since I am no longer at the office, I decide to commit to doing four 1-minute handstands a day facing the wall — at 8am, 11am, 2pm, and 4pm. My thoughts are that even if I spend a little bit time upside down every few hours, maybe my body (and brain!) will start figuring out how to balance itself upside down.
Second, since gyms are closed and I can no longer keep my lifting/boxing routine, I decide to start taking online handstand and yoga classes instead, about 2–3 times a week.
I learn tons of new drills, become comfortable practicing fairly far from the wall (although I still rely on it to keep myself up in case I start going over), and sometimes, I’m even able to stay in a freestanding handstand for about 10–15 seconds.
December 2020
By this point, I know that I’m ready to do a freestanding handstand both physically and finally, mentally. Being upside down feels like a second nature and I now know that I’m able to hold balance — I just have to figure out how to do it without needing that initial wall assist. I also now feel confident that I can now learn how to cartwheel my way out of a handstand even if it means that I need to briefly lift one hand up.
I start searching for specific tutorials online and come across a video by London School of Gymnastics where instructor breaks down cartwheeling step-by-step. In that video, he also teaches a shoulder tap exercise, which becomes a perfect way for me to test my preparedness.
After spending a week doing shoulder taps every day, I am able to get into a freestanding handstand, hold the balance for a few seconds, and control my way out of it.
Summary
While my handstand journey is far from being over, I can finally say that I’ve crossed the milestone of being able to comfortably do a freestanding handstand.
Here’s what I learned over the past 7 years and what I wish I had done when I was starting out:
- Check in with yourself frequently and have it in writing. It’s very easy to get into the habit of doing the same thing over and over again without realizing that months (or even years!) have passed and you haven’t been improving at all. Something simple as writing down what you’ve been working on and your progress every few days will do the trick. This will help you visualize your process, make adjustments to your practice, remain accountable, and keep track of time. I think not doing this was my biggest mistake. Looking back at it, how did I end up losing a few years without realizing that I barely made any progress?
- Don’t get attached to the wall. While it’s okay to practice with the wall, it’s not okay to treat it as a necessary complement to your handstand. The best way to avoid this is to start doing a variety of drills early on in your practice.
- Work on your strength. Whether it’s boxing, pole, lifting, rock climbing or yoga, find something that you enjoy and use it to build up your strength.
- At the same time, be willing to make changes to your existing routine. This is sort of an anti-thesis to the above. While it’s great that I got really into boxing and it helped me to get strong, I was always very hesitant to sacrifice some of the boxing workouts in favor of putting more effort towards handstands. Was a lockdown really necessary for me to start taking handstand classes 1–2 times a week? It wasn’t.
- Stay consistent with small, daily efforts. I attribute a lot to my 4 a day 1-minute handstands. They helped me to develop a sense of balance and greatly improved my confidence. Once again, even though I probably couldn’t have done them during the day if I were still working at the office, I could have done one or two before and after work.
- Get an instructor/mentor, take classes. Obviously, this one may not be affordable to all and it wasn’t to me when I was a student. However, even taking one class every few months will help a lot, assuming you continue practicing on your own. Aside from classes, there are fortunately tons of good resources online and while by no means that’s a substitute to having a real instructor, it’s still better than nothing. Personally, I wish I spent more time searching and trying different tutorials and drills instead of practicing the same thing over and over again.
- Visualize. While this is something I haven’t explicitly mentioned in the Timeline piece, it helped me as well. Ever since 2019, I have been visualizing doing a handstand at times when I couldn’t do it — at the office, while commuting, falling asleep, waiting in line. I was surprised to find that it was quite challenging to do a handstand even in my imagination! It took some practice and concentration to go against my fears and not let myself “tip over”. I believe this also what helped me to start retaining focus when doing handstands in real life. Even though I started visualizing handstands as a way to either calm myself when I was stressed or to distract myself when I was bored, it was amazing to see how it impacted my actual practice.
Resources
Lastly, here are all my favorite instructors that I have found over these years (please note that none of the below links are affiliates or ads):
1. Gina Scarangella
Gina is a gymnast and a former NFL cheerleader. A few years ago she started a handstand press challenge (doing one handstand a day), which inspired me to do my four 1-minute handstands a day at the beginning of the quarantine. Here’s her Instagram and YouTube channel with tutorials.
2. Amina Taha
Amina is a yoga instructor, who started practicing yoga at the age of 27 (it’s never too late to start!). She’s one of my favorite yoga and handstand instructors and I really hope to be able to take her class live one day. Here’s her Instagram and link to online classes.
3. Talia Sutra
Talia is also a yoga instructor and she has A LOT of classes online. Her style of teaching is one of a kind and she’s invaluable for anyone looking to begin or improve their handstand practice. Here’s her Instagram and link to online classes.
4. Samantha Star
Instructor from New York! Here’s her Instagram and she’s doing online classes as well.
5. The London School of Hand Balancing and Acrobatics
The one that gave me that final push. Here’s their Instagram and here’s the link to the video I was referring to.
* * *
Thank you for reading the article. I would love to learn about your experience with handstands as well and if you have any resources that you like, please feel free share them :)
You’re welcome to either post a comment here or connect with me on Instagram, whichever you prefer!
