 Welcome back to the Schoolcast and it's Jack O'Hare and we're at Hot Pod again with Sarah and we're going to look now, we've been building graduate, we're going to look now at handstand, alignment and balance. If you haven't clicked subscribe, make sure you click subscribe below and if you haven't checked out Hot Pod, make sure you look at the link in the description below and then we'll get into this week's lesson. So we've been working with Sarah progressively on building up some of our skills and being able to balance on our hands and we're going to now look at the alignment in the full position but we're going to use our assistance tool for locker which is our friend the wall and we might even use our friend the friend later towards at the end to see how we get on. If you haven't walked, obviously we've warmed up, if you haven't warmed up, the first video we did has got Sarah taking us through some great yoga movements helping to create good range of motion at the shoulder, like movement preparation work that we do and then we've also looked at some exercises to help warm up the muscles that stabilise the shoulder in this overhead position which is going to be really important now so don't go into this cold, make sure you check out that video and you get warmed up effectively before you go into this. But the first exercise we're going to look at is a wall walk which is going to walk our way backwards from a press-up position with our feet against the wall and we're going to then use the wall not only to help us with our balance but we're actually going to use the wall to help us with our alignment and teach us that alignment. So I'm going to try and do it and talk at the same time and see how far out of breath I get. But you're going to go, hands on the floor, feet go onto the wall and you're going to start to carefully try and walk your feet back. One thing that might happen is you might get to here and that might be enough for you. What's important is that you work on your alignment so I'm going to push my head through, I'm going to squeeze, should see the bum come on as I pull that tailbone underneath and then pull my rib cage down and push my head through so I can work on my alignment here if I'm not comfortable getting fully upside down. But if we get a good one to walk all the way towards the wall, hands stay a little bit away from the wall still. But then what I'm going to try and do is point my toes, make myself as long as possible so I'm almost doing like a shrug where I push my feet to the ceiling and the nose goes against the wall, chest is against the wall, legs are nice and flat against the wall and I've got my alignment in there. Once I'm comfortable I can walk my hands back out, walk my feet back down the wall. If you really want to try and show off you can go into a press up position against the wall here but that's optional. I'm still watching my paperwork. As you come down, one thing that's nice when you're coming down is, as you're walking in your hands you're getting that shoulder stability every time you're going you're getting that trunk control. So you're getting more than one thing, you're not just getting the alignment at the top, if you're careful about how you come down, I've done one rep in my breath, you see that actually you're getting a decent capacity strength work as well as challenging stabiliser as you go through there. So do you want to give us a go? Are your feet clean as well? No. It's a trouble with white walls. I'm not sure if my shoulders are strong but for us I don't know. Okay. Can you just drive it? Yeah, nice. So steady as we go. I've got a feeling that I can walk too. Bring your feet together, bring your feet together so that's it. I don't think I've got the strength to go. So you can stay there, good, so bum goes on, pull underneath, good, ribcage down and then you're creating that nice alignment still and then what we'd work with server is we'd try and push yourself high, your feet high towards the seat, yeah, if you put them that way, yeah, good. And then try and drive your feet further at the wall a tiny bit, yeah, there we go, good. Nice, and then hook your toes back underneath and then you can walk your hands a bit further forward as you come down, nice. Yeah, good, really good, yeah. We'd see as you went, as you did that extra little bit of length and you should have seen the feet just moved another inch and that's just rather than the shoulder resting on the joint and actually creating some tension through there. And then what we would do with server is gradually see nice, great alignment, a big thing that we don't want to do is go into that, be in that position and be all bent and arched like this or banana like that. That's putting a lot of pressure on my lower back. I just got to a point where I couldn't, I was too vertical for me to get the shoulder strength, I couldn't get that back. Yeah, you felt a little bit like you didn't have the strength to be able to hold. Some of it, I potentially would challenge you that I think you maybe could go further, but the brain is going, this is enough for me today, which is fine. But if you say you haven't done that before, if you imagine if you started as well as your pike push-ups, which is from the last video I said you're going to do once a week, you can, if you started building this in once a week, just as a little bit, it could be part of your warm-up almost, once you've prepped up the shoulders, practising this, just doing a few reps, but progressively getting closer and closer and closer to the wall. Okay, so if I had my back to the wall, I must have my feet up, I'd be completely vertical, why can't I do it chest to wall? So that's what I was saying, I think that actually you could, I just don't think your brain was just saying this is enough for me. So it's not an anatomical front, back, or forth? I don't think so, no, because the next thing, it's a great question, the next thing we're going to go into is that kick up because it's going to allow us to go back against the wall, kick up and we're going to be able to go into a look at some of our balance work, which I like to practise my balance work that way round, because you can't fall over the top because you're going to hit the wall and if you fall back the other way you just put your feet on the floor, whereas if I'm up this way and I fall over the top, then I'm going into flipping positions. You're right, it is a head thing because I was thinking about neck. Exactly, and the brain doesn't want us to get injured so it just keeps you somewhere that's safe. The other thing is that the position you were in that way round with walking up, you were real nice and straight. When we go to a kick up now, the chance of us going into a more bent back position which we don't want to be in just because too much is going to put pressure on the lower back means that actually, you know we're near a straight alignment as you were but it's going to let us do some of the balance work that we want to get done. Sometimes I see some of the yoga handstands where they're very banana and actually I've been taught before to actually have that head come back so that you're continuing the banana shift. We want to create a nice connection through the whole of the body. So if I can show you the principle that we're actually just talking about, where you were walking in that real nice straight shape, that's the head in full flexion overhead and the stability up there is difficult, strength up there is difficult. If you have your hands here, not in full flexion, then we're stronger here. Your pike push-ups are much harder than your normal push-ups because when we're pushing here compared to pushing here, you're getting closer to that full overhead position. When we go into kick-up you might find that actually you're not in full flexion, you're about here and then to find the wall, for your feet to find the wall you then actually arch the back a little bit too much but from a strength point of view it's easier but we just want to be mindful and wary of what is my back position like. So I'll just give an example, if my hands are really far away from the wall and I'm going to kick up into this from like a split sort of track stance, like a sprinter doing a start position, if I'm really far away from the wall like here, I kick with my this front leg and the back leg finds the wall but if I go you can see that big arch but look where my shoulders are and my head is, my head's almost trying to find, make a triangle with my hands if I took that down rather than pushing through here and I can still be far away from the wall but now that's a lot, I'm now squeezing and tucking that tailbone underneath pushing my chest through and I'm now in that sort of full overhead flexion position, does that make sense? I can still create some decent alignment. I mean ideally what I would want to do is be a little bit closer to the wall and then I can kick and go through and get that nice alignment but then what I can practice here is first thing create that shrug so you see me lift up, rum on, core on and then what I can start to try and do is a little bit of balance using the wall or not the wall and that's what for me personally you can practice balancing the other way against the wall and it's great for the alignment but for a lot of people the worry of if I have legs go over the top I'm doing a flip stops you from being able to actually carry out the exercise so this as long as you're wary of what is my shoulder, am I fully in full flexion above head or am I closed off at the shoulder compared to being open is that making me arch my back and can I feel some pressure on my lower back then that's not a good thing so kick up to the wall get decent alignment and then take one leg away bring the other one to try and join it if you fall back down your feet just go on the floor it's safe if you fall the other way your feet hit the wall and you get to practice you get another go at it but it gives you the chance to practice that balance and alignment some key things on that grip with your fingertips when your feet are going to go towards the wall you grip with your fingertips and almost claw with your fingernails to pull yourself back into alignment as long as you've got that trunk connection made between your glute and your core if you've got that when you make some adjustments at your hand and your wrist it will help adjust you further to the chain so let's see Sarah have a go you can flick up to it however you want that sort of track start thing if people have done I wasn't a girl at school so I didn't do cartwheels and kicking up so I haven't got that in my but I know a lot of people find it easy to use a bit of momentum actually go from here, hands down and go into it absolutely fine if that's easier for you as long as we've got control then great here we go okay yeah good and your hands are a little bit too close to the wall so we're a little bit further away once we get there then we can worry once we get there and happy even if we're bent we can then sort your alignment out and then you can have a practice good okay so you're happy there now think about your alignment so think about taking your head head to come through this way more there we go and then bum on core on that's better then try to take one there we go nice good yeah one thing I would say so a couple of things we saw how we got into position then sort the alignment out great the other thing you had your feet together which is great so it means a lot of the time people have the feet apart and then they're balancing separately to each other whereas if you have them together they can use each other to control that balance when you what I think something that you could would help you is when you have both legs on the wall rather than going I'm going to now take both of them off okay go one leg comes off and then join the other one to find it's that one leg can find if I do a little demo again so if I get my alignment and then I go so put this leg where I want there where it feels like is a good sort of stacked align position and then gradually just try and tap that one against the wall tap it a little bit further a little bit further a little bit further and then until you can actually bring them both together yeah just makes it a little bit easier rather than just going full use of the wall no use of the wall to go one at a time you just say that I just forgot but it's a great point just for people at home that they can practice on that and work on that themselves so I hope that helps you with your actual alignment so thinking about what the alignment is like the balance aspect in that last one but also building up some strength whilst you're in that overhead position if you've got any questions about handstands or anything even to do with yoga put them in the comments below if you haven't checked out hot pod yogi yet then make sure you look in the description we've got the link to their website have something that I use myself to help work on my flexibility and mobility which is totally... I came to hot pod yoga just as a customer and it was only by seeing what they were doing that it was like there was a great fit and crossover here with Calisthenics so we hope you've enjoyed it thank you to Sarah for coming on the channel and helping us out we hope you enjoyed it I hope it's helped you if you haven't subscribed make sure you click up there by Sarah's head if you haven't got our free beginners guide you just want to start out in Calisthenics that's down there and that's free from our website and if you haven't seen any of the previous videos we had done with Sarah at hot pod yoga that's just up there so until next time Class of Smith