06/01/2020
TL;DR - You can fine tune your instrument to hell but if your intonation is out, your tuning means s**t.
At the beginning of 2019 one of the goals I set myself was to achieve a 60 second free standing handstand. This loooong ass post isn’t about the why I chose that journey, it is more about the process.
I jumped straight in the deep end and while working 3 jobs I trained every god damn day thinking that this alone would lead me to handstand god status.......yeahhhh nah.
The people I idolized all sacrificed something - usually their social life and time and to a degree.... their sanity. Fine by me.
Prehab, mobility, skills and drills, studying other handbalancers for hours and hours and surrounding myself with people who have already achieved the goals I am seeking. I was/am obsessive and learnt from teachers and practitioners I aspire to be like one day.
I grinded for about 6 months working on my handbalancing and other skills and after overcoming a delightful case of forearm tendinitis, my left shoulder decided to pack its s**t and call it a day. Torn labrum and “minor” bursitis is what the MRI said.
I spent months calling my shoulder names and thinking I was soft for not being able to adhere to my schedule of 3-4 hours of daily practice. Honestly, a tremendous part of me misses it. My thought process was “nup, she’ll be right” the entire time......until i couldn’t deny it wasn’t. I had to dial it back.
Cue the thoughts of “all this training for nothing” “f**k me, some people get 60s after 6 months of this program”
No. Wrong. There are lessons to learn here, find them. I learned that I was not as humble as I thought I was. This injury wasn’t something I was meant to “push through”
So....this is not 60 seconds and I certainly didn’t reach my goal for 60 by the end of 2019. I got lucky with a couple of 20s and maybe 1x 30s, but the evidence is scant.
But this is 15 glorious seconds of self realization and clarity. To be straightforward about it - I felt the difference between thinking about my body in space and feeling my body in space.
To be long winded about it - Instead of kicking up and thinking HOLLOWBODY POINT YOUR TOES PRESS HARDER SQUEEZE BREATHE THE F**K IS YOUR LEFT ARM DOING WHAT ELSE AM I NOT CONSIDERING NOOO IM FALLING....I just kicked up and tuned in. I let go. I realized how obsessive over every minor detail I had become and how perfecting the big picture was less important than mastering all the steps along the journey was. I thought that maybe this is what catching your first wave as a surfer is like after all that practice on the sand, even though you might eat s**t soon after. I wondered what other aspects of my life I was doing this in.
So here I am, quietly in the back of the room at whittling away at what will one day be a 60s or longer handstand. And THAT will be the starting line.
So even though it isn’t pretty, half of last year I couldn’t hold a bag of groceries, pull up my handbrake or put a t shirt on without a stupid amount of pain.
I invite your critique of my form. I am only at the start of this journey and I can only learn and get better.
Beyond proud to be a part of the team as a coach and student and insanely grateful for and for their help in shifting my paradigms about movement.
May 2020 bring all of us more movement of the body and stillness of our minds
