How to do shoulder stands on a slackline

Would you like to learn how to do a shoulder stand on a slackline? Ian Eisenberg shows us how in this episode of How Not to Highline. If you want to submit a video that we can share on this channel, please let us know. But check out how to do a shoulder stand. Hey, what's up everybody? Ian here again from Slackline Mallorca. So I thought that in addition to our highline rigging series, we could also do some trick tips. So today the trick that we are going to focus on is the shoulder stand. It's a really popular but elusive trick. And if you are listening to this and your first thought is, oh, that's too advanced for me. Don't think that because you have to start early and start practicing early because this trick takes a lot of building up too. So spend as much time on your shoulder as possible every time you do it, especially when you start. It's probably going to feel like it's impossible. That's okay. I was exactly the same. If you're going to be training shoulder stands a lot, it's going to hurt your shoulder a lot. So when you're learning, it's a really good idea to have something to protect your shoulder so that you don't just start hating the trick because of the pain that you're going to be experiencing because it is painful. The first step is really just getting comfortable, putting your shoulder on the line, find a spot that feels comfortable for you, and then you want to slowly start to push up onto your shoulder. Now your head should be looking back at the other anchor, not looking down at the ground. So there's two ways you can do this. You can hold the ground, put one foot on the line, push with that foot, roll your weight onto the shoulder, then take the foot off and just try to find a position here where you can kind of slowly start to lift your hand a little bit. And once you start to lift your hand, you will feel the line move towards the center. And once you've got all the weight on the shoulder and none of it on the hand, you'll be at the center of the line. The other way you can do this, and it's the way that I actually prefer, is instead of putting the foot on the line and pushing up, I do like a little hop into it. So that looks like this. The other thing that some people do a little differently is some people choose to put their hand this way and some people choose to put their hand this way. All right, great job. Now that you have step one down, it's time to move on to step two. Now step two is trying to balance on the shoulder. Now when I first started learning this, the way that I was balancing was with one hand out free and both legs open. That looks like this. You can see when I lift my hand off the ground, I keep it there and use it to balance. This is a good place to start because the hand actually helps a lot with balance. Well done. Now you're ready for the next step. The next step is having both hands on the line and using them to balance. So let's look at what that looks like. There's two ways you can do this also. You can start with your hand on the ground and then put your hand on the line. The other way you can do it is to start with both hands on the line and do a little hop. That one is a little more difficult but a little more realistic to what you will feel when entering into a shoulder stand on a high line or something like that. All right, great job. Now you're ready for the next step. This is where it starts to get fun. Now you're going to take what you learned mounting the shoulder stand from the ground and try to apply it to mounting the shoulder stand from the line. The first thing we're going to do sit on the line as if we were going to mount Chongo. Now you can practice doing this with your foot on the ground so that you don't have to commit to a full half front flip dive thing which kind of feels like you're going to die the first time you try it. So you're balancing at Chongo and then when you have the line you feel comfortable you found your center without hesitation. It doesn't have to be fast but it should be smooth. Take the line with the other hand look down and look all the way behind you. Put your shoulder on the line. You're going to push with the hands and with the foot a little bit and push into the shoulder stand. All right great job! Once you feel comfortable with that motion with your foot on the ground it's time to do it without the foot on the ground so fully free on the line. I would bump the rodeo line up a little bit add a little bit of tension not a lot it actually doesn't make it that much scarier or more dangerous so we're going to do that now. Now we've got our line a little bit higher off the ground a little bit more tension but still very loose. This one's kind of a Hail Mary when you start because you really just got to go for it. If you want if you have somebody to spot you it's a good it's a good idea to have somebody spot you but really it's not as dangerous as it seems as long as you get the the line on your shoulder when you go forward you're just going to fall left or right. All right let's give it a try! You can see that time I went a lot slower and used my arms a lot to push up into the shoulder stand and that's the main benefit of using two hands here instead of one. All right if you have that congratulations you have the shoulder stand now it's time to do it for real ditch your padding ditch your protection and we're going to do it entering from the feet and then mounting the shoulder stand. There it is let's look at it one more time coming the other way. All right you did it! Now I've got one more challenge for you who are feeling really confident really comfortable with the shoulder stand please do not try this! In general just don't try this but if you want to try this make sure you feel really comfortable with the shoulder stand and controlling it you feel confident. This is called the kamikaze this is going directly from the feet to the shoulder without taking your foot off any sort of hesitation or lack of commitment here could be really dangerous as the name suggests if you're doing this right it should feel like you're about to kill yourself. All right that's it everybody you learned the shoulder stand thank you for watching and as I said in the beginning please don't be discouraged from trying this trick because you think it's too advanced or you're not ready yet my partner Camila just started slacklining six months ago and she already has the shoulder stand dialed and it's just perseverance believing in yourself and really just enjoying a little bit of suffering you can do this trick it's not too advanced all right have fun trying it and I'll see you next time what is this? Hey thanks for watching but please don't be an idiot and try to go highlining or climbing or repeat the stunts you see on this channel without going with someone who knows what they're doing these sports come at a very high risk but can be done safely and that's what this channel is devoted to helping you understand what you're looking at when you do get the chance to learn from somebody in person we have tons of resources they're all free and they're all at hownottohighline.com we have the Bolting Bible which we just finished the 2.02 version 2020 version and it's 133 pages 426 photos 216 links that work it's super thorough if you want to learn bolting and we also have Highline University International which is all free courses now and Highlining 101 is done how to use a highline that's already rigged and we are doing the anchors and rigging and rope jumping and space nets and more simultaneously with a large group of people now that we've made this open source it's gonna be just like the Bolting Bible it's gonna have lots of photos lots of links and literally everything on the topic we also have a way to get you plugged into the slackline community we have a list of Facebook groups on slackademics.com that you can hit ctrl f find your area and find the groups that all coordinate when and where they're going slacklining so you can get connected with our slack family another free book we have on hownottohighline.com is the book of slack there is some slack religious stuff at the beginning because we think that's funny but the rest of it is about flow state and about the history of slackline it's a thorough deep book it's awesome go check that out and no I don't make money on YouTube you need millions of subscribers just to make a living at it I do this for a fun hobby and because I really want the information that I wish I had when I started available for the next generation we believe that safe information should not be withheld for only those who can afford it but it does cost thousands of dollars a year to run this channel Bolt Busters cost me like ten thousand dollars slack snapping cheap and the websites cost money and yada yada if you're watching all the episodes please become a patreon on patreon.com and if you take the courses please donate $20 if you've gone all the way through and benefited from it and if you read the entire bolting bible learned how to bolt and bolted something without having to go through a learning curve wasting money please donate 20 bucks on PayPal we literally only survive off of donations for this channel I did recently start a specialty instant coffee business with my friend it's great for camping it's great for van life it's great for everyday drinking it's really great espresso we freeze dry it all you have to do is add water and you can get our coffee at brewjuno.com and make sure you like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram and subscribe to us on YouTube because we are posting stuff all the time and don't forget to smash that like button cheers