It’s safe to assume anyone training handstand skills wants to be able to do them freestanding. All the practice is in itself rewarding too, but the underlying goal of any practice is orientated to performing the skill in its fullest form.
As such, regardless of your ability level, there is something extremely satisfying about solidly holding the position you’ve trained for so long with no assistance or support.
Get Started The Right Way: Fundamentals First!
Getting there is another matter though. It requires a lot of time and consistency to get all the parts of the equation right.
For handstands, this starts by the wall – as it is perhaps the most useful tool for anything handstand related. The tricky part is often going from wall drills to freestanding, as there are many factors that can stop you from successfully making that transition. So let us look at a few drills that you should consider if you are feeling stuck at this stage!
Your First Step: Perfecting Your Chest-To-Wall Handstands
To be able to balance the body, you first need to be able to hold the body in a handstand with ease. The chest-to-wall handstand is our preferred (and often overlooked) prerequisite before working on free balancing.
It is one of the safest tools to develop correct body placement, build specific strength and acclimatising you further to the feeling of being upside down. Since the wall is fully vertical, it also gives us a good reference point for the alignment of the handstand.
Unsure how to enter a chest-to-wall handstand? It’s actually a conditioning drill in its own right we call the Incline Body Drill, demonstrated in this Instagram reel.
View this post on Instagram
You walk yourself up from a plank, wedging yourself into the wall. You transition this shape into a true chest-to-wall handstand by walking your hands closer to the wall while sliding your feet up further, maintaining that bodyline until your hands are under your hips. If at any point it becomes scary, you might not be ready for the stacked chest-to-wall. Just go back a step and accumulate a few rounds of 20-30 second holds at a degree you are more comfortable with. Training this, you’ll quickly be able to progress the angle over just a couple weeks.
Once you can actually hold the chest-to-wall handstand consistently (being able to hold 20-30 seconds for 3+ sets is a good approximate measure) you could consider beginning to work on balancing it. However, you need to have a comfortable bailing method before you do so! For some this is intuitive while others need a step-by-step breakdown of it. More on this in the next section!
Once you can actually work on balancing with the chest-to-wall setup you will practice moving the weight from the heel of the palm and towards your fingers which will be ready to grip the ground. You keep the push through the shoulders, tension in legs and you slowly begin to lean the shoulders more over the hands.
Later on you will also need this ability for both a smoother entry into your freestanding handstand and to develop the early stages of underbalance control. To transition to a freestanding hold from a chest-to-wall handstand, we teach “scissoring” into balance as demonstrated in this Instagram reel to avoid flicking off your toes, which often adds too much momentum and breaks your line.
View this post on Instagram
Building Your Confidence: Learn How To Feel and Be Safe with Proper Bailing Technique
This is perhaps the most fundamental thing of all for freestanding handstands (and even for early level chest-to-wall balancing). Plain and simple, if you are afraid of falling over, you will not be able to commit to balancing – even if you have the physical capacity to do so. Having a fear of falling over is completely natural. If you don’t have the experience that it is safe to fall, you need to build it up.
Learning to cartwheel out as well as doing falling drills on the wall are very helpful if this underlying fear is an issue for you. Over time you will learn how to cartwheel down from the handstand which makes it completely safe to exit. You will see the floor all the time and you will land on your feet, making it risk free.
This Instagram reel demonstrates how to coordinate your arm and leg to orientate yourself away from the wall, making room to cartwheel down comfortably from a chest-to-wall handstand. The same technique applies to freestanding handstands exits too!
View this post on Instagram
On top of this wall drill, we highly suggest you practice a regular cartwheel as well. It will make cartwheeling out of a handstand a lot easier. If you want pointers on that, Ryan wrote a thorough tutorial.
Refine Your Form: Back-To-Wall Handstand
The back-to-wall handstand has a bit of a bad rep because it easily causes people to arch their backs, and that makes it harder to work on the form we want in our freestanding balance. However, if done with the correct intent and setup, it can still be immensely helpful to teach one of the most important elements for freestanding; how to utilize your fingers to balance. And if your shoulders and hips are stacked properly as well, you can also keep solid form with your back to the wall and use this setup to transition to freestanding handstands.
Pushing with finesse through your fingers is the only real way to control overbalance in a handstand. This control is crucial when transitioning to freestanding work.
Here’s a demonstration of how we prefer the back-to-wall handstand to be executed. Note how the legs scissor into balance in the same fashion as the chest-to-wall handstand.
View this post on Instagram
Remember that when you are aiming to kick into a freestanding handstand you need to be ready to utilize your fingers immediately when you get to handstand. This should be rather easy and consistent by the wall before you can expect much results with it freestanding.
The Essential Kick-Up: The Easiest Way to Enter the Handstand
The kick-up to handstand, on average, is the easiest entry to learn (though there are those who find it harder than tuck/straddle-up). Being able to enter a handstand without wall assistance is foundational to being able to do a truly freestanding handstand. So if you can’t kick-up to handstand, well, you won’t be able to practice handstands themselves.
Like with everything else we’ve mentioned, the kick-up can first be trained with the wall. The kicking leg should smoothly, gently touch the wall. Once this is consistent you then need to work on this freestanding. A LOT. The precision of the kick-up can only be honed by a lot of practice coupled with good understanding of the technique. You need thousands of repetitions to get a high consistency at this, so get on it right away.
This Instagram clip demonstrates the intention we want to see when kicking up using a wall. If that wall were glass and you think you’d shatter it with your heel, you’re kicking up too hard.
View this post on Instagram
As with all the fundamental components of the freestanding handstand, we need this to be quite intuitive. Working on kick ups by the wall where you first barely touch the wall and then not touch the wall at all is a useful progression for this. Remember also that you want to be able to stop in the “scissored” position and hold it before you close your legs. This is not entirely necessary when you are experienced, but it’s very useful when learning.
Freestanding Frequency: How Often Should You Practice?
All of the above drills are stock, standard basics. And most importantly, they can all be worked with the wall! But since you’re reading this article, you likely want to use these drills to develop your freestanding ability.
To do so you must allocate a certain amount of your training to only freestanding work. This means scissoring into balance from the wall, kicking up without a wall, and cartwheeling out unassisted too!
If you are new to freestanding, perhaps just do a few scissoring to balance attempts somewhere in the middle of your training session. If you’ve had some success at balancing but know you also need more basics, you can perhaps do 70% wall drills and 30% freestanding attempts. The more consistent you get, this ratio can shift and more of your training session can be done freestanding.
Another thing to remember is your form likely won’t be as good freestanding as it is by the wall, so don’t get ahead and skip the wall completely once you’re finding balance. Continue working on the basics until the form is solid and replicable freestanding. The day will come where the wall is no longer needed!
Get Complete Instruction in Every Facet of Hand Balance Practice
If you’re working to get off the wall and want additional guidance on how to incorporate these drills into your handstand sessions, they all come from our freestanding handstand online program – Push.
Hi, I'm Handstand Factory đź‘‹
Mikael Kristiansen, Handstand Factory Co-Creator and Head Coach
Mikael Kristiansen is a contemporary circus artist specializing in handbalancing. He has a background as a bboy and has a Bachelor in Circus Arts from DOCH, Stockholm. Mikael specialised in the discipline of handbalancing at the age of 23 after being a breakdancer for several years. Since completing his education at DOCH, he has toured around the world performing, as well as teaching workshops targeted towards a range of skill levels, from absolute beginners to those trying to learn the most advanced handbalancing skills.