Handstand Balance Training: 10-Min Tutorial (Part 3)

You're working a little bit forward like you were doing a plank and doing this. And then when you jump your hips up, you move your shoulders back, all right? More control, less jumping. All right, so you're pressing with your fingertips and your shoulders, you're curling back in order to not having to jump your hips so high, okay?

Let's talk about the legs. Standing split, when you jump up and you try to get this leg up, then this leg is gonna feel like dead weight. The bottom leg is going to drag me down again. That's why it feels easier to just throw both legs up and you're doing the air at the same time.

But when you do that, you also lose control. So we have a few steps on the way that we can do. Looks like this. You jump up and as soon as you leave the floor, you bend your knee, okay?

So I'm bending my knee, the bottom knee, and trying to squeeze the thigh in towards my belly. Okay, so I jump up, bend the knee and come down again. And this is the easiest and first thing you can do. When you start getting control of the handstand, bending the knee and squeezing your thigh in towards the belly is the number one thing.

Check this out. I'm gonna take one of these, take a sock or something you have lying around, get into a standing split and squeeze your sock or whatever in towards your belly so you're squeezing it. If you straighten your leg, your sock will fall down. Okay, so the trick here is to jump up and trying to keep the sock squeezed.

Okay, this is the way you learn how to not start rabbit jumping. If you rabbit jump, your sock will fall off, okay? That's a great way to check yourself if you can actually get this squeeze, okay? Another thing that's good with this one is that it's impossible to arch your spine when you flex your hip flexor, okay?

So if I rabbit jump, I'm gonna be here, but if I have my sock here and I squeeze my thigh in, it's impossible to arch my spine. Okay, so just this simple thing to keep the hip flexor super flexed is gonna make your handstand a lot straighter, and when it's straight, it's easy to balance, okay? So work jumping and squeezing your bottom knee in without starting to do this, lifting your knee. When you lift your knee even slightly, the momentum of the legs will bring you over, and the problem for most people, especially Jiu-Jitsu guys, is not that you have fear of falling over, is that you overcommit and you lose control, all right?

Just like I see, I see this in guard passing all the time, and I do it all the time myself. I see opening, and instead of passing and controlling the hips, I jump past, and I somersault over, and it's a big scramble from the pass instead of being precise and applying enough force, speed, and pressure to pass, but just enough, not too much, okay? So if you learn to control your handstand, control your breath, and regulate the speed and intensity, that's gonna change your mindset, and your guard passing will definitely be able to improve if you can apply the same principles there. Step number two is to release a little bit of this hip flexor thing in order to catch, in order to clap your knee against your thigh.

So I'm assuming you did 100 of these, the sock squeezes, at least 100 on each side. Then you can move on and do this. Clap your knee to your thigh or your knee. Clap your foot on your knee, rather.

Jump up, clap the foot on the knee. So I'm not here anymore, I'm more there, okay? So you're going from here to here. Okay, so the knee is perfectly in line with the hips.

You can start arching a little bit, but since your foot is glued to the knee, you have to be super flexible in order to starting, like gymnasts and circus people can do it, but for us amateurs, going from here to here is like a 20 degree angle change, and it's enough for you to start getting a bit higher from here to there, okay? But as soon as you start bending this knee and lifting it, the top leg is gonna start doing the same thing and then you lose control. So don't do this. Keep this leg karate straight, touch your knee, and come down, and try to make a flow out of it.

Try to inhale and exhale. All right? Last step for today, this is more than enough for you to work for a week, but the last step, I like to do three things. So the first one was the sock squeeze, the second one was the knee tap.

The third one would be when you knee tap, you go straight out into a L shape, this shape, and then you come down, so like this. You jump up, tap your knee, and then, oops, sorry, you jump up, tap your knee, and then you straighten out and come down. So knee tap, straighten, and come down. And now you start feeling your hips and your ass over your shoulders, and it's the pressure and the squeezing of the arms and shoulders and chest that keeps the balance.

Okay, so your goal in handstand is to keep your legs and your core still, and the only movement is the control of your chest, your shoulders, and your fingers. Okay, so bottom half of your body, tight and strong. Your upper body is also tight and strong, but it has some movability, and the more still you can be, the longer you can balance. Okay, so that's the last step.

Jump up, tap your knee, and then straighten the leg, and touch down. Jump up, touch your knee, straighten, and touch down. Okay, now you're already advancing, you're progressing to more and more advanced stages of handstand, and in the next tutorial, we are gonna look at some fun things you can do. Good luck, guys, see you in the next video.