Sometimes what lies between you & success is the right tool! (Not lack of talent or motivation.) I recently built these balancing boards in my room so I could practice my handstands every day with a full range of motion. I've had the goal of having a beautiful handstand and one-arm handstand for two decades now. This happened after I saw Cirque du Soleil and was motivated for the first time in my life to actually exercise! Through various stops & starts in my training I've graduated beyond "beginner" into the intermediate-advanced handstands zone. This is where the basic stuff stops being impressive to those who are in-the-know and the hard stuff gets really hard... where I can no longer impress any random person at the park with a simple 5-sec handstand! My left side is definitely weaker than my right. Isn't yours? I built this tool for my home because I realized that trying to squeeze this finessed training into my time in the gym only a couple of times a week was not working for me. I was overdoing it - focusing on brute strength, whereas handstands (like the flute?) require focus and finesse too. I needed to practice less hard variations more frequently, not the hardest variations infrequently. Maybe this is like resisting the urge to play the fast & flashy stuff on flute but instead focusing on fundamentals. I'm right-handed. What about you?? So my right arm has become pretty "smart" from doing everything we go about doing in life. But my left arm? It is comparatively so weak! I'm realizing that if I want to have a super-strong two handed handstand soon and an acceptable one-arm handstand on my left EVER that I need to take the time now to catch up the strength of my left side to where my right side currently is. If I want to be able to execute more than one trick and make it look seamless and effortless I must practice reaching that "basic proficiency" level with my left side. That means back to basics with a focus on my weaker side for at least the next 3 months, maybe 6 or 12. That means being careful not to overexert myself doing too many new & exciting things but to reserve my energy for building the prerequisite strength & coordination.

Thanks @Kristy Mitchell for recommending Rob Flax... 4 things I'm noticing about this video! - Wow, this guy's a handsome singer too! - Check out the communication via eye contact between the 3 of them! They are confirming the length of each other's solos and much more about the groove etc. - Notice that Mr. Rob plays doesn't play a violin solo until about two thirds to 3/4 of the way through! - Noticing that he plays simple double stop chords while he's singing too, not fancy moving single notes like the solo before that. What else do you notice about this? Anything you might like to replicate in your own playing?

This is my favorite way to practice now!

I recommend that you pick one scale and really go deep with it, finding out over the next week, month, or year hundreds of new ways to play it. Try these variations: - Instead of starting on the first note of the scale, try starting on every other note of the scale. What about alternating your ending note too? - Play short segments of the scale in increasingly higher or lower plateaus. How high & low can you go? - Play increasingly higher scale segments ("mountains") or increasingly lower scale segments ("valleys")