Today I'm going to tell you a story about handstands.
The story starts with a yogi girl who had just finished her yoga teacher training.
I met this girl called River when I had just been in Bali a few months only.
She had recently finished a yoga teacher training and took over from me when I left a yoga teaching job at a hostel in Ubud.
She was a good yogi in terms of her physical abilities, plus she was a friendly and generally nice person.
So it was no major suprise when she fit in really well with the acro crowd and got hooked on acroyoga coming to every jam after she tried it.
Something she mentioned at one of her first acro jams when she saw some of us practicing handstands was...
that she had never been able to do a handstand and had struggled on her yoga training to learn how to.
Several people at the jams of course encouraged her and told her she could do it.
I also vividly remember telling her myself, that actually practicing inversions in acroyoga can really help.
Because it makes us used to being upside down more, and we get more comfortable balancing upside down.
Sure enough after spending a lot of time in star poses and being upside down a lot in acroyoga, about 1 month after starting acro...
River, one day at one of the jams suddenly jumped into a handstand and stayed there for a good 20-30 seconds.
I had seen her try many times before and never hold a handstand, and this time she just went up and seemed to not come down for ages!
She was impressed with herself and super happy of course.
I was crazy impressed too!
A few weeks later at her last jam before leaving Bali, she could already hold a handstand for about 45 seconds.
That was longer than I could at that point.
It was really quite shocking, obviously I knew and had experienced myself how doing acro inversions could help with handstands.
That was the exact advice I gave her...
But I'd never witnessed such a dramatic improvement from essentially no handstand to a 45 second handstand in no time at all, and more importantly...
Without really training or practicing handstands!
Let me repeat that to be super clear...
In less than 2 months and maybe 10 jam sessions practicing acro inversions (not handstands). River went from not being able to do a handstand to being able to hold one for about 45 seconds!
I think that's just mindblowing, especially as it took me maybe 1.5 years before I could hold a handstand for 45 seconds...
My biggest takeaway from River's little story was that you can learn something without actually practicing it.
Interestingly I've found that to be more and more true since then.
For example, I can do a forearm stand these days without ever having really practiced it, I've just practiced many other inversions.
I can also fly some things in acro having never tried before, because I've based the movement so many times.
It might not all be as fast and dramatic as River's case.
But I think it's important to know that even if you cannot do something, you can still potentially learn it through a different method or medium.
If you want to get better at yoga, I highly recommend taking up or going deeper in acro.
I can do yoga poses now I couldn't before I started acro. ;)Today I'm going to tell you a story about handstands.
The story starts with a yogi girl who had just finished her yoga teacher training.
I met this girl called River when I had just been in Bali a few months only.
She had recently finished a yoga teacher training and took over from me when I left a yoga teaching job at a hostel in Ubud.
She was a good yogi in terms of her physical abilities, plus she was a friendly and generally nice person.
So it was no major suprise when she fit in really well with the acro crowd and got hooked on acroyoga coming to every jam after she tried it.
Something she mentioned at one of her first acro jams when she saw some of us practicing handstands was...
that she had never been able to do a handstand and had struggled on her yoga training to learn how to.
Several people at the jams of course encouraged her and told her she could do it.
I also vividly remember telling her myself, that actually practicing inversions in acroyoga can really help.
Because it makes us used to being upside down more, and we get more comfortable balancing upside down.
Sure enough after spending a lot of time in star poses and being upside down a lot in acroyoga, about 1 month after starting acro...
River, one day at one of the jams suddenly jumped into a handstand and stayed there for a good 20-30 seconds.
I had seen her try many times before and never hold a handstand, and this time she just went up and seemed to not come down for ages!
She was impressed with herself and super happy of course.
I was crazy impressed too!
A few weeks later at her last jam before leaving Bali, she could already hold a handstand for about 45 seconds.
That was longer than I could at that point.
It was really quite shocking, obviously I knew and had experienced myself how doing acro inversions could help with handstands.
That was the exact advice I gave her...
But I'd never witnessed such a dramatic improvement from essentially no handstand to a 45 second handstand in no time at all, and more importantly...
Without really training or practicing handstands!
Let me repeat that to be super clear...
In less than 2 months and maybe 10 jam sessions practicing acro inversions (not handstands). River went from not being able to do a handstand to being able to hold one for about 45 seconds!
I think that's just mindblowing, especially as it took me maybe 1.5 years before I could hold a handstand for 45 seconds...
My biggest takeaway from River's little story was that you can learn something without actually practicing it.
Interestingly I've found that to be more and more true since then.
For example, I can do a forearm stand these days without ever having really practiced it, I've just practiced many other inversions.
I can also fly some things in acro having never tried before, because I've based the movement so many times.
It might not all be as fast and dramatic as River's case.
But I think it's important to know that even if you cannot do something, you can still potentially learn it through a different method or medium.
If you want to get better at yoga, I highly recommend taking up or going deeper in acro.
I can do yoga poses now I couldn't before I started acro. ;)
See you soon,
Cas
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