Fear of Kicking Up to a Wall Handstand

Do you feel strong in a chest-to-wall handstand, but somehow can’t manage to kick up against a wall and feel like something is holding you back?

In this episode I share a simple drill that allows you to build the movement pattern of the kick-up without momentum. Often, when you’re learning a dynamic movement and the movement pattern is unknown, the body goes into a freeze response. This is super common, especially when you’re not used to cartwheeling around carelessly, or most of your practice has consisted of slow, controlled movements.

Coordination abilities in a kick-up

Coordinating a dynamic movement, like the kick-up to handstand, may seem simple from an outside perspective, but it requires a range of coordination abilities, like…

• Orienting yourself in space and knowing where your body parts are
• Differentiating between different phases of the movement with changing speed and dosage of effort
• Coupling and coordinating the different phases of the movement
• Balancing yourself throughout the movement
• Quickly responding and adapting to changes within the movement
• Adapting to changing environments if you kick up in different places

If you think about it, kicking up to a handstand is quite complex! And it doesn’t help that it comes super easy for some people. But it really depends on what movement patterns your body has been exposed to in the past.

I hope this episode brings clarity to your handstand goals and aleviates the frustration that can come from hundreds of seemingly unsuccessful attempts. But like I said in the last episode, progress in handstands, especially when you start without an extensive movement background, can look very subtle.

So don’t give up and keep working on your kick-up! And let me know how it goes in the comments below :).

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

-Sonji