After today's earlier posy on GYMNASTS , it seems appropriate to follow up with acrobatics - specially hand balancing. The art of this - at least as told by us - is what you do with the rest of your body. Nothing can be limp or loose - every muscle needs to be tense and to hold your body completely still once balance is reached - and then you can stay there! Two hands, or even just one. Ideally, you move slowly into the balance position because any sudden lunge or jerky movement can throw you off balance and result in the need to take a 'step' to regain it - or end up with you rolling out of it or, (better) turning your shoulder so that you can see the floor and then landing on your feet. We'll begin in the company of a young gymnast from the south-west of England who has made handstanding his life's work! One hand or two? In particular, look at what his fingers are doing, and how straight and tense he holds his body. Although you can't see it in these pictures,

Another post all about hand/arm balancing, for which anything with 'feet off the ground' counts (e.g. 'planches'). The essential elements are balance (obviously), core and shoulder strength for maintaining a good and steady shape, and endurance for staying up... which seems to be a good place to start, since gymnast Seth has posted a three-minute video of his best handstand hold (he can do longer, but was not happy showing the less-good shape). OK, this is a bit like 'slow telly' where not much happens (reindeer wandering in the arctic comes to mind for one programme we watched!)... but Seth should be admired for his artistry as well as the hard work which goes into being able to make this happen, even if there is a slight bend in his shoulders: Actually his shape gets progressively bendier as time passes, but full marks for effort! 'Croc' (...odile) - a standard position in acrobati gymnastics That's the perfect shape for a twohanded balance. That&#

A long while back we found a webpage called "The Lost Art of the Handstand" - it no longer exists, so don't bother looking! Every gymnast and many circus performers need handstands, which come in many forms: one two hands, on one arm only, high on top of another performer... count the ways! In this bonus post - and don't miss today's EARLIER ONE - we include training tips as well as artistic hand-balance examples (and sometmes less artistic one but good tries!). All in the interests of promoting the fitness and training needed to perform them properly. New resolution to get stuck in for 2024?  We cover many positions in these examples including planche - anything where all the weight is mantained on the hands in balance and during movements. Let's go. But wait: some training tips: Yes, shape matters a lot. More... When you are skilled in acrobatic gymnastics, all things are possible and there is fun to be had too: Obviously muscle strength is required as well

As gymnastics and acrobatic coaches, we are always telling our gymnasts that the more time they spend on their hands, the happier we will be. You need a handstand for every piece of gymnastic apparatus, and for acrobatic gymnastics and performance we raise the bar to one-hand balance as well. In this post we offer a variety of very fit guys performing handstands in different situations: most are pretty cool, one or two are reasonable first efforts but mis-shapen! We leave you to sort those out.  Beau tries hard in his planche... ...maybe aiming for this... Interesting one from Yevgeny... And a shaping exercise for the basic gymnast's handstand: Training for swing to handstand on parallel bars: Ordinary pix to finish off the post - rather random hand balances: