Dynamic Shape Shifting and leg movements in handstand - the Marylin Monroe

In the Handstand Academy, we focus on getting you, first and foremost, and solid, reliable, 15 second+ handstand.

Tackling anything too advanced before that is putting the cart before the horse.

You’re able to run 5k on Sundays and you’re signing up with no prep for the next marathon...

After that, a wealth of options open up - getting straighter, achieving 100% success rate, holding 60 seconds and more, playing with shapes, etc.

Shapes are usually a crowd-pleaser - being able to hold different forms of handstands is indeed very appealing and rewarding as a practice.

This guide falls in the category of shape shifting, and is designed for the intermediate practicioner who can already transition between 3 shapes or more confidently.

Shape Shifting

Shape shifting is a realm of practice per se. Like everything else in our method, we have codified, structured, organised shape shifting into different categories and different sub levels.

To simplify things, we want today to distinguish:

• the amount of shapes you’re going through.

If you’re going from straight to tuck, you transition through 2 shapes. If you’re going from straddle to tuck to straight to straddle, your sequence is comprised of 4 shapes (and is a loop)

• the quality with which you can transition.

At first, your shapes won’t be quite assertive. You’ll fall when trying to shape shift. You will need to pause, accelerate or decelerate here and there, as you transition, to perform it. One could say you’d be “stuttering” while transitioning. This, of course, is quite different in terms of mastery from a performance-ready transition where everything is smooth, continuous.

• the time of stabilisation in each position.

How much time you need to park in one position before you move on to the next will also be a relevant metrics. The newer you are to this art, and the more time you will need to stabilise.

• The difficulty of the sequence.

For a host of reasons we can discuss in the future, transitioning from, say, a V shape to a charger is much easier than a tuck to a straight position. Both sequences have two shapes, but one is much, much harder than the other (and you should approach the order of the transitions you want to conquer accordingly).

• the linear and non linear nature of the transition.

To our point today, we can also pay attention to the journey your body takes to go from point A to point B. Is it straightforward and linear, ie the shortest, most efficient path. Or is it convoluted? The Maryline Monroe belongs to the not-so-efficient but super pretty category.

The Marylin Monroe

The Marylin Monroe looks like this.

I thought of this name because of the weird reverse-diamond position we find ourselves in halfway through the transition, which will remind you of the iconic picture.

Here is a step-by-step recap to master this dynamic transition:

Step 1: Getting familiar with the X (reverse diamond)

The first step is to get familiar holding this new shape, which we will call the X.

15 seconds is a minimum, 30 seconds and more is recommended.

Step 2: Honing linear transitions

Remember what we said earlier: linear transitions are easier than non-linear ones. Before you start playing with the twirly leg movement, you want to be rock-solid in the following sequence: straddle → diamond → X → straight (and vice-versa).

I suggest that you hold each shape for at least 5 seconds before moving on to the next. If you find a specific bottleneck (ie, you keep falling around the diamond position), isolate that specific part of the sequence and make it perfect before returning to the whole lot.

Step 3: Adding the lower twirls

Once you have a firm grasp of the shapes you will be going through (straddle, diamond, x and straight), it is time to add the swirling motion that makes this movement unique.

If you’re new to this, the movement will be quite unusual, and is best practice by segregating it in two parts:

• the lower circles, from the X to the straight position and vice versa.

• the upper circles, that take you from the straddle through the diamond to the X, and back.

I suggest you practice in three ways:

1. standing up, making sense one leg at a time of what is supposed to happen in your hips to draw circles with your foot.

2. lying down on your back, doing it with both legs simultaneously

3. upside down, isolating the hip-driven movement to understand the sensations first, and making the whole lot prettier in a second stage.

   
   

The Marylin Monroe is one of those moves that get better as you practice the details of it - specifically hip rotation.

For the Lower Twirls, start standing next to a wall (for balance, ah!) and place your knees together.

This mimics what you would feel in the X. Swirl your leg sideways and inwards to draw the lower circle.

Repeat with both legs on your back.

Step 4: Adding the upper twirls

The upper twirls are a bit harder to grasp, and go through bigger motions.

They consist of a first circle you draw in front of your body as you go from straddle to diamond, and a second half circle that you draw behind your back as you go from diamond to X.

Like before, practice at the wall first, and on the floor second. You will feel then that the lower circles fit quite naturally after that.

Step 5: Twirling upwards, then downwards

Before you jump on your hands and try to Marylin Monroe ten times back to back, understand that the pattern is better felt when you go up, from the staddle to the feet together, than down, from the straight handstand to the straddle.

As a consequence, you want to practice the upward sequence first, and use the sensations around your hips to inform how you should twirl back down.