How to do a Handstand with Matt Ryan

18th January 2017 by Matt Ryan

To watch the video tutorial please click on the play button (in the middle of the screen) on the box immediately above.

I have no idea why but when I first started to practice the handstand, I never used to have any fear of falling over as I always confident I could twist around and land on my feet –maybe I was a cat in a previous life : )

When I first started Yoga I remember going to a class and watching in awe as my teacher placed his on the floor and floated up into a handstand from a standing position with straight legs. It was pretty darn cool and I always thought I’d like to be able to do that. And remember folks these were the days before online you tube tutorials – it was all trial and error – mainly error on my part and lots of laughing at how useless I was.

I’m not sure when the penny dropped but eventually it did – and maybe it was my Dad (RIP) who mentioned the main drawbacks of the kicking up one leg at a time method I was using to try and master the handstand. This was having to find the balance point twice (one for each leg!) so I sussed out that if I could find a way of jumping up both legs at the same time I might have cracked the handstand code.

And like all buildings needing a solid foundation, the handstand was no different and also working on the premise that if I was able to do a full handstand surely I need to be able to do the half handstand ie have the legs bent rather than straight. And slowly – very slowly things started to happen. I kicked up both legs bent hold for a breath then come down , 1 breath turned to 2 then to 5 and so until I got to half a minute balancing on my hands with knees bent. A solid foundation was created so that I could slowly start to straighten the leg and remain steady and secure without falling over.

It was very simple but very effective – no nonsense. I have watched online tutorials on handstand but found them to be too long winded, to over descriptive. I find this method  to be much more straight to the point – hope you enjoy it – have fun and remember Guruji’s famous  words ‘Yoga is 99% practice 1% theory’ (and I like to think this handstand method most definitely fits into that category).