Don’t Do This! 3 Handstand Tips

friends Kathy Madeo here back with another video this one all about the three most common mistakes people make when kicking up into handstand and how to avoid them if your handstand looks like any one of these then this video is for you let's get started [Music] mistake number one bending your top leg it'll look something like this now you'll notice it's really hard for me to even get to the wall and if I was working with a spotter I'd probably hit them right in the face as I kicked up so instead what I want you to do is train your leg to be straight so as you kick up this leg is your push off leg it will be bent to start but this leg you want to keep nice and straight As you kick so you push off with your bottom leg keep the top leg straight you'll notice you'll find much more control as you play with kicking up the second mistake I see is students kicking up finding the wall with both feet which will create a banana shape in the back so basically once both feet hit the wall you've essentially fallen out of your handstand so you have to do a lot of work then to get your body back in alignment in order to find that handstand so that might look something like this so rather than getting both feet up at the wall kicking up in this position what I want you to do is train yourself to just get one foot up the wall in order to do that it's important to measure the distance away from the wall so that when you kick up you kick up into nice handstand alignment versus falling out of your handstand and then trying to find that alignment have your toes against the wall and then you're going to Mark where your knees are you'll place the heel of your hand where that Mark is so I'm simply spinning around place the heel of the hand here now when I kick up remember I have my top leg straight I'll find the wall with the toes and then the other leg doesn't even need to find the wall and so you'll notice I'm in handstand Now versus I haven't fallen out of my handstand I've got a nice straight line and I can either stay here or even play with balancing and the wall is right there so you just always come back to that shape the third most common mistake I see being made is that students swing their body back and their hips back before kicking up it'll look something like this so they'll start here and then shift their weight back so now notice my shoulders aren't stacked over my wrists and my hips are all the way back here so I have a long way to travel now for my hips to stack over my hands making me need to use a lot of excess momentum just to get up and I'll usually just kind of thud at the wall because of that big swing I have to do so it's a lot of unnecessary effort there to get yourself up so what I want you to do is put the first two steps together and then train your shoulders to stay right kind of locked over your wrists hips as high as they can be before you kick up it'll look something like this so we'll take the same measurement we did and instead of rocking back I'm going to stay right here shoulders over wrists and I'm getting my power from this bottom leg it's my push off leg so I bend it and push and you'll notice how much lighter that was I hope that these tips helped you let me know in the comments if they did and head to the description box where I have a free ebook called activate your handstand where I go over the alignment handstand and plenty of drills to get you on your way to balancing on your hands I'll see you in the next video