Handstand & Inversion Workshop with Kai

So we will play a little bit of a theater as well. All right. So our workshop is basically just talking and, but it's not a talk show. So we try to minimize the talking as much as possible.

But it's preparing the body so that it's warm and ready. We do a warm up flow and then we do different drills and stretches. So we do a drill, do a stretch, do a drill, do a stretch. And then when we see that people are okay, people have had enough, then we cool it down and relax.

So this is a kind of a 40, 45 minute version or however long it takes of a much longer workshop because our workshop is two hours, two and a half hours. So we will give you the short version today, but I'm going to show you most of the tricks I have and all of the modification we can make for people to have a good time and have fun. Right. Are you ready?

Yeah. I'm going to walk around and show Kai what to do and he will do the warm up flow and I'm going to pretend to be the yoga teacher and he's going to pretend to be the student. So lay down on your, on your back, on your yoga mat. Okay.

Relax your arms and legs out and just take a few breaths. Take a deep inhale and gather up some expectations and then release those expectations on the exhale. Again, inhale some worries and anxieties and release them out. Inhale some tension and exhale some relaxation.

Enjoy the quiet for a moment because there will be a lot of talking in this class. And on your next inhale, reach slowly your arms overhead and stretch yourself as long as you can. Maybe move the wrists and ankles, toes and fingers, move your neck around. Say good morning to the body, even if it's in the afternoon.

And then hug one knee in, grab one knee with both hands and pull the knee in and say, very nice. And then switching sides. And then hug both knees in, grab both knees and rock a little bit from side to side, up and down. Nice.

And rock all the way up and come over to all fours, tabletop position. And just freestyle, move around, move your spine in arches and rounding, moving your neck, leaning into your hands, spreading the fingers, move your lower back, moving your upper back, looking left and right, ear from shoulder to shoulder. Turn your fingers backwards so that we're stretching the forearms. Keep moving around.

And then flipping one hand so that you can see the inside of your hand and make a fist with that hand and release it. Do that three times. And then switch to the other side. So other hand.

Look at the palm and then stretch the back of the wrist. Nice. Sit down on your knees, arms overhead, shake the hands. And then a hundred quick pumps like this, like one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

And let's do 90 more of those just to get some blood flowing into the forearms. The wrists are strong, but they're not really meant to stand on for extended periods of time. Shake it a little bit more, pump it a little bit more, and shake it out. So we need to warm up the wrists properly and take some management precautions so that we don't hurt our wrists.

Okay, plank pose. Take three breaths in plank pose, straight legs, straight arms. This is the beginning of a handstand. Most of the stuff we have in a handstand is right here in plank pose.

It's just easier to hold than a full handstand. And then lift your butt up and back for a down dog. Bend your knees and push your butt back. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

Very nice. Yeah, move your legs if you need to. Move your feet so that you have a nice down dog. Are you feeling okay?

Yeah. Nice. Drop your head and push the butt up and back. And this is the time to walk around and help people move into the pose so that they feel better.

His hamstrings is troubling him, so keep bending the knees. Keep bending the knees. Very nice. Oopa.

And then you can feel some tension in the shoulders. You give him a little rub. Very nice. Take another breath here.

And then slowly, slowly start walking the feet towards the hands. And don't go quickly because use this time to walk forward to get more and more into the hamstrings. And always give people a couple of blocks so that they have the options to place blocks under the hands here. So you can put the hands on the blocks now.

It's going to help. And then keep walking the feet all the way towards the hands. Take your time. Progressively stretching.

Very nice. And then half lift. Look forward. Inhale.

And then exhale. Bend your knees and fold all the way down. One more time. Half lift.

Lift the shoulders up and lift all the way there. And then exhale. Fold. Very nice.

Fold forward. Bend your knees. Really go deep. Two more.

Inhale. Half lift. Exhale. Last one.

Inhale. Half lift. And exhale. Fold.

And then roll all the way up. Come into standing arms overhead. Inhale. And exhale.

Drop the hands down. Normal sun salutation. A just to warm up the hamstrings and body more. Inhale.

Arms up. Exhale. Stick your butt out. Fold.

Half lift. Inhale. Maybe hands on blocks. Exhale.

Hands down and step back to plank pose. Hands off the blocks. And then normal vinyasa. So moving to plank pose.

Lower down to the ground. Plank pose first and then lower down. Yep. And then lift your arms out behind you.

Lift your arms up. Lift your legs up. Lift the chest up. Yes.

Beautiful. And then take three breaths here. Strengthening the back. Just engaging the back and waking up the back.

Lift the legs a little bit more. Nice. Hands down. Feet down.

Hands next to your chest. And lift your chest for a back bend. Just a small back bend. Beautiful.

And come down. Toes in the ground. Hands in the ground. Take an inhale.

Using your knees or not, exhale. Push into a push up. And then back to down dog. Nice.

Very strong. Back to down dog. And take a few breaths. Back to down dog.

And then back to plank pose and then back to down dog. Yes. Very nice. Bending your knees.

Straightening the back. Yes. You can widen your hands a little bit here. Yep.

And then I'm going to help you push. Bend the knees more so we get the butt even higher. Yes. Because when we do a handstand, we need the chest to come through the shoulders a little bit.

So if we're here in the handstand, it's going to be harder. It's easier there. How is your shoulders? Yeah, it's good.

Tell me if something is breaking. Nice. So bend your knees. Look forward.

On the exhale, step or jump forward. Step forward to your hands. A little bit quicker this time. So just walk all the way forward.

Yeah. And inhale, half lift. Exhale, fold. And then inhale all the way up.

Exhale, hands down. Nice. One more. Inhale, arms up.

Exhale, fold. Half lift, inhale. Hands to the ground, stepping back to a plank, taking an inhaling plank. Exhale as you lower all the way down.

Lift your chest on the inhale. And exhale, push back to plank. Move your butt back into downward dog. Bend one knee and straighten the other leg so you're walking in the same place.

We call it walking the dog. Wiggle your butt from side to side to get into your hips a little bit. Nice. Now we're doing some side planks.

So move forward into plank and place your knees down. So you're in all fours in a kind of an all-four plank pose. And then lift your left arm up and place your right knee down. So we can stay here for a while.

Push your hips forward. Open your chest. A lot of weight comes into the right hand. Very nice.

And now try lifting your bottom knee off the floor. Yeah, lift the bottom knee. Yep. And the foot as well.

Beautiful. And then switching side. Very nice. All fours.

And then do the same thing on the other side. Start with a technical side plank to get the technique. Yeah, right arm up. Perfect.

Like this? Yep. Right arm up. And then making sure that the shoulder is over the wrist so that we're feeling strong and stable.

So like imagine that you have a heavy weight here. You would have to have really good alignment to stay there. And that's what we're doing when we're doing handstands. Like we need a good foundation with the shoulder and the wrist.

Now lift the bottom knee off the floor. Three, two, one. And come back to plank pose. Back to down dog.

Stretch it out. Very nice. Back to down dog. Push your butt back.

Yep. That's it. Nice. Bend your knees.

Look forward. And on the exhale step or jump. Half lift. Inhale.

Very nice. Jump. Exhale. Fold.

Inhale all the way up. And exhale hands down. One last sun salutation day. Inhale arms up.

Exhale fold. Inhale half lift. Stepping back to plank. Lowering down on the exhale.

And then we're going to do the same thing on the other side. Now let's move into plank pose without placing the knees down. Plank pose. Just normal plank.

Right arm up. And lift the top leg now. Lift the right leg off the floor. Nice.

And foot down. Very nice. Switching sides. So this is the balancing aspect of a handstand.

Lift left foot. So everything is wobbling. It's really hard to stay. Switching again.

Switching again. Left hand down. Right arm up. First side.

So this is handstand. The body is straight. Everything is strong. We're wobbling and it's hard.

And we're switching one more time. And then we're going to do the same thing on the other side. It's hard. And we're switching one more time.

Left arm up. Left leg up. Impossible to think. Yeah, nice.

And then roll all the way down to your belly. Flop down on your belly. And interlace your fingers behind your back. Yep.

And then slowly lift off the ground. Can we straighten the arms? Very nice. Look down.

Look down. Look down. Yeah, drop your head. And then we're going to do the same thing on the other side.

So everything is wobbling. And foot down. Left leg up. Left leg up.

And then we're going to do the same thing on the other side. So everything is wobbling. And then we're going to do the same thing on the other side. Left leg up.

Left leg up. Look down. Look down. Look down.

Yeah, drop your head. I'm going to lift you a little bit here. Feeling good? Yeah.

Yeah, you're looking much stronger. The first round is definitely the hardest. Now I can see that you're starting to get into it. Nice.

Okay. Back to down dog. Find your way back to down dog. And then bend your knees.

Look forward. Do that super jump again that you did. Inhale, half lift. Awesome.

Exhale, fold. And then take a few breaths where you bend the knees, grab your elbows and drop your head. Yeah. Widen your legs a little bit.

Nice. I like to hold people sacrum and then make them realize that the lower back and upper back is not that stiff. It's actually a lot more flexible than people think. Very nice.

All right. Come all the way up to standing. One salutation B. Bend the knees, arms overhead.

Sit down. Get some fire into your legs. Nice. Inhale here.

And exhale, sit down in a squat. Maybe if you want to try bend the elbows and lean your knees into your elbows, lifting one foot, two foot or no foot off the floor. Nice stepping back to a plank. Inhale in plank.

Exhale lower down. Back bend on your inhale. Exhale pushing back up to plank, back to down dog. All right.

Now it begins. Right leg out behind you. Lift your right leg up. Bend your knee and open the hips.

This is good morning hamstrings on the other leg. Nice. Very nice. And now roll the knee towards your nose.

Crunch it. Touch your nose maybe. And then two more. Inhale, leg comes out behind you.

Open lift, open lift, open lift. Knee to nose again. Second time. And then last one.

Inhale bend and open. Exhale, roll the knee forward. Step the foot down on the ground and grab it with your right hand. Help it forward.

And come up into crescent pose. Arms overhead. Very nice. Strong back leg.

Bend the front knee. Very nice. And since the arms are stopping here, what we like to do is take them wide first. So instead of going here, we try to go here.

Nice. And then pretend that the ceiling is the floor so you're doing handstands but only upside down. This is the really advanced version of a handstand if you're doing upside down handstand. Very nice.

Bend the front knee to get some fire into this leg. Straighten the back leg to get some stretching. Very nice. Hands in front of your chest.

Lean forward. Lift the back leg. Balance on your right leg. The balancing aspect is the hardest with handstands.

It's pretty easy for the strength because everybody is strong enough. But balancing on the hands is about as hard as balancing on one foot. This is about as hard. Just close your eyes and that's about how hard handstand is to balance.

It's different but it's the same difficulty. Nice. Now lift your left leg in front of you. Lift the arms overhead.

Again, this is handstand. This is how hard it is to handstand. To keep everything in a good line. To place the hands in the right place.

To breathe. This is hard just like handstand. Hands come down to blocks. Standing splits.

Straighten both legs. Say good morning again to your hamstrings. So both legs are super straight, super strong. Bend this leg a little bit but straighten this one.

Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Lean your weight into the blocks and pretend like you're going up into handstand. So tense up your core like you have to be strong in the midsection there.

Nice. And then place everything down. Come to plank pose. Remove the blocks.

Vinyasa lower down. Inhale half lift. Exhale push back to down dog. Take a breath in down dog saying.

How are you feeling? Good. Nice. That's a good answer.

It's a lie. It's a lie but it's. No. You look great.

Lift the left leg out behind you. Bend and open. Bend and open. Yeah.

Straighten the bottom leg. That's it. Knee to nose. Knee to nose.

Exhale. Again. Inhale. Sweep it open.

Oh yes. Exhale knee to nose. Crunch it. Crunch it.

One more. Inhale. Open, open, open. Exhale knee to nose.

And then you can still help it forward and come up into crescent pose. Hands on hips this round. Hands on hips. And then really work your elbows together.

Puff your chest open. Lift your back heel off the floor. And turn the toes. Turn it like this.

Yes. And this stance is a bit too long. So jump the foot in a little bit so it's a bit shorter. That's it.

And then bend the knee. Very nice. Now everything is in a really good place. You would be able to handstand if you're a spine and trunk look like this.

Straighten the back leg a little bit. And then use this. Imagine that you're keeping pushing into the ground as you're leaning forward into warrior 3. You can do whatever you want with the arms.

But engage your back leg. Because when we do handstands, the back leg is the usual suspect. This is the guy that is destroying the handstand. If it's sloppy and all over the place, it's destroying the handstand.

So this one has to be firm and tight. Nice. Perfect. Kick your right leg out in front of you.

Straighten the right leg. Left knee has a little bend because we're standing on it. Lift your chest. Arms overhead.

Hands down. Yes. Nice. And then hands to blocks.

Standing splits. Yes. Maybe lift the bottom heel a little bit so you're standing on the ball of your foot. Feel the tension around your whole midsection.

Lift the back leg. Pump it up and down a few times. This is the handstand. This is the handstand.

One last vignasa. Move the blocks. You go through a push-up, back bend, and let's meet in down dog in your own time. Push up.

All the way down and a little back bend. Inhale. And then let's rest on our knees. Child's pose.

I'll give you a little breather here, a sip of water, and then we're done with the warm-up. Awesome. How are you feeling? Good.

Good? How were you feeling before we started? Not good. Not good.

A bit tight in the hamstrings. Tight in the hamstrings and tight in the shoulders. And now you have some juice going. Very nice.

It was a big difference between the first time's facilitation and the last one. Nice. So at this point, I would tell because we have only one person in class and we have to pretend that there is a lot of people here. But I would say that this is the point where you can take this as far as you want to try and you can stop whenever you feel like it.

Don't hold yourself back because of fear. I have methods and techniques that we will try today to kind of remove a little bit of that fear. But it's a legitimate fear. Like if I take Kai and flip him upside down and leave him, he's afraid of falling over and hurting himself.

That's fair and legit. There are many fears that are not reasonable and that we can work around. And fear is basically the reason why nobody can handstand the first try. Because we have the strength and the technique is pretty easy to learn.

It takes a few hundred repetitions. But addressing the fear is, it's okay to be afraid, but keep pushing through a little bit of that fear and you will have a sense of accomplishment. The first drill we're doing today is the wheelbarrow. So in a workshop setting, I would have people go together, pair up two and two and like move over the floor.

So we clean the floor from blocks and props. And then the wheelbarrow is like, okay, come to plank pose. Wide legs and then lift one leg up. I grab the knee and tie and then lift the other one.

Then I hold on and he walks forward. Walk. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Bye bye.

Yeah. And then you set down one leg and the other. So this one teaches people to use the chest and the shoulders and like be strong in the upper body. Did you feel like you had to work?

Yeah. So that's the point of the wheelbarrow. So if he does it on me, it's here. He grabs one leg, not the ankles, but the knee.

Yeah, that's it. The ankle can be too hard for most people. So if people are collapsing here, it's really hard to work. So this is teaching people to go here.

And then they're actually one arm handstand. When they're walking, they're doing a one arm handstand. Let me down. Thank you so much.

So people, you just did a one arm handstand with a little bit of support. And that's the power we need to get everything like. When we do this exercise, everything just falls into place automatically. Okay.

Second drill is walking on the hands across the room. So same thing as the wheelbarrow. The wheelbarrow was just a prep. And this is the walking on the hands across the room.

So if you do a standing split, like pretend that this is the room. So start over there. Hands down, lift one leg. Yep.

And I grab the ankle like this. And then you lift the other leg up as high as you can. The higher, the easier. Yeah.

And now walk one hand. Take one step. Well, nice. And then another.

Oh, perfect. Yep. And come down. Nice.

Awesome. It's hard, yeah? But it's hard because you're not all the way up. If we're all the way up, it's scary.

But it's not hard. So we were doing it safe. And the safer we do, the more effort it takes. But you could move the hands.

That's the point of this drill. Because the fear that people have that they will fall over is because if I come all the way up in a handstand and I don't have an exit strategy, I'm afraid. But moving a hand is the exit strategy. So let's pretend again.

Let's do it one more time. Same thing. Let's pretend that you're falling over. Like you're on your own in a handstand.

Come up. Come all the way up. And then let's pretend that you're falling over. If you move one hand now.

Like over? We're pretending. If you move one hand, your legs will fall down. It's very, very hard to fall over if you take a step forward.

So I'm almost falling over. Just this little small step is enough to change the gravity so that you fall back down. And now we know as a fact that you can move your hands. Some people think that I can't move my head.

But we know you can move your hands. So if you try a handstand and you feel like you're falling, just taking a quick step with one hand is enough to not fall over. So we start with the exit strategy. That's why we start with this drill.

Make sense? Yeah. And then wall, belly in. Okay, yeah.

So the wall is our best friend because why? It doesn't move at all, right? It will never move. No matter what we do, it will be exactly there.

So it's like another floor. It's like having two floors. So we use the wall for handstands in two different ways. Either facing it or facing away from it.

And we always start with the butt to the wall. So do like me, butt to the wall. We can move the mat too so you don't slip. A non-slip yoga mat is essential for handstands.

All right. And then you do the handstand. Place one leg in the wall. Hopefully we clean their feet.

And then walk in as far as you can with the hands. Well, hands first. Yep. And then the other foot.

Yep. How are you feeling? Good? Yeah.

Can you conversate and talk? Yeah, no. No. Okay.

So again, this is the strength part of it. This is a plank pose but with more challenge. Like standing in plank pose for one minute is hard. Standing one minute against the wall is even harder.

So you only. Yeah, the blood is just popping. Popping, yeah. Do, instead of doing one long, let's do several short ones.

So try again and then we take a small break and then we try again. So see how far your legs can walk up the wall and how far in your hands can walk. Not too far because then you don't have an exit strategy. Yeah, walk as far as you can back and then come down.

Nice. Take a break and then do it again. Yeah. We need time upside down but we don't have to do it all at once.

We can break it up and do several. Right, I'm gonna support you on this one. So do it again and I'm grabbing your hips so that you don't feel as heavy when you're upside down. Yep, you're going up.

And then I'm standing here and I'm kind of lifting your weight off. So now you only have your weight, yeah? Yeah. Lift one leg out from the wall.

And this is hands down. Don't jump down, slowly come down. Slowly come down, yeah. Walk down.

Nice. How did that feel? I was a bit afraid of falling that way. Exactly.

And this is honestly, this is your hips, this is your head. You were here. Yeah. But you were already afraid of falling because you felt like you were there.

So this is the main reason. You just put the finger on the crux on why people can't handstand because they're afraid because it feels like they're already there but they have like 20, 30% more to go. I can put you where you would be able to handstand if you want to feel the difference. So try it again if you want.

Yeah, okay. No, the same thing. I'm gonna hold you but just feel for the sensation. I'm gonna hold you so you're not gonna fall but to feel the difference between where you are and where you actually have to be to handstand.

So come up all the way again. Walk your hands in as far as you can. Nice. Nice.

And now, where do you, tell me when you feel like you're falling over. And you have to come all the way there. Yeah, you see, you had like 10 centimeters more before you would fall over. But now, we actually skipped a few steps because both feet left the wall.

So you left the safety of the wall and then it feels like you would fall over and it's a lot harder. So we start with just this but then you quickly came here and then you walk the hands in a little bit and now you skipped a few steps and you did this. So you were already like where you would be able. If I left you and we froze time, you could be able to handstand there.

It would be really tough because it takes a lot of power but you would be able to handstand there. So we, but since we skipped a few steps, we'll give some more options. So let's do it one more time and I can show you from the teacher's perspective how you can support people to feel safe. Same thing, just same thing.

So in order to help his, are your wrists okay? Yeah, it's okay. Okay, it's okay but it's not gonna be okay if we do this for another 50 minutes. So this is what we can do.

Do this. So that we put the pressure in your fingers instead of your wrists because my wrists also don't like to be bent 90 degrees. They stop at like 85 degrees. So if I do a handstand, it compresses my wrist.

But if we do this and elevate the wrist a little bit, then we change that angle. Now it's gonna be more pressure on the knuckles but those are fine, right? Okay, so you go up as far as you can. Just keep the hands there and then walk your feet up the wall.

So now I'm holding your shoulders like this and you try to get one leg off the floor of the wall. Yep, and I'm pushing you. Oh, nice. Yes, and then come down.

How did that feel, me holding your shoulders? Much stronger. Much stronger. I didn't use much force but I just placed you in the right place and you didn't need to worry about falling forward.

So just holding onto his shoulders is enough for him to be able to dare coming out more. One more on the second side, the second leg. One leg out. Nice, nice, nice, nice, nice, nice, nice, nice.

And coming down. Nice. We are close but at this point, I don't wanna trick you into believing it's about doing the handstand. The goal today is not to be able to, everybody here should be able to do a handstand but to just, one, not be afraid of it and two, like realizing that you think with some practice, you can actually do this, right?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we just need the right tools and some patience. Yeah.

Another way to work with the wall is turning the other way around. So instead of having the butt towards the wall, we can face the wall, so stand up and then turn around. Do down dog with the fingers all the way towards the wall. Yep, that's it.

Now the goal is not to touch the wall. If you touch the wall, you can just move back. So if your head is in the way or whatever happens, you can just move back a little bit. You have to decide that for yourself.

But my goal is to help you come up higher than you thought you were possible because you will never fall through the wall. Just knowing this should be a bit consolidating, comforting for you. Lifting one leg up. I'm placing his ankle on my shoulder and now your goal is to lift the other leg and touch the wall with the foot.

So just come up and touch the wall with the foot. Touch the wall and then come down. Nice. Take a breath and let's try the other side.

Nice. They felt tough but easy still. Yeah. It's not hard but it's a good workout.

It's hard but not difficult. So lift this one now. I place his ankle on my shoulder and you lift one leg. And touch the foot towards the wall and come down again.

Nice. And we have to pretend that we have different people here but maybe you feel like you're ready or you feel like you don't. And if you're not ready to do this, I would say like because we have people partner up, it's not nice to do all of this yourself. It's very hard.

So keep working with your partner. If you wanna try on your own, let your partner try on your own. So if you wanna try a kick up and do like this and touch one foot and maybe who knows, maybe both legs come up. You wanna try on your own?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, go ahead. Just touch the wall.

No, you're on your own now. I'm walking around teaching everybody. So this is just, whoop. Yeah.

Whoa. Whoa. Wow. So you were hand standing for 0.8 seconds.

You found it. The shoulders were in the right place. Awesome, John. The shoulders were in the right place.

The legs were in the right place. Being able to hold it for 10 seconds comes later. You know, you have to start with half a second and you were already doing that. And one of the best homeworks you can do if you wanna be able to invert is to just kick up and come down, kick up and come down because you're gonna surprise yourself when suddenly you have like the five different things in the right place and suddenly you stand for two, three seconds.

So everything is already where it should be. We just need some repetitions. Okay, let's see. Here we have another one, which is, yeah, when people are, when people are, have short arms, long legs or stiff or all three of them, we have, if you jump off the mat, I can turn it around a little bit.

So doing it on blocks is a lot easier for the start. It makes it harder to come up. So of course it's easier to come up into the handstand when the hands are lower. Like having them up makes, I have to jump more.

But like it makes this starting point is a lot easier so that I don't have to be here. Like it's better for the hamstrings to have hands on blocks. So if someone has extreme hamstrings inflexibility, I said always use the blocks. So try with the blocks.

To do what? To do a handstand. I'm gonna help you. We do the same drill.

So down dog, one leg up, you choose. I grab the ankle and you lift up in your own time. Whoop, oh, very nice. And then coming down.

Nice, completely stable. Second side, take a breath and do the other leg. This was almost effortless. It looked effortless at least.

So left leg comes up. You lift, it's really hard in the start and now. Yeah, whoop. Whoop, whoop, whoop.

Weee, nice. How are you feeling? Good. Good?

Yeah. So this can be helpful or not helpful, depends. Yeah, I think it will. When someone is at the point where they wanna do it on their own, I say okay, you wanna do it on your own?

Do down dog. Pretend, pretend like you wanna do it on your own. Down dog. Place one foot on the block and lift the other leg.

And now kick from the block and try to come up. Yes, and very nice, very nice, very nice. And then just move it forward a little bit and try again. Whoop.

And this doesn't feel, you can come down. Awesome. It doesn't feel like much, but in my eyes, my experienced eyes, this is like, for me, it's about finding the perfect place for you to work. So if we would take it 10 steps further, it would be too much.

And if we stayed with the walking, working with the wall, you wouldn't get development. So this is exactly, I try to figure out, where's the point where you can have some achievement and still not overdo it. And this is your point. Like jumping from the block and landing is pretty difficult and you're managing it.

And when you jump up, it's like you're tensing everything in the right place and landing it. So if you would do 200 of those, spread out over a week, you would feel completely different. Even though it's good now, it would be a lot better with just doing 200 of those. And this is my goal as a teacher with someone showing up in a workshop, is for them to have fun and get a sweat and also figuring out, okay, if I do this, then I will not get stuck because I've seen people working, people have told me, I've been trying to do handstands for five, six years and I'm not getting anywhere.

That means they hit a wall and they're doing the wrong thing. And for Kai, this is the perfect thing to do, just jumping on a block. When we're doing a yoga class that has inversion theme, like you can handstand if you want, then I would do, I can show, borrow the mat, just chill on the side. I would do the jumping.

If we're coming forward to do a crescent pose, I would add the jumping. So instead of rolling me forward, I would say, jump the foot over like this and come up into warrior two. Kai is taking a pee break, that's fine, fair. So I jump to come over into warrior two.

That's a nice little extra drill that you can do. Okay. Box under foot. Yes.

The leg switch is my personal favorite for people who are practicing handstands in the middle of the room, but they can't really catch a handstand yet. So the safe handstand is to do a split leg. To just split the legs like this is very safe. People will not fall down when they have a leg split, but it's impossible for people to catch the handstand because the back leg is dragging them down.

So what we need to do is to go from that one into something that could resemble a full handstand and then coming down. So that it would look like this. That's my goal, to get them to do the switching of the legs. It looks like this when people try in the start, but if you want to try Kai to do the switch leg, come here and do the switch leg.

So I will help you. This is what we're doing. We're doing this and then this. I'm going to help your hips.

So you're just switching the legs and then doing like five, six, seven jumps. One leg up, hands down. I'm catching the hips to help you. Kick up and switch.

Oh, very nice. And then switch again. Notice that I'm supporting his shoulders with my knees. Yeah, jump up.

And then a little bit higher, kick higher. Whoa, nice. And again, do two more, two more. And last one.

Nice. And relax. Was it hard? Not with you supporting.

A little bit. It felt easier when I was supporting. But it is hard when you forget to breathe because each time you went up, you held your breath, which is natural. So we can only do a few and then take a breath and then we try again.

But it feels like, it doesn't feel so stuck, right? Oh, excuse me. Yeah. Switching the legs kind of releases a little bit of the box we put ourselves in because we think about all the things we have to do and then it's very hard to just get upside down.

That's why I use things like the walking on the hands because we can try walking on the hands now and you're going to feel a lot different from when we did it the first time. So come to down dog with the hands over here. Walk back a little bit. Yep.

And then lift one leg. Let's try to walk outside the camera. So lift one leg. And then come up and just walk on your hands.

Lift the other leg too. Yeah. Nice. Yeah.

It felt different from the first time, right? Yeah. How did it feel different? I think it was easier now.

I'm not sure. I think it was more moving forward. Yeah. Because your hips were, we even have a name for it.

We call it the scared hip syndrome because the hips are scared of getting all the way up. But when we did all this, like this angle that you thought you were all the way there, we changed it a little bit. So we're using some trickery and some drills. We could trick your hips into getting higher.

Because the hips, if you try to do a plank pose like this, it's so hard, it's so hard because of the angle. If we come all the way here, it's not that hard because of gravity, right? It's still hard, but being in this angle is why people struggle so much when they're new. So my goal as a teacher is to get your butt higher.

I have to trick you because if I do it too fast, you're like, you freak out. So I can't just force you into it. I have to trick you and use different drills to get your hips higher and also have fun during the way because it's not about him being able to do the handstand today. It's about him leaving the class and like, hey, I went to a handstand workshop today and I didn't pull off a handstand at all, but I felt like a, I feel good and I feel like a, I felt like a rock star when I got a little bit higher than I thought, right?

Yeah. Feeling good? Yeah. I'm happy.

Happy for that. Let's see. Yeah. The pump, switch legs.

Let's go through the, now this is not a real workshop. So in a real workshop, I would do a drill and then do a stretch. While I was talking, I would have people stretch and these are the stretches I would do. Just sit down on the floor.

So if we start with a cartwheel, the resting position would be interlacing the fingers behind. No, it doesn't matter. You can just do it wherever, standing or sitting. But just interlacing the fingers and stretching out is, for a minute while I talk, is a nice break from the wheelbarrow.

We were here and then we need a counter. We just need to counter it some way. And then wrist release is just grabbing your wrist and pushing it backwards. You can do like both at the same time or just, you know, slowly working.

Yeah, this one is nice. Yeah. People tend to struggle with the wrist because they never do handstands and they sit in front of the computer all the time. And just the pumping and shaking is also always on the menu.

The hero pose, you're almost doing it now. Just leaning back to stretch the front because we're doing a lot of hamstring stretching. So just having people do hero pose like this, leaning back and stretching. And if it's too much, if it's painful, lean towards a wall, put your back against the wall.

Yeah, if you don't feel good here, you can always lean back so that you're next to a wall. This is the opposite of a handstand. Like this is a back bend and a forward stretch and we never do that in a handstand. So we try to do the opposite to release.

Squat is also a nice one. That is because we're doing a lot of straight and tall stuff. Just sitting in a squat like this can feel really good for the lower back, at least for my lower back. And then when people start needing more rest, like we do one minute of drills, then we can do things like, that are really common, like pigeon pose that you lay down in this one and stretch the outer hip and release the wrists.

But I have to be really careful as a teacher because I wanna push people, but if I push them too far, they just feel pushed around. So I try to push people by enticing them to try again. Like some people definitely need a kick in the butt because they don't know what's best for them. They have a lazy side like everybody, but the lazy side is overwhelming.

So then you have to push them. Other people, you need to hold them back because they're going crazy and like skipping steps and just going into a full handstand and falling over. So you have to manage the people in a subtle way. You can't do it too directly, but that's what the leading a workshop is mostly how it is as a teacher, to hold some people back, push some people forward and making sure that they're all having a good time.

Okay, you wanna do another handstand or you fine? Yeah, I can try. Yeah, okay. Wanna try with the wall or outside?

I can try one handstand here or on the wall? Yeah, you can choose, yeah. I can try it. Okay.

Yeah, so let's, maybe you can, oh yeah. So come here into the down dog and then I call this one the basketball because this is a big basketball and you're trying to kick up and I'm pushing you down again, just to help you realize that you need a lot more force than you think. So kick up into handstand, kick up. Yeah, however you want.

And I'm pushing you back. Like there is no way you can do it. You have to get really mad, really angry and now you go and then suddenly you're up, yeah. And then come down again.

Yeah, make sense? Yeah. Good, try it again. Do a few kicks, catch your breath and I'm always standing so that my knees are stopping his shoulders because if his head goes too far forward, he will crash or like he will stop his attempts because he's not feeling safe.

Yeah, so kick again, other leg maybe. Now you're first leg. So whatever leg, doesn't matter. Kick up.

I'm stopping him and then without telling him when, I'm helping him instead. We're doing full hands. Full hands. Full hands.

Full hands. Full hands. Just like this. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Pain? No.

No pain. No. Just I felt like I wasn't strong enough when you pushed it in. So I was like.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's the trick as a teacher to support you so much. If you took your hands off, I would actually hold you floating in the air there because I get my knees under you so you're actually leaning your shoulders here so you don't need the power of the arms as much. But I just, like my goal is for not for you to do it yourself, but to feel like I can do this myself.

I can do this without support. Like I'm your training wheels. Try one more time. And I'm gonna try to not put the legs together like this.

Try to have the legs like this, upside down. They're going up, but not together. So you're splitting them a little bit. And I keep supporting your shoulders and hips just so that you don't end up in the wrong place.

Now we don't need the pump anymore because the basketball did its job. So you just kick up. That's it. Yeah.

And breathe. And coming down. Okay means he's done. How did that feel?

Good. Yeah. It was better. Yeah.

I think your personal challenge is the shoulder flexibility. We didn't do much back bends and we didn't do much shoulder stretching. So even though your arms and everything is strong enough, it's very hard to get the last 5% where it's easy. If you get this, if you get really warm and like here, you would be able to do what we just did towards the wall like this on your own.

And just have one leg like this. And from here it would be, but you are still here because of your shoulders. And that's a lot harder. It's a lot harder when you have to, it's almost like a high plank.

It's so much easier when your arms get all the way back. So what we can do to cheat is instead of having the arms like shoulder width, we can move the fingers out and we can go a little bit wider like this. You want to try? Out here?

Yeah. So instead of having the hands here, you play like this map is too, it's not wide enough for your arms. So let's place them kind of with the thumbs on the mat. That's it.

Let's try this and see if it works. Test my theory. Now it's good because I can step with the feet like this and you jump up. Awesome.

That was easy. That was easier? Yeah. Nice.

Yeah. Good. It was. Good.

Because there is no rules that says your hands have to be on the mat. And of course you can have your arms straight up when you do it wide. Try this. Do this.

Super easy. And then the more closer you go, Yeah. the more they stop. Right?

Yeah. All right. You want to try one? Oh yeah.

Like this. I can feel it right here. It stops here. It stops, but then you have to go come there.

Yeah. But this would change if we could stretch your back a little bit. And if you push your hips forward and do this, now it's possible. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So again, we always lock ourselves in a box that says I have to do this and this and that's not possible. Ah, but if I arch my back a little bit, it works.

So another of my jobs as a teacher is to take away the preconceived ideas that everybody comes with. Everybody has a list of 10 rules and my goal is to take away eight of them and just give you more freedom to explore and play. Because this is not a work. This is like child's play for grownups.

You want to try one more time? Any last? Any, whatever. I can try one more.

Yeah. Like this. Yep. Maybe.

Try this on the last one. Instead of looking at your fingers, try just relaxing your head, like you're in a download. So instead of looking forward, you just drop your head. It's scary, but I'm holding onto your hips.

It should work. And keep doing what you did with your arms, like really wide hands. Like that and then down? Yeah.

Okay. Ready? And. Breathe.

Breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe. Drop your head, drop your head, drop your head. Yeah. Oh.

Oh. Wait. My back was breaking, yeah? You felt like your back was breaking.

Yeah. So it's enough for today, but we have many, many ways to deal with the, to deal with the lower back thing, because the reason your lower back is hurting is because both legs are up. Yeah. So we have, we have, you can just sit there and relax.

I'm going to show some of those options. So when people have the issue that like, it's hard to be here, I always say that that's step 67. We need like the 66 step before that. And the switch leg is one of them.

To just switch the legs like this, it worked immediately for Kai. Another one is to tap the foot to the knee like this. So lean forward, tap and come down. Tap and come down.

Because that foot on the knee stops the back from arching too much. When both legs are up, you become like this. But when the foot is here, you kind of engage the core in a little better way to not have so much of this and have more of this. Yeah.

Another thing that stops people from coming up is that they, their shoulders is too far back. They need the shoulders here, not here. Look here when I'm trying to jump and I keep my shoulders here, it is impossible because there is no way I can balance with my shoulders here. So I tell people head forward.

And the problem with head forward is of course that it takes more power. It's easier to stay back here and jump because it takes less effort, but you won't be able to handstand. So head forward, foot to knee. Head forward, foot to knee.

Those two really, really help. Okay. We have more advanced versions like you take a sock or something that's soft and you place it in your hip crease when you're doing standing splits. And then you jump up and you try to not lift the leg because then the thing falls down.

Some people are notorious lifting both legs. Then you can create a little trap for them like this so that they need to squeeze on to the sock or whatever it is so that they don't overarch. Yeah. For some people that are almost or doing a handstand, but they're doing a sloppy version of it, this is a nice trick to use for them.

Like here and then just a few jumps and that helps their hips not over bending like this. Just gets everything into a straighter line. Those are a few tricks that we use a lot. Okay.

Lay down for a shavasana. Awesome job. Feeling good? Yeah.

You have been smiling for the last 10 minutes so I think that's a really good sign. Lay down on your back, spread your arms and legs, close your eyes and enjoy this sensation that we have built ourselves by moving and breathing. Today was messy, but fun. Advanced classes and difficult stuff and tricky challenges like handstands, inversions, is messy.

It's always messy. There are so many variables that are messy. But child's play is also always messy, but it's fun. An adult life don't have enough fun.

We don't get sad or depressed because we have too much fun but too little of it. That's the main goal of being able to do a handstand one day is not being able to take a picture of it and say, here, here's my CV. It says I can handstand. That's not the point.

The point is the process, the child's play of learning it is the goal because as soon as you can handstand and that's easy, you will look for a new challenge because it's not about the things you achieve. It's about the process that you enjoy. The beautiful thing about handstand is not doing it but learning it. Long story short, TLDR.

Take a big inhale and exhale. Thank you so much for joining us today. Awesome job, Kai. Applause to you.

I hope you had fun. I did. Awesome. Thank you for being a good sport and doing this.

And learn from this, guys, that Kai will be in your workshop. He represented all beginners today. And what we had today was messy because I couldn't take a script and put it over Kai. It would be like me putting dog clothes on a cat.

It just doesn't work. I have to adapt to who's in my class and the plan is just there so that I can diverge from it. You need a plan and you need to diverge from it. So half of all the things I prepared today, I had to switch it up on the fly because Kai was here and I had to show up for Kai and try to give him a good time.

And that's why I couldn't like, oh, I forgot this and it's not about me at all. Today was about him. And that's how you should teach all workshops you like. You show up to people, you don't show off for people.

You show up to people and you're there to serve them and give them a good time. Okay? Thank you very much.