9 Years

I've been working on progressing my handstand walking for 9 years. Yeah, 9 years! I started practicing handstands because my dog Makani and I were doing freestyle disc dog competitions and I thought it would be funny if I did a handstand with the disc between my feet, foot tossed it to her and she did a backflip to catch it. She mastered her part of the trick well before I did. I think that trick alone was one of the main reasons we qualified for the world disc dog championships 3 years in a row.

A couple months ago I started juggling 3# balls. I was just messing around at Beaverton Crossfit one day and I noticed how quickly my hands and forearms were getting pumped up. I tried a handstand walk, thinking I would be too fatigued to do it, but noticed I was much better able to hold my position. It was like night and day. I was only juggling for a couple of minutes. Juggling 3# balls made my hands and forearms feel as stable as my feet! My fingers felt more alert, strong and responsive than I recall them ever feeling. I may have stumbled onto something here....exciting! Juggling weighted balls is much more fun than doing dumbbell wrist curls (wink, wink). I live for moments like these. I've since progressed to 4# balls, increasing repetitions and tossing them higher.

I don't know why it has taken me 9 years to become mediocre at handstand walking, but it has. When I first started, it was ugly. Uh-Glee. In the beginning I remember asking a friend who grew up doing gymnastics to tell me what I was doing wrong and she said something like, "I don't even know what I'm looking at." So, lot's of youtube videos, lot's of video coaching, lots of handstand progressions, lot's of time, lot's of falling and here we are. More work and fun ahead.