“Success is the sum of all efforts repeated day in and day out.” Robert Collier
I practice my handstand almost every single day now. Sometimes at the studio and sometimes in the spare bedroom upstairs. I always start off walking my feet up the wall and then do the usual talking to myself: “Press your hands into the floor, shift your weight forward, knit in your ribs, reach, press, reach press, blah, bah, blah.” I know I sound like a broken record, but it is slowly but surely working.
Today toward the end of my 2:30 class today, I said, “Let’s go to the wall and work on handstands.” I gave them the spiel on how before 50 I would never attempt handstand and so I understand if they don’t feel like working on it and I told them how my new goal is to kick up into handstand without the wall by my 56th birthday. Anyway, almost all of them went to the wall and made some attempt. Only one person needed to walk up the wall. Several of them were starting pretty far away from the wall and then pretty much flipping into a handstand. I said, “This is good, but you want to work on kicking up with control, starting with your hands on the floor.” I demonstrated and, wouldn’t you know, I kicked right up into a handstand without even touching the wall. In some ways, it feels like it’s teasing me — success one minute, failure the next — but it also seems like these successes are what keep me going. One woman said, “Look, you did it before your birthday!” What she doesn’t understand is that I want to do that every time, and with confidence, not feel astonished every time it happens.
The only man in the room kicked up against the wall with a loud THUD! I had my back turned and thought for sure he had hurt himself. But he was standing on his hands with a big smile. He came down from the wall and kicked up again. THUD! I said, “That is great, but now you want to start working on control.” At least he was open to trying. 🙂
