Handstands!

Hello Yogis!

I’ve been trying to do a handstand for probably 1 year off the wall. I don’t know if its fear but Ive only been able to hold it once.

What was your experience? How did you build up to it off the wall?

Anything I can do to prep more?

Hello, I’d be happy to share my experience learning how to handstand without support.

In my opinion, unless you can do a handstand without the wall, you can’t really do a handstand yet. The reason I say this is because the wall is, simply put, a crutch that doesn’t allow you to learn and use the muscles needed to actually achieve a total handstand. In order to really learn a handstand you must stop using a wall.

Easier said then done, but let me tell you how you can work yourself up to getting over the fear of falling over. First off, all it is is a fear, nothing more. If you have a consistent practice, then I can assure you that you are strong enough to catch yourself before anything bad happens. What happens is when you start getting your hips above your shoulders you will naturally feel wobbly and like you will fall heels over head. But that is not actually the case. What you will find is that you can easily catch yourself from falling like that, and its actually very difficult to fall over without catching yourself. Your body will naturally stick your hand out in front of you and catch yourself before anything bad happens. Again, this applies to someone who is strong enough and has a consistent practice or gym regiment. To summarize, you will catch yourself with your hands WAY before your body will just go crashing to the ground (that is the FEAR your mind is creating, not what actually happens in reality). I see TONS of very talented and strong Yogi’s at my studio who still use the wall and it always makes me cringe because I know how easy it is to get over that fear of falling, its just not how the body works.

How can you build up to a full handstand without the wall? Easy, here are some trick I have used in the past.

The best secret I have found is to go to a local park and find a slanted hill (about 20-30degree slant is perfect) and then use that slant to help you get the sensation of going upside down w/o a wall. This is helpful because you have much more control as you can build up to the full handstand with a far less fear of getting hurt because you have the slanted hill to help you control your movement. I used this technique when learning how to jump from downward dog into handstand and I may not have learned how to do that without first using a slanted (and grassy) hill to practice on.

Another option is use a wall but start out 5 feet away from it. This way you can get the sensation of not having the wall there but if worse comes to worse you can extend your legs and catch the wall if you need to. I really don’t recommend this option because it still involves a wall but it will show you that, in fact, you will naturally use your hands to stop you from falling over.

Hope this helps, if you have anymore questions Im happy to elaborate :slight_smile:

Thanks so much!! That is really good advice, I will start outside tomorrow, no more wall!! yes I have a consistent practice so I bet I would make you cringe that I still use the wall haha

My pleasure, I’d say good luck but it doesn’t sound like you will need it. I am confident you will get it down. Once you do learn to ditch the wall, it then becomes almost impossible to ever imagine going back. I honestly do worse handstands with a wall than without. Its totally a mental thing so when I am near a wall I naturally just let myself use (on accident too!) because its there. When you don’t have a wall near you, you start to train new muscle groups to work together in order to support you. I always like to remember a good quote I heard once “The mind leads and the body follows”. Set you mind to learning w/o the wall and your body will make it so :slight_smile:

PS - its not a bad cringe, haha, its more of a “I want to help teach you to ditch the wall!” type of feeling. I think it would be out of place to go up and try to coach someone away from the wall, unless I’m a teacher but I’m not, so that makes me kind of cringe because I want to share the joy true handstands with everyone :slight_smile:

Namaste

Once I learned to overcome the fear of falling, it gave me confidence to focus on balancing, knowing that if I fell it was ok, you just get back up. With that said I always do a little bridge pose or wheel pose as that’s what I fall into, so my back is ready for it. Working now on going from wheel back into handstand using Iyengar method of walking feet up the wall. It was very encouraging to me that Iyengar himself used the wall!
For me the balance comes from connecting uddiyana bandha through my hands, pressing down into the ground and pulling in the core. Wall is good to start building endurance and strength in your arms, but once you can hold on the wall for 10 breaths or so, it’s time to do it free standing, and practice practice practice.
Good luck!

@hawaiiyogicarts - That is a great way to help learn the transition from Wheel back into handstand! I will be putting that to work as that is one transition I have yet to complete. Thanks!

The only fear that comes in handstand (and headstand too) is about falling behind.
Note: I assume you are able to hold posture of handstand at least for 20-30 count near wall but without touching legs. If true then following points are for you.

  1. Practice more chakrasana.
  2. Then instead of retaining your posture in handstand, intentionally fall on other side and land on legs like chakrasana.
  3. Keep doing until you are out of fear of falling
  4. After this you will find yourself doing handstand without wall.

I was always afraid of inverted postures because my mother died of a brain hemorrhage and I thought I might have a congenital weakness. So I learned the headstand late, years after she died.
They taught me that you are not ready to raise your legs up until you are strong enough and flexible enough to bring your knees against your chest when your torso is inverted. That way, when you raise your legs (knees bent) you don’t shift the center of gravity too much. Your back must be vertical too when your knees are tucked in and ready to raise. You can explore the vertical back in the plough.
Doing the headstand against the wall is surely still beneficial since it sends the blood to the head, it’s still an inversion. Better that than nothing.