One thing I heard about handstands from my 500-hour training  that bears repeating, is to think of yourself as a tree but upside down, using the hands as we use our feet to balance. 

So your hands become your feet. Pretty simple, right?

How to do simply do it:
Start at a wall, sit down and place a block (or whatever other object you choose) in line with the soles of your feet while your sacrum touches the wall. 
Then come into downward facing dog and proceed to walk your legs up the wall.
You literally want to create an L shape with your body, so that hips are stacked over shoulders stacked over hands and legs extend straight back to the wall. 
WARNING: This pose, when done properly can be more challenging than it looks! It helps to first or concurrently work on building core strength. Planks, when correctly done, are your best friends. 

Some tips and tricks from the L-Shape:
-Really work on the alignment, keeping the body over the foundation (your arms), parallel to the wall. 
-Engage the core: core, core, core muscles. "Button and zip up those abdominal muscles"!
-Externally rotate your arms (not the hands) if not straight.
-You can try lifting one at a time, away from the wall. 
-With one leg lifted, you can then try pointing the toes of the other foot, to further focus on less wall contact.

Be aware that one person's handstand can certainly look different than another's, it's about finding the core strength, keeping lift throughout the body (feel like your pushing away from the floor), and having patience...this things don't magically happen overnight. Unless you're just "that person" ;-)

Day 6: The testing of household handstand locations begins. 

First off, the sink. This is a deeper backbend but offers some good opportunity to play with extending one leg straight up at a time. Warning here, it's much easier to do this version when someone is available to help you get out of the position without hitting your head on the cabinet handles.

Day 7: I really like using the fridge, it seems to be the perfect height for me to practice pushing off from.

Day 8: Probably the best location in the apartment to do handstands since there is ample wall space on the landing. It is not however, the best place to take pictures of doing handstands. I was playing around with the L-shape handstand to get myself more practice without the wall directly behind me. I'll explain in another post how to do this variation. It's a great way to practice getting the proper alignment and to strengthen the arms.

Day 9: Back to the fridge for backup. But now trying to take some inspiration from a yoga friend to have one leg bent to act as an anchor to balance the extended leg. The thing about doing handstands here, is that I have to be sure and turn off our overhead fan and that it stops spinning before I go upside-down...I certainly don't want any fan-inflicted injuries!

It's winter in Hawaii and what does that mean? Cooler temps (but still about 70 degrees warmer than back home), sporadic rain, and off-and-on gray skies. But that is certainly okay with me since it allowed us lots of personal beach time without crowds, that's a win in my book. We live over on the windier side of the island anyway, so I just have to get used to my hair turning into a bird's nest by the day's end. No volume worries here! 

First beach handstand and it's good to note that these are both harder and easier at the same time.
 Factors to consider: 
-Wind and it's direction, there was quite a bit pushing against my back body while inverted. This can certainly either help, hurt, or possibly not affect you at all. 
-Type of sand: fine, hard-packed, soft, or pebbly. This is all about a hand feel thing for me, this sand was fine, soft, and a bit easier to sink into, which for me made it a bit better to hold the inversion once I found my center of balance. 

In general when doing a handstand, I like to think of active, spider-like hands. Which if you've been a yoga student of mine, you're probably familiar with me saying "spider hands"! The first part to spider hands is spreading your fingers out instead of keeping them tightly together since you want to give yourself the widest possible base. The second part is to have the fingers slightly bent/curled to help you better grip, helping you grip better than if the fingers were flat and fully extended. Together, these two hand actions can help you have more control and stay up longer in the handstand position.

Day 3. All packed up (pretty much) and ready to head out to Hawaii in the morning. Last handstand, for now, at my parents'. Ready for some warmer weather!

Day 4. Early morning and very ready to leave the cold. At O'Hare in one of the cleanest floor spaces I could locate and where I was hoping not to draw too much attention to myself, haha. Thought an airport picture was going to be much safer for me and more acceptable to do than on the airplane. 

I also have this thing with my feet. I find that for me, having had a ballet background, finding the balance and length in handstand is easier for me to keep with my toes pointed and bare foot. When I'm wearing shoes, reaching through the heels seems a bit more effective since the weight/balance of the shoes on my feet shifts a bit from being barefoot. This is simply my own personal hypothesis, I think the method of one's finding balance is going to vary person to person.

Honesty, and the progression of the process. These photos document how this whole handstand process goes down, excuse the pun. Granted, I did manage to keep the legs up in the air unsupported for 4-5 seconds, so I'll take that. It also was 12 degrees at the time (pretty toasty out!) with a windchill of 0, so I also wasn't planning to stick around longer than I needed to. 

This process is also, at the moment, a way to help my mom get acquainted with iPhone photo-taking...she's progressing.

Moderation, yeah, remember that idea? Changed my mind. 

While last week I said that I'd be starting a challenge for a month of handstands and possibly extending that to the full, ambitious year. In the end, I decided that the year just sounded better. I mean really, a handstand only has to take 10 seconds so why not just go ahead and do it? Or at least attempt it? Plus, I figured that committing to the year from the start makes the intention nice and clear, with less chance of me backing out. I figured that with a full year, I have plenty of time to work this little posture out and get myself further away from walls.

So today was officially Day 1, with camera work provided by my mom. 

So, I'd like to offer a challenge. One that you can totally accept or decline. I'll be doing it too, so we can keep each other accountable. I got this inspiration from a fellow yogini and friend, the lovely Ms. Alex Moody who has committed to doing a year of handstands, you can check out her pictures on Facebook or Instagram (alexmoodyyoga). I'd like to be super ambitious and commit to 365 days too, but I figure baby steps is the way to start while I'm still in the recovery process. 

I've been doing some assisted handstands (with a wall/door/any large immobile upright object) the last couple weeks and figured, hey why not make it a fun little challenge. Since my PICC line is out and I'm now clear of the whole "don't do any inversions" phase, let's have some safe inversion fun. Also, for me at least, it involves getting over a minor fear. I don't have a problem with falling (well, at least I didn't used to), but there is just something about the handstand that can be intimidating. I could do headstands all day and have some fun with variations but handstands just feel different to me, mentally. So, it's time to overcome this minor fear.

If you would like to join me, please post a comment below. The challenge will start on Sunday, February 9th and end on Monday, March 10th. I'll be posting a picture of my day's handstand either here, on Instagram (seedie), or on Facebook...all depends on my mood. If you're the hashtag sort, you are welcome to include that as well (#handstand30). Throughout the challenge, I'll also try to offer some tips and info on handstands, if you're into that. You are welcome to use props, people, walls, or whatever you need to work your way towards a handstand. Also, since I DO NOT expect perfection, be honest and if it happens, post a picture of a handstand fail. Because hey, that's an attempt too and it's the process of working on the posture that is most valuable. Happy Handstanding!