 Okay, here we are then live today doing and coaching us through some frog stands here outside in the garden. As we get started, just let me know in the comments as you join in. Thanks to those that have joined in live. Let me know in the comments, like, have you done the frog stand before? Is this your first time trying to do a frog stand or have you been doing it for ages? So let us know in the comments, like, yes, first sort of time I've been trying a few weeks or just give a bit of context, how long have you been working on things like your frog stand and your handstands for? And then all you're going to need is a little bit of space and I'm going to go through some points here for you to have a go and get started. This is one for you to don't just watch, this is like watch, have a go, feedback, let me know how you're getting up, okay? So one of the first things to understand or just some context of why we like to use it, if you think about your handstand journey, when you're trying to stand in a full handstand, it's quite difficult to maintain that balance. You've got to use your hands like feet and when you stand up completely straight and you've got a lot to manage, think of like a big long tall skyscraper, the higher it is, the more it's going to sway sort of in the winter. If we bring everything in nice and close, like in our frog stand, then balance becomes easier but you get to learn to use your hands like feet, okay? So let's go with one of our first teaching points around using your hands like feet. So all you need to do is, before we do anything on the floor, you're going to stand up, I'm going to show you side up, because I'm going to lean forward and before I lose balance and take a step, notice what your toes automatically do. So I lean forward, my heels go off the ground, but my toes grip the floor to try and pull myself back. They're the brakes to stop you falling over and they pull you back and then your weight goes back towards your heel. The same thing is going to happen with the hand in the frog stand. Your fingertips grip like the brakes to stop you going forward and then you rock back towards your heel when you're coming back because we need to manage our sense of mass around our base support and that distribution of weight in your hand is going to be important and it's your fingertips that are going to stop you going too far forward, okay? So that being said, think about the fingertips. Some key setup positions and points. If you've never done this before, think about a push-up position. I know what sort of a push-up position looks like. We go into our normal push-up shape and all you're going to do is walk your feet forward into this sort of crouch position. You might want to adjust your hands or just your feet just slightly, get yourself in a comfortable position, okay? Knees outside of the elbows to start with and actually front ones easy. So and then hands like shoulder width apart. So straight underneath my shoulders. I'm going to have a soft bend in the elbow and think about creating some tension between my elbow and that knee crease. You can even put your burning elbow in your knee crease to start with. That's going to give you a more stable position. What we're looking to do when we're starting off is create more stability so we feel safe and we can do it and we feel stronger. To progress it, what we do is we add complexity by making it less stable. So making it more challenging by putting that knee on the back of the tricep where it can slip off. So it's less stable. You have to be stronger and in more control. So to start with, make it simple for yourself by making it more stable. So that elbow can go right into that knee crease. Fingers, spread them apart, okay? So think about wide base. Don't have the hands close together. Spread them out and grip with those fingertips. So they're not flat. There's going to be a little bit of space underneath them, okay? So we've gone from our press up position. Walk the feet in, crouching down, checking in that our hands are shoulder width apart, softening the elbow, elbow going into that knee crease. Push against, create some tension between the elbow and the knees. Grip with the fingertips and spreading them so there's that little bit of space underneath. And then I start to tip forward and just get used to having more weight going down through the shoulders. So literally, you can start just coming into here, coming back down. And as what thing I want you to see up for, just jump wide and people just jump straight into it. And they sort of like come back down and we like get a bit excited and don't really make any any real progress, okay? And have any time to create some adaptations. So what I want you to do is just get used to tipping forward and feeling what does it feel like to have your knee on the back of your elbow or the elbow into that knee crease. There's a lot of times it feels really uncomfortable on my tricep or on the entire knee. So just get used to that position a little bit. Then as you lean forward, what we need to start to do is manage how do we create tension around this shoulder girdle so that we don't collapse down. So two things happening that the elbow wants to flex. So you need to keep pushing down. Think what extent the elbow triceps to think about engaging the triceps to keep that arm straight and don't bend too much. The more you bend the lower you're going to be to the floor. The other thing about creating strength and stability around the shoulder girdle, I want to be keeping the shoulders from elevating towards my ear. So I'm keeping them down, but I'm pushing the ground away. So I'm not slumping in and retracting the shoulder blades. I'm actually actively pushing them away. I should feel serratus kick in and I'm trying to stay long through this neck position rather than crumpling down. So you've got to think about what's happening at the elbow and think about what's happening at the shoulder. So I'm thinking about that. Things are spread, creating tension between the elbows and the knees. I lean forward, feel strong pushing away, not slumping down. So feel strong pushing forward lean a little bit further and unless you think you've got to go further forward than you think. If you feel comfortable, what's it like to take one toe off? Come back down. What does it feel like the other foot off? Come back down. Maybe have a rest, shake it out as you're building this up and then lean forward into it. Can you take one off? Then start to dab the other toe. Come back down, lean forward, one foot off. Let's take this one off and then dab that toe. When you can, bring them off. Oh, something there. Oh, something down. Push. You've got pushing to keep yourself up nice and high. Then take a little bit of a drink. It's like the hottest day of the year and we're doing some cool frog stands. How are people getting on? Give us a bit of feedback. Let me know how long you've been doing it for. Some people have been doing them for a year. Some people have been doing for weeks. Some people have never done them before. Let us know how you're getting on. Don't worry, this doesn't actually cause light. It's water. And then I've got one little tip, real little tip for people that are struggling just to get over the fear of tipping forward. Someone commenting on the back guided. And whether you're watching live or watching back on the replay, do let us know like how long have you been working on these for. It just helps guide us to give you the different types of help that you're going to need along the way. So that's the second time for Nicky. Awesome. Okay, let's say I've got a little thing for you here. This is going to be a pillow. How's the pillow going to help? Well, could be in a few ways. But to start with is one of the things we haven't talked about yet is just this movement being quite a new thing. And also I'm doing it on concrete. If I fall forward and smash my head on the floor, that's going to hurt. Okay, not not to mention the fact that eight years ago I had a career, a career ending head injury from from our rugby playing days. But that's a different story. But equally, whether you've had a head injury or not, you don't want to bang your head on the floor and the brain knows that. So what often happens when we try to tip forwards. So we're going to our flux down here. We try to tip forward and take your foot off. And you just come back down. And what your notice is as I go here, when I'm in this tipped position, if you look where my bum is, my hips, think about my center of mass, my basic sport is my hands here. If my hips never get stacked on top of my hands, anytime I left those feet up, I'm always going to fall back down. Now when I balance it, remember, I'm not just resting in this balance and pushing down strong through the tricep for keeping the elbow straighter and through the shoulders pushing the shoulder blades away. When I balance myself here, that bum, here it is shaking about, is above my basic sport. As soon as I let it go backwards, feet back down to the floor. So the big thing with that is when the hips are back, we come back, when the hips are on top and stacked, we balance. But it's strength balance. And I'm just resting in there. But to get that hip up, it's got to go forward, you've got to tip forward, you've got to commit to being forward. And the brain, when it's scared, won't want you to do that, because it'll be like, if I bang my head off the wall, that's going to hurt. So we sort of get like, paralysed by that little bit of fear. So your pillow can be a great option. So that you have got a little safety net, your head is close to you. So that if I come down, my head is onto the pillow. If you're strong enough to push back out of that, then that's actually a really good exercise to work on that pushing shape. But generally, if you're here and feel like you're not getting any balance, look how far away my head is from the pillow. Whereas when I get into my balance position, look how much closer I am. I can nearly smell it. And then if your head hits the pillow, pull on your down, pull on your foot down, and you come back up safely. It's really important when we're trying to learn a new skill that involves like failing or falling. The brain needs to know what is going to happen when I fall out of this. Or if I fall out of this, it won't let you fully commit to it. If it's worried about what happens if I fully commit to this and this goes wrong. So you're going to give it a really, so that's just that's like one example, giving it an option. If this goes wrong, how am I going to work this out and come away from this safely? Then it allows you to go, okay, I'll have a real good crack at this now and I'll really commit to it. And the other thing that you might find will happen is the arms come out of the way, so we'll come here and we'll like shoot an arm out of the way and shoot a leg down to get ourselves down to the floor safely. What's just the major thing that's important is that your brain feels that you are safe and it's not going to injure itself so that it can allow you to fully commit to the movement and thing that you're working on. And that will literally allow you to apply more strength than you've got. Sometimes it's not someone's put no pain there again. Not by no pain there again, like we want to be, we're trying to create a safe environment where we don't create pain, because actually pain can be an inhibition or an inhibitor of strength as well that if you feel pain and the same way if we're feeling like a bit timid about it, the brain is very clever, it will reel back and it won't let you commit to that, that full position. In the frog stand you're holding your whole body weight through just literally your arms and your shoulders so it takes a lot of strength to do that. The great thing about it is it's just enough strength for your own body weight so it's specific or personal to you. So I hope that's been helpful for those working on the frog stands for the first time. If you have any questions put them in the comments below. If you're watching live give us a bit of feedback, like did you manage to do one for slightly longer and did it feel a little bit better just trying to put some of those cues into place or if you're watching back and replay again. Put your messages in the comments it's always good to know where people are and then we can do, we plan to do more live sessions like this so you can literally follow along and try different things out. If you ask questions in the comments then we can obviously get the advice and the access is specific to you. So just a couple of the questions. Pushing hips and arms at the same time to reach vertical. So that's definitely what we were just talking about. So you don't necessarily have to, it all comes down to the strength of this base of support which is coming through that each hand into and around the shoulders. So elbow knees going on the outside of those elbows or triceps wherever you feel comfortable. But I'm pushing down hard through the floor. I'm not stumping your hips. Shoulders are not by the ears, they're down and I'm pushing myself away. So I'm trying to create as much space through the shoulders away. See the difference in here and there? All of that is coming through the shoulder. Elbow is going to stay slightly straighter and stronger I am so you can bend a little bit if you need to. And then getting the hips high enough is about you committing forward to that tip. Committing forward to that tip comes from remember the very first thing we did about leaning forward. Gripping with those finger tips strong so that can be far forward. You can control myself back there. If you don't commit far enough forward your hips stay low here. I'm doing everything the same through my shoulders. But I'm not going up and balancing because my hips are staying down so I'm not keeping myself forward and I'm not committing to that movement. That's where giving yourself something to aim towards and feel comfortable tipping that can help you with your confidence to go through that. So James been working on for a couple of weeks on YouTube. So how long does it take to learn? How long is a piece of string? It really really depends on the individual everything from your starting point in terms of your strength, your flexibility, body coordination, your control. All the way to like how many times a week you can train but then how well you recover from exercise, what your diet is like, everything. The main thing that matters is it doesn't matter how long it takes. The main thing is that you learn and you enjoy the journey that learning something like the Frog Townsend is going to do for you. A Law of Rings in that helps a lot. You practice every day. You don't necessarily need to practice every day. Small maths often is good for skills like hand balancing for sure. It's not necessary you have to practice every day. If you like doing it then great. Kelly is in great explanation. Glad it helps Kelly. Calisthenics at APS. High risk of injury in your shoulders. It's actually very good this close kind of chain where your hands are fixed to the floor. As long as you have your control and the wear of your shoulder blade positioning then the wind blowing backwards then it can be very good for creating strength around the shoulders. Hey from Australia. Great stuff. Let us know in the comments how you get on with the Frog Townsend. We're going to keep doing more of these regularly each week and then on Instagram or on YouTube. If you haven't subscribed on YouTube yet, you've just reached 100,000 on YouTube. If you haven't yet, head over. Join the other 100,000 people that subscribed on YouTube. So we're going to be doing lives on here, on YouTube and on Instagram. Let us know how you get on either in the comments or send us a DM. Really interesting to know how you're enjoying doing it. One of the great things like if it's sunny where you are it's very rare it's sunny in the UK here in Nottingham. Get outside and enjoy getting your hand on. I'm going to go on the grass. I didn't the Wi-Fi won't reach out a bit. Get your hands on some real real earth and enjoy that little bit of ground. You're going to get out of that whether it's from your hands or from your feet but your handstands are a great one that you can literally do anywhere and can be great fun learning along the way and using the Frog Townsend is a great little base to start to get used to using your hands like feet, preparing the shoulders to be strong, a little bit from the triceps as well and so yes it's just a lovely starting point that we like to use when we're first introducing ourselves to balancing on our hands. Remember like myself and Tim at Start School Classics, I'm Jacko. We never we've never done any gymnastics or handstands or anything when we were younger. We used to play rugby, both injured many injuries hands, wrists, shoulders from rugby, hamstrings, all of that jazz. I had a head injury eight years ago that ended by a rugby career so we've never done any of this before so if we can do it that's what I want to show you like if we can do it so can you and just want to encourage you to have fun with it. Is that a green screen behind? No, it's my garden. So thanks for joining, I will see you all again soon and let's say, keep us updated in the comments or on DMs on Instagram with how you are getting on. Class dismissed.