How advanced does one have to be to start this course?

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Andrea67
Posts: 4
Joined: 23 Oct 2021, 19:54

Hello Natalie!

First, let me say that I absolutely LOVE all of your courses. I have done all of them (except this one) after stumbling across “Couch to Handstand” on YouTube. I have been hooked ever since! I love practicing with you daily and I’m amazed at how far I have come in such a short time. I was a gymnast in my younger days but that was 40 years ago (I am 54 now). My body has changed a lot since then but it is amazing at how the body does remember.

I would love to start your Press to Handstand course but am wondering if I am far enough along in my practice to do so. I have read that you recommend a 10 second handstand before starting. I also watched the first follow along video and was surprised to see you starting the course off with a 20 second freestanding hold. Currently I can consistently balance 5 seconds, sporadically balance 10 seconds, and sometime get 15-20 seconds but those times are not consistent yet. Also, I still keep the wall behind me as a safety… but I’m getting further away from the wall all the time. The idea of falling on my back frightens me. It was fun as a kid but not so much now! Lol.

I’m wanting to know if it’s ok to start the course with the wall behind me still or if I should wait longer until I have a really solid 20 second handstand with no walls close by before attempting this course.

Currently my practice is to do the warm up, stretches, core work, etc with you and then do my own handstand practice. I’m doing 30 second sets at the wall for endurance now. Then I will do 10 mins of doing as many handstands as I can and balance them. (I’m following your advice from your Vimeo library).

Again, I love my practice and all your wonderful advice. I can’t wait to start this course too, but just wanted your good advice on whether it may be too soon. Or if I could modify and take my time working through it.

I hope all is well! Again, thank you for all your wonderful teachings and inspiration! You’ve made a huge impact on the life and health of this Canadian woman!

Regards
Andrea
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Natalie Reckert
Posts: 68
Joined: 17 Sep 2019, 21:14

Hello Andrea,

Thank you so much for your lovely words and it sounds like you have a solid consitstent practice going! That is a very good base for further progress!

I have had a few people notice the ten second recommendation and start off with twenty discrepancy, I might just change that in the text to avoid confusion. In my experience, if you can stay up ten seconds freestanding, 20 seconds is not too far off and can be built of within two or three weeks of pushing yourself.

To answer your question:
It sounds like you would benefit from building your endurance work against the wall to 50 seconds before starting the Press course and also build your freestanding handstand to ten seconds.
But
You can of course do the entire week 1 and week 2 classes of the Press course with the wall behind you.
Week 1 and 2 are intended to level up everyone until your straddle handstand is ready, so we can start the work on the negatives. This can take a while for some people, while others breeze through the frist weeks and then may have to work longer on another issue later on.
Learning a press is never without bumbs in the road :)
You may need to do week 1/week 2 for possibly 2-3 weeks each to build the level until you can progress to the next ones.
This might not be a bad thing, you just need to mentally be able to deal with the challenge of somewhat feeling "behind" the class requirements. It could give you motivation to up your level, too.

Great that you are doing the "do-as-many-as-possible" in ten minutes handstand strategy, I hope it has helped you to develop a routine in fighting for balance.

I hope this was helpful and has answered your question.

Please do ask more if you like :)
Best,
Natalie
Andrea67
Posts: 4
Joined: 23 Oct 2021, 19:54

Hello again Natalie

Thank you for your reply! Your advice makes a lot of sense and confirms what I was thinking of doing…. I did purchase this course and had a look at the first classes. I was thinking I could make it work and that I could repeat the first week or two for several weeks. I’m more than ok with that and I do love a challenge! Glad to read your advice along the same line!

Thank you Natalie for creating these great classes! This course will keep me working hard for a long time and I couldn’t be happier!

Andrea
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Natalie Reckert
Posts: 68
Joined: 17 Sep 2019, 21:14

Hello Andrea,

Great!

Do let me know how it goes and if you have any more questions I am more than happy to answer them :)

All the best
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