A precision jump sounds scary, not only do you need to jump, on hands, but you have to jump a certain distance. Find your handstand position and get ready for your first handstand precision jump. I’ve got to be honest with you, this is a gutting thing,when you first launch yourself, there is no way back, or at least no easy ways. But don’t worry I’ll guide you trough it.

Precision jump

A 5 step jumping tutorial

First of I’ll start with some terms I’ll use throughout this guide. They are also explained on their first appearance.

• Precision Jump
  This is the definition of the calculation of where you want to land after a takeoff.
  
• Core:
  When I talk about core, i mean the core muscles. These are your abdomen and lower back, upper back and hip in this tutorial

Preparations: The Jumping Part

There is no need to say that you already should be able to jump on hands (though I will explain this in the tutorial) , but what you might not now is that too often you need to precision jump down heights. Therefore I recommend that you also have some experienced regarding this.

You also need a places to test this, now precision jumps can both be done on ground, and from height to ground, or even over a gap. Be sure to that you are safe in the environment your train in. Big floors, or open areas should work just fine.

Step 1: The Launch Itself

Get up in a Handstand at your preferred spot and get ready.
The fist step on a handstand precision jumps is a small bending of with your elbows, and bending with your knees. You do this because you need to create an upward movement that will launch yourself a few inches above the ground. Now kick your feet upwards while pressing your arms with full force, it takes a bit of practice to synchronize this perfectly but when you managed it good enough you’ll know.

Now what I just explained was a simple handstand jump. The aim now is try and jump a bit forward. Start at a floor and do as explained above, but when doing this, tilt a bit forward and see if you are able to land a few inches in front of you. When you managed to do this at a “anytime” basis. Move on!

Step 2: the angle

When you manage step one it’s time to lean much more forward. There is two ways to do this, and it really depends on how far you want to jump.

Short jump:
When the distance is short, your jump is easier. The angle won’t be as crucial as the longer ones. Lean a tiny bit forward with your feet, let the hip follow.

Longer jumps:
When going longer distances you need more space to work on, the launch itself wont get you high enough for you to travel that far, as you wold have managed in a shorter jump. Therefore you need to lean much further forward. Thus further you lean the longer you can jump, until a certain degree of course. The magical number here is 45degrees. But don’t worry about that. In the beginning you’ll have problems even going 15 degrees.

My suggestion is that you start with the short jumps as these can easily be done on the floor or from objects to floor, and they are a nice way to really learn the next step before encountering the bigger ones.

Step 3: It’s take off time! 

The takeoff, or the jump itself, is a synchronization of the two above and that’s the very essence of this technique if you are going to succeed. This takes a lot of practice to really get the feeling of when to kick off. Here’s some tips

• Start with bent legs, this will save you time when leaning forward since your ready to kick at anytime. Might save you from a failure.
• Bend your arms first when leaning forward as its much harder to gain controll or balance when leaning with bent arms from the start.
• Don’t close your eyes, for your own safety, just don’t.

At this time I recommend that you start to mark your point of jump and landing – still on ground – and try to be as precise as you can be. The next step will really fulfill your desire to jump!

Step 4: Launch failure?

There isn’t often I include a whole section to the option of failing, but this is a rare occasion. Many times I’ve found myself fail in the launch sequence -  Perhaps I lost control of the legs, didn’t kick properly or something down that road – and whenever I noticed this I knew I was going to fail. But since it hurts too much to face plant my body defensive response was to only lift one arm and instead do a huge step with awkward looking postures. This may be a bad Idea depending on your height, but its always better than face-planting

Basically what you do is that you only move one arm where you feel like, and stop the whole sequence of trying to jump. This is a two edged sword though. If you get to used to early in the training your might make a false mind block, prohibiting you from launching with both arms. If this ever happen to you, go back to step two and three: Because at this point basics are all that can help you now. 

Step 5: the precision landing

Remember when I advised you to not close your eyes? Well,here comes the reason: you need to know where your landing. By keeping your eyes open you are constantly calculating the distance and you always prepare for the landing, and always calculating the power needed to do the jump. The same rules applies here as if you would jump with your feet.

How hard your landing is depends on the height, your speed, or the distance, or any combinations of those. I never recommend that you land with your shoulders and elbows fully locked as this would create a major, and unnecessary, stress on the shoulder joints. Your landing should be as soft as possible, do this by lowering yourself down upon landing until the worst of the impact is over, then extend into a full handstand.

It’s because of this people who already knows the HSPU technique will do the precision jumps more easily, and are more successful when landing them. 

If you’re struggling ,or have questions or tips. Discuss it here

Happy Handstand
-Tor