I finally got to meet Stefanie Millinger, holder of 10 Guinness World Records, extreme athlete, thrill seaker and Austrian heroine. She is known for her impressive Free Solo stunts in extreme heights and her fun and creative content on Instagram.

In this exclusive interview she tells us about what it’s like to be her, including the good aspects and the challenging ones. She walks us through a typical day with all her routines and the crazy amount of training she acomplishes on a daily basis. She also tells us about her preparation for extreme free solo stunts. One of Stefanie’s goals is to climb free solo on top of the highest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa.

To me, Stefanie Millinger, aka Milli, could be put on the same pedestal as Austrian hero, Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was an exceptional honor to get to know her in this very personal conversation. The more I learned about her, the more I admired her raw commitment to being herself. Austria may be a small country, but people like Milli make me feel proud to be Austrian myself.

I hope you enjoy this interview just as much as I did! Don’t hesitate to comment down below and support Milli!

Follow Stefanie Millinger on Instagram and Youtube!

It’s never too late to do what you love!

–Sonji

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Today’s episode is an interview with the amazing Elaine Briant – handbalancer, artist, performer, prop designer and graduate from the Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH, formerly known as DOCH) in Sweden.

I think, so far, she is the most versatile handbalancer I know. Not only is her handbalancing infused by other disciplines, like dance, acro and juggling. But her free and curious spirit has led her creations to go beyond just physical movement. Elaine has also been designing props, she plays music, knits, and it seems like there is nothing she wouldn’t explore. Our conversation exposed her as a multipassionate creative who is always on the search for novelty. She brings a refreshing angle to the obsessive hustle culture that can sometimes be associated with training handbalance. Elaine is one of the few handbalancers I’ve talked to, who is ok with taking rest days.

Watch our interview and find out about Elaine’s views on training, performing and living the life of an artist. She is currently performing in Sweden with Kompani Giraff, and she has formed two duos with other handbalancers: Duo Bulldogs with Antonio Tony Panaro, and a duo that is still in the works with Joe Martinho, who you might know from my previous interview.

I really enjoyed meeting Elaine and I hope you love this conversation as much as I did!

Be sure to check out Elaine on Instagram:

@elainebriant

Let us know what you think in the comments below!

It’s never too late to do what you love!

-Sonji

The post Elaine Briant | Creative Infusion in Handbalance appeared first on .

Today’s episode is a recording of one of our Movement classes at nook. It’s an easy 30 min follow-along class suited for all levels and ages. The main focus is on developing open & healthy hips through mobility and strength.

Be sure to listen to your body and make modifications as needed. You can use this class as a stand-alone practice, or as a preparation for deeper flexibility work. If you want to go into deeper flexibility work towards pancake and middle-splits after this low-key practice, I recommend you try our middle-splits and pancake class which you can find here! Be aware of your body’s limits and go slow – you can pause the video at any time to spend more time on certain exercises.

I hope you enjoy this open & healthy hips class! If you want more guidance and community support, head over to the nook website and sign up for a 7-day free trial. We would love to see your face on Zoom!

It’s never too late to do what you love!

Sonji

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She’s known for her round blocks and for including playful elements of juggling into her handbalancing. My guest today is Joana aka Joe Martinho who graduated from Codarts and is now performing with Circus Cirkör in Knitting Peace alongside Mikael Kristiansen who you might know from one of my previous interviews.

In this conversation she tells us about how she went from contortion to handbalance after being injured, and how she moved on to perform in Knitting Peace and all the things it entailed. Through the course of our conversation I got super impressed by Joe’s strong mentality. Her story revealed her resilient attitude and how obstacles haven’t stopped her from persuing what she loves. Despite being afraid of heights she is performing an act on a platform 4 meters above the ground and she tells us about how she overcame her fear. She’s not in it for the easy way, she says in her interview. But it’s not just her strong, focused mind that impressed me. At the same time she displayed such a warm and welcoming personality and showed consideration for the people that have supported her throughout her journey.

We recorded this interview before her first show with Knitting Peace. As of now she’s done several successful shows and is continuing to perform in the piece.

If you want to keep up to date with Joe and learn more about her, go ahead and follow her on Instagram:

@joesousmartinho

I hope y’all enjoy this conversation and Joe’s inspiring story! Let us know your thoughts and questions in the comments down below.

It’s never too late to do what you love!

-Sonji

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Today’s episode is meant to give a foundation of knowledge to kickstart a conversation about recovery in handstands.

There is no progress without adequate recovery after training. It’s the time in which we rest that our body adapts to the stimuli we exposed it to during the training session. As a result we improve in strength and skill. There are so many factors that influence recovery and there are countless questions that we could go into, so I wanted to make a video to start us all on the same page of the conversation. We’ll take all of your questions from here and make episodes to answer more specific questions.

Basic Concepts

The most basic concept of how our body adapts to training can be explained with the supercompensation model. In short, you deplete your energy storage and your performance decreases throughout the course of your training session. But with enough rest, your body supercompensates by increasing its capacity relative to the baseline to tolerate the training stimulus. The optimal time for the next training session is at the peak of the supercompensation curve after the resting period. If you wait for too long, your capacity returns back to the baseline. If you don’t wait long enough, you might not be fully recovered yet and over time, this pattern could lead to overtraining and/or injury.

Assuming that your general health is in place, the biggest influencing factor for your recovery is how you manage your work load. In other words, you need to find a balance between resting and training that works for you and allows you to progress over time. This is where it gets very individual and more complicated. There are tons of factors to consider, like your current level, the activities you do in your daily life outside of training, your sleep and nutrition habits, your personal stress level and your age.

We would love to get into this conversation with the help of your specific questions. So go ahead and let us know what you would like to know more about in the comments below!

It’s never too late to do what you love!

-Sonji

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Today’s episode is a fun little survey I started on my Instagram account. I asked my followers about their pros and cons of training handstands!

Here are the most common answers:

• Pros: They are fun, they make you feel good about achieving something, the community aspect
• Cons: The time commitment and slow progress

Most people I’ve met in the handbalance world have a quite intense relationship with their handstand practice. You could call it a love-hate relationship. Some of the people I know are even impacted in the way that it’s hard for them to form relationships with people who are not into handstands. I’ve heard people say that there should be a “tinder” for handbalancers many times. It’s no secret that learning handstands, especially when you get towards the one-arm level, becomes very time consuming and requires consistent dedication. This can be hard to understand for outsiders.

If you belong to those people who wish they could find someone in the handbalance world and become a handstand couple (this seems to be a thing now), go ahead and leave a comment below. What are your pros and cons of training handstands? You never know who you’ll find!

Happy handstanding and I hope you enjoy this episode!

It’s never too late to do what you love!

–Sonji

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Today’s episode is a conversation with a guy I’ve known through Instagram and I’ve always found super relatable. My guest today is Andrés Cerdeira, a Fitenss & Health Coach who transitioned to Marketing to ditch it and join the circus.

He graduated from the circus school AFUK in Copenhagen in the midst of the pandemic and is now finding his way in the intersection between movement & health, circus and marketing.

Andrés and I have a lot in common. Both of us finished University with a degree in Sports and Nutrition. Both of us originally came from a different discipline (Andrés did Taekwon Do, I did figure skating). And both of us had a very brief encounter with Marketing, which we both decided wasn’t what we wanted to devote our lives to. It became Handbalance and Flexibility instead.

In this interview Andrés tells us about his journey and how he made his way to AFUK. He tells us about the physical lessons he learned along the way, getting flexible as a grown-up, and we share our thoughts on how it is to teach, without being at a super high level ourselves, compared to other handbalancers.

Check out Andrés’ website and Instagram:

Website: https://www.ahandstand.org/

IG: @a.handstand

I hope this interview encourages those of you who are longing to make handbalance a bigger part of your life. And I hope that the main message we intended for the video, comes across!

Enjoy and let us know your personal main takeaway from this episode in the comments below!

It’s never too late to do what you love!

–Sonji

The post Finding a Way in the Circus Industry | Interview with Andrés Cerdeira appeared first on .

Today I have a gentle full body mobility practice for you that you can do every day. It includes lots of joint rotations which contribute to healthy joints, improved mobility and body awareness. The video is a recording from one of our Daily Movement classes at nook and is suited for all levels.

The joint rotations done in this full body mobility practice, in my opinion, are the secret sauce to improved overall flexibility. If you think about it, every movement is an orchestration of individual joint movements. Creating awareness around how those individual joints move, and increasing their range of motion on a joint to joint level has big carry-over to flexibility skills like splits, pancake and backbend work. I would go as far as calling daily joint rotations a flexibility hack, and it should be something you do daily, just like brushing your teeth!

Use this video as a stand-alone practice to start your day. You can also use it as a warm-up for skill work or deeper flexibility work. In any case be sure to listen to your body and make modifications as needed. All movements should feel pain free.

Enjoy!

It’s never too late to do what you love!

–Sonji

The post Full Body Mobility 30 min Follow-Along Class | nook Movement Studios appeared first on .

Don’t run before you can’t walk! The purpose of today’s episode is to give you a general blueprint of what to focus on to get results when you’re in the process of learning a handstand.

Build strength without balance first

Make sure you can hold a shape in a stacked position at the wall without balance for at least 30sec, before you attempt to balance it on your own. If you can’t lock in a shape in the first place, there’s no way you’ll be able to balance it!

Work on balance before improving your form

Once you start getting some seconds of balance, focus on improving your hold times without obsessing over perfect form. It ususally isn’t until you’re pretty consistent with 30-45 second holds that you can focus on anything other than just staying in balance in the first place. It’s hard enough to just balance, and it’s even harder to have it look a specific way. So first things first!

Don’t get upset about not making progress, if you don’t have a consistent practice!

This one is huge! In order to adapt to training and create results, your body needs repetition. Lots of it. Especially if you start later in your life, it just really takes lots of time and lots of practice to teach your body how to exist in a handstand. I’m not saying this to disencourage you. I’m saying it, so you can cut yourself some slack when your progress doesn’t come as expected. And if you’ve seen my episode about frustration in handstands, you probably know that in my opinion you shouldn’t have any expectations in learning a handstand and rather shift your perspective to an explorative one that is fueled by curiosity (click here to watch the episode).

I hope this episode, though it is short and sweet, points your practice in the right direction. If you wish you had more guidance in your handstand quest, come and join my live Zoom classes at nook! You can sign up for a 7-day free trial.

Let me know in the comments below what you think!

It’s never too late to do what you love!

-Sonji

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Today’s episode is a recording of our Hollowback Handstand Class on Tuesdays for you to follow along.

This class does not include a warm-up and is targeted at the main exercises for developing balance in hollowback (mexican) handstands and scorpion (contortion) handstands. I recommend you do our Daily Movement Class for open chest & shoulders and/or the front splits & bridge Flexibility class before this one. I also recommended you to already have a 20sec freestanding handstand for this class.

Tuesdays at nook are all about creating the flexibility and strength needed for mexican and contortion style handstands and the schedule is designed to gradually build on top of the previous class. Our schedule on that day starts with an easy movement class, which is focused on opening chest and shoulders and serves as a gentle warm-up. It’s followed by our deep flexibility focused classes for front splits and bridge / wheel. The last class on that day is the Handstand Backbend class in which we implement our new achieved ranges in handstands.

Be aware that I know the members of our community and the class is always tailored to the people who attend live. Please listen to your body, take what is useful for you and disregard everything that is not. It’s ok to make modifications as needed!

I hope you find this follow-along class useful! Let me know how it went by leaving a comment below.

Have fun!

It’s never too late to do what you love!

-Sonji

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