Handstands

First class at Circusspace today- on my first Carnet, which I decided to take as a handstand and hand balancing class. 

After a 15 min warm up, which wasnt all that bad, there were 4 of us in the class, 2 girls who were by far the most controlled and flexible, myself and a Cambridge Professor dude who comes down to Cicusspace every thursday and myself, who was by far the least controlled and flexible. 

What followed was another 15 mins of core strength "warm ups" which felt more like a workout than a warm up- planks, side planks, twisty stomach things, crunches, side crunches- dishes, the whole shabang. Doing hand balances are a lot more about core stability than I realised. 

Then came the hand balancing proper, which is interesting for me as so much climbing has tighened my wrist tendons on one side, (the wrong side for handbalance), and, this I didnt know, has also tightened my shoulders quite a lot as well- hence making it difficult to balance. Your shoulders have to be open and quite flexible to make a striaght balance... my shoulders are tense so I cant get into a balancing position easily and have to arch my back quite a lot- which, although balancing me, isnt quite right. 

So we did balancing, balancing squat to straight and back, straddle to straight and back pike to straight and back- all of which I am really quite rubbish at. 

By the end, I was surprised that my wrists werent in too bad a shape, and my core was knackered- unsurprisingly, so were my arms. The conclusion being, that I have to sort out my core strength, shoulder flexibility and general all round flexibility, and all should be good. 

Theoretically. 

So everything that Ive been wanting to do (or trying- in a fairly un-remarkable way) in the past few years, is necessary for this. Well. No wonder Im rubbish at handbalance. 

Bring on the practice. 

Oh- and a minor issue- I have a place for the London Marathon. Im thinking sub 3.45.