Hello both,
Thank you for posting and asking questions.
@Perdurado I would love to read a progress report
please do write one.
@Msluggett My suggestion for the 7 week course is that you follow the order of exercises suggested in each session/Episode.
Every Episode is structured to be a complete class, so there is always a warm up, prep exercises, condition and handstand exercises that relate to each step.
In terms of adjusting the course you have a few options:
1. You could split each Episode into two sessions. One could be a warm up, stretches and the conditioning and prep exercises, the second can be the same warm up or your own personal warm up and then handstand exercises and the cool down stretches.
You can do both in the same day or on two seperate days. So on one day you could focus on stretches and conditioning, the second day more on the handstand exercises.
This is a great way to take the intensitiy of the course down a bit.
You do not have to complete this course in 7 weeks, you can take twice as long for example.
What is important is: That you always warm up before the handstand practice part (make sure you always prepare the wrists especially) and second it is important to dedicate attention to the first time you do an Episode and really soak up the instructions regarding technique. So I think it is useful to at least do each Episode once in one go, even if it is slightly too hard. Third, try to always do the handstand and handstand endurance parts in one piece no matter how you split it. That is because they are supposed to be challenging and you only get the strength and endurance by trying to get through the endurance practice.
2. You can do each Episode in one piece and reduce the numbers of repetitions for each exercise and slowly increase the repetitions. You could for example do this over the course of two weeks.
Bear in mind that all of these Episodes will be challenging when you do them for the first time. In my experience with my students and with this course is that if you stick to the exercises, within two or three days the whole thing seems a lot more possible than you though at first. Your body has a lot more strength than you think that it has.
3. Some people have over the course of the 7 weeks noticed other areas of weakness, and have decided to work on those and then came back to continue the course. Handstands make your physical weaknesses and strengths very apparent. If you, for example notice after Episode 3 or 4 that you have very limited shoulder mobility, it makes sense to pause and focus on improving that and then come back to completing the course.
4. You are allowed to skip exercises if they do not suit you or you just cannot make friends with them. Not all exercises are useful for everyone.
Over the course of time, you will also hopefully identify which exercises in this course are particularly useful to you. So you may come back to specific exercises or Episodes again.
In general I would not structure the course in beginners/intermediate/advanced progressions because it depends on what your strength and weaknesses are. You may find the conditioning part for example incredibly hard but the stretches and mobility exercises easy for example, or vice versa.
If something seems impossible, as a rule of thumb 1. reduce the repetitons and build them slowly over two weeks 2. film yourself to identify whether the exercise is hard because your body does not align properly 3. If you absoulutely hate one of the exercises, skip it
I hope this helps and please do ask more questions if any come up,
Best
Natalie