Posts tagged chest stand
Update.
Jan 24th
It’s been a while since I posted last. Nothing too new with my stretching :/ My feet are a few inches from the floor when I try to do a chest stand! I think more of my chest is on the ground, so it’s actually becoming a chest stand rather than a neck stand hah. I haven’t been stretching too much lately but I’m GOING to stretch more. I just have to make time with school. I want to improve SOMETHING before February 6th (4 months!).
I noticed that my legs have loosened up a bit. I’ve tried different stretching techniques with my splits and what I’m doing seems to be working. My back thigh muscles would tighten up really easily and it prevented me from stretching my splits. Now I have noticed that if I stretch my splits every other day, the tightness isn’t there. Yay! I still do kicks and various other leg stretches everyday, just not left and right splits. Middles it seems I can do everyday. I have about an inch to go! I just need someone to push me down. Ow.
Other than legs, my back has felt a bit stiff lately because I’ve taken like two 2-day breaks ah. No more of that. Anyway, time to do HW -__- and then STRETCHING! 
A New Day.
Dec 26th
I just got done stretching for the day. I’ve been trying to layoff splits for a while because my posterior thigh muscles have been really tight and it hurts when I try. But today I just tried to go into splits reeeeally slow, and that seemed to help. I forgot to do middle splits yesterday so they hurt a bit today D:, more than usual. I’m soo close! Maybe I’ll be down by Tuesday, when I plan on shooting a new video.
I started trying chest stands yesterday and want to make it a normal part of my stretching routine. Right now it’s more of a chin/neck stand haha; I guess my neck isn’t flexible enough. When I stretch for this I lay on the floor in front of my couch in a seal stretch, go forward and kick over my legs so that my feet are on the couch cushions. Then I try to make the bend at the higher part of my back so that I’m not bending at my L5 (bad news).
Another thing I want to put in my video is me pointing my toes; it was requested by a viewer of my last video. I have been looking at ‘floorpointe’ videos on YouTube and people seem kind of harsh with their comments. There’s this thing called sickling, where you twist your foot in when you point it. I don’t think I do it; when I purposefully try to point with my foot turned in it feels awkward, and I’m glad for that. I come from a gymnast background and we tend to ‘curl’ our toes under, or when we sit we have our toes curled under, like the pic on the right. 
I wonder if the dance/ballet world looks down on artistic gymnast’s pointing technique? Any thoughts are welcome.
