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In learning the handstand, we have a precious ally: The Wall.
Middly terrifying at first, it will quickly become your best friend.
However, the wall is a double-edged sword
It is both your best friend, because it will correct your mistakes like nothing else if you use it properly.
But it can also be the enemy hindering your progress, a crutch that we become reliant on in ouvr journey and that prevents us from balancing without it. Using the wall isn’t something you improvise: it’s a mindful, goal-and-technique oriented practice that will yield benefits if you know what to do and what not to do.
One of the most common mistakes I see in students who are able to kick-up against the wall is:
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They take their feet off the wall and “float” as soon as possible without thinking twice.
We tend to think that, just because we are vertical against the wall, the real practice starts now.
That kicking up to the wall doesn’t really matter, or is too beginner. So we pull our bodies somehow away from the wall, enjoy the exhilarating few seconds of floating we achieve, and then fall back down to the floor.
The rule to live by when you practice on your own is the following:
💡 Whatever you do against the wall should aim at mimicking what needs to happen without it.
In other words, if your handstand looks different with the wall from what you what to achieve freestanding, something is wrong. The wall is a crutch, not a cane The wall feels like we’re reaching a basecamp, in which we can rest and recover before we jump into harder, more interesting balancing drills.
This leads people to accept a very drafty kick-up, as long as it gets them upside down, and dedicate most of their focus on what follows next. No matter how well you balance of that wall, even with perfect technique: a random, unreliable kick-up will prevent you from ever doing that consistently while freestanding.
The key lies in your ability to connect the dots together, and ensure that your practice is well-rounded and integrated.
The wall is well needed at first.
If it is a crutch, it needs to be a temporary crutch that helps us rehab our gait after an injury.
Progressively, week after week, as we diligently comply with the drills our physio gave us, we regain our ability to walk. We lean less and less on that crutch. We eventually don’t need it to walk anymore Next thing we know, we can run.
This is how the wall should be used in your practice, at different stages of it. However, if you don’t pay attention to the way you use it, it may well morph into a cane, without which you will not be able to walk.
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Getting Acquainted
Before we start talking about making sure we don't grow too dependent on the wall, we want to gain confidence with it.
If you have never done it before, you need to learn to climb the wall safely.
This builds up confidence and strength, and is a pre-requisite for all the drills we will do with our body facing the wall tomorrow (C2W - Chest to Wall)