This episode is all about what it takes to hit your handstand every single time. I hope it gives you some perspective on how advanced this is. It’s easy to believe that a 100% successful kick-up rate comes with you being able to balance solidly for a few seconds. But the thruth is that being able to hit your handstand every single time is usually the thing that comes last. You’ll probably nail many handstand skills, like shape transitions and press to handstand before you get consistent with your kick-ups.
Hitting your handstand on command requires precision in timing, dosing of effort and it requires you to have good handstand specific proprioception. All of these things take time and lots and lots of practice to develop.
What to focus on?
In my experience the best bang for your buck thing you can do to get more consistent is to increase your circle of balance. In other words, get super solid and learn how to transition to different shapes without losing balance. This comes through a lot of practice and trial and error. The more solid you get on your hands, the better your successrate will be. This may sound like a no-brainer, but I’ve seen many people believe that they’ll get better at kick-ups by practicing their kick-ups without actually focusing on the balance part. And while it’s true that there’s value in practicing the kick-up movement per se, the biggest focus is better invested in improving the balance skill.
Some major keypoints in my personal journey
In my personal journey there were two things that I believe supercharged my successrate with handstands.
- When Ivo and I started traveling I was forced to become more adaptible to different training environments and different surfaces. I think this had a big effect on my consistency and it made my handstands a lot more solid. I went from about 30% successful kick-ups to about 70%
- As I got better I started introducing exercises to work towards one-arm handstands and that’s when two-arm handstands really started to become a non-issue. Obviously you should be at a certain level when you start working towards a one-arm handstand. But even if you’re not aiming to ever get a one-arm handstand, exposing your body to the process makes everything on two arms easier.
I think the best thing you can do for yourself is to not expect consistency and just grind away. You’ll improve sooner or later!
Let me know in the comments below if there’s anything you’d like me to go into deeper.
It’s never too late to do what you love!