My first ever attempt of handstand hold against the wall

My first ever hold off the wall 18.08.2018

After a week of doing holds on the wall, just to learn the proper alignment and how it feels to be upside down I decided to try to balance.

After many fails this was my first ever balancing for 2-3 seconds. It felt like I was holding it forever.

The feeling was amaizing even it was for few seconds.

My first attemps to do a kick up and hold it

After a week of practicing against the wall I decided to start trying to do a kickup and hold it without touching the wall.

In this video I was unable to hold any attempt, only bouncing on and off the wall.

My first 4 seconds hold

As I said in my story the handstand is one of the hardest skills to achieve in n terms of technique and balance. It takes a lot of patience and dedication, a lot of fails and frustrations.

But when you succeed you forget everything and enjoy the progress, the feeling is amaizing.

Here it is, my first 4 seconds hold, it felt like I was holding it forever. And yes the sheer joy..

Handstand kickup practice (wall supported)

My handstand journey has continued, my desire for it has grown. But things did not went as I expected. There were so many fails to even do it again, to hold at least 4-5 seconds kickup like I my first one.

So here is one of my many attemps to hold it. I can't an count how many attempts there were, endless.

Handstand hold longer than 5 seconds

So here it is, after so many attempts I was finally back on track, holding it more than 5 seconds here.

And yes, the celebration like I did something huge.

Balance practice (back to wall)

After practicing kickups (wall supported) I decided to back off of kickups because I was stuck, I was not progressing in terms of balance. I started doing back to wall practise, trying to slowly move away and practice balance like that.

This is one of the many attempts.

As you can see, it was better way to focus on balance. But because it was back against the wall my form suffered, it was hard to hold it straight.

8 seconds personal record

This one was my best so far. 8 seconds hold, but I was not satisfied, I knew I could do better.

Balance practice (face to wall)

Few weeks after practising balance with back to wall, as expected my progress was very slow. Not much improvement and I decided to switch things up. Started to practice balance with face to wall.

Face to wall was more uncomfortable and I wasn't used to fall forward if I lose balance. But I after many attempts I learned how to bail properly if I lose balance.

This was my longest hold at that point, I started to get more aware od my body while upside down.

I was pretty satisfied that time because it felt different. I felt like I can hold it more.

Connecting my lower body

I started to learn how to properly engage my whole body in order to hold a straight line and be more stable.

Engaging my core and glutes in order to prevent banana shape was my main point on this next video.

And boom! My longest hold, more than 10 seconds, first time in my life. I was pretty happy.

But as you can see my line was not pretty straight, but in my mind it felt like it was perfectly straight.

Handstand kickups (freestanding)

After achieving my first 10+seconds handstand hold of the wall I decided to start doing kickups freestanding. I was confident of falling from handstand I learned how to bail properly.

My aim was to hit 10 seconds freestanding kickup. Here is one of many attempts, as expected, many fails.

Handstand kickups +5 seconds

It was very different, I could easily hold 10+seconds off the wall, but kicking up in to it freestanding was very confusing.

Finally after a lot of fails, I managed to hold around 5-6 seconds. I started to feel tha kick, and land into that sweet spot.

Still struggling to kickup into handstand? Go back to the wall

And yes, again I underestimated myself. I though I was ready to kickup into freestanding handstand. I was wrong. Guess what, I went back to the wall.

And I broke my previous record, this time I nailed 18 seconds hold! I was super happy.

Consistent 15 seconds holds off the wall

Few days later, I started holding consistently 15+ seconds off the wall and most importantly I have mastered my line and I was very steady, the wobble was reduced a lot. I was very satisfying and my endurance has increased a lot.

Check out my best line at that point.

Personal record 27 seconds handstand hold off the wall

In this period I started again to force things. I really wanted that 30 seconds and I thought that I was so close. But fail after fail, attempt after attempt I didn't realised that I started to overtrain.

My right shoulder started to hurt. And yes you need to feel pain to wake up and realise that you are overdoing something.

So I took around 12 days off. No handstands, no workouts, only light stretching and yoga. So after that I went back to the wall and I broke my previous record, from 18 seconds to 27 seconds.

It was huge progress, I was very satisfied and I wasn't even tired from that hold I knew I could hold it longer, but the balance failed me again.

15 seconds handstand kickup - PR

I did a smart move going back to the wall after a frustrating period of handstand kickups. And now after a solid work I did on the wall and made a significant progress I felt its time to try kickups again.

Of course the fails were there especially at the beginning, for few days it felt like I had no progress. But I was wrong. My goal was at least 10 seconds kickup, but not 10.. I nailed 15 seconds!

The happiness level was not measurable.
Check it out.

Period of fails and frustrations

I made this post especially to show how much I was struggling at this period. After I managed to do 15 seconds kickup my goal was of course.. 30 seconds.

For about 3 months I was only doing kickups in the range of 10 to 15 seconds. Like my brain was programmed to not hold it longer than that.

Here are some of my failed attempts. You can clearly notice how nervous I was in this video.

18 seconds handstand kickup

And finally on my next video I was able to break that platoe for at least 3 seconds more. I did 18 seconds kickup, but I wasn't satisfied with my form at all. Too wobbly and banana line.

38 seconds handstand kickup - PR

It took me around 3 months, from 15 seconds kickup to reach my goal which was 30 seconds. But not 30 I nailed 38 seconds! It was one of the happiest moments of my life.

Too bad it was not filmed from side to show how my line was. But it was straight no doubt. At this point I was very stable and aware of my entire body while upside down.

Period of success - consistent 30+ seconds holds

At this point its safe to say I have become consistent in my 30+ seconds handstand kickups. I could almost hit 30 seconds at my first attempt of the day even without any warmup.

My level of body awareness and control was pretty high. I could almost knew where exactly are my feet when im upside down.

I have learned very well how to make very small corrections with my fingers, shoulders, hips and legs. How to counter balance to stop from falling over or falling back.

40 seconds handstand hold - PR

After a while and some solid combination work of kickups and wall work, I stepped up my hold game.

I wasn't chasing max hold in this period, only working on awareness and perfecting the corrections, making them very small.

So I decided it's time to test my max hold. I was not much impressed, but it was my PR anyway, 40 seconds first time in my life.

50 seconds handstand hold - PR

After I reached 40 seconds, I was very satisfied how my handstand was progressing and I worked on it less frequently, I was focused on building pushing strength.

I only did random handstand attempts on my rest days, nothing special. This period lasted around 2 months. After this, I decided to try my max hold again.

This time I was surprised how my endurance has increased without putting much effort in direct handstand training.

And I beat my previous record, now I did 50 seconds! Very happy moment.

1min Personal record

After those 50 seconds, I shifted my goals towards one arm handstand. After around 7 months of constant one arm handstand practice, I decided to check out how hold I could hold the normal 2 handed handstand.

I was expecting that my endurance has dropped, but I was surprised actually. Not only my endurance has increased by only practicing the one arm handstand, but also even better balance on 2 hands.

Shortly after few trainings I beat my personal record of 50 seconds, this time I got 1:04 min hold. I was super happy and satisfied. After that, I continued to pursuit the one arm handstand, which is one of the hardest skill that I ever attempted to achieve.

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