August Thoughts – 2025
What started as a very practical and straightforward endeavor for me, which gradually became something much greater. After five years of building my handstand, the biggest things I learned had nothing to do with balance; they were about time, patience, identity, and growth. Here are five lessons that stuck with me and are going to be driving me through the next five years on my hands and everywhere else.
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1. Time moves both quickly and slowly at the same time
Training progressions often feel like they are taking forever, but then you blink, and literal years have gone by. Once that time is gone, it’s gone. There’s no backtracking, no reset button, and no way to slow the future down from repeating this process again for the next few years.
The key is to enjoy the training process. The ups, the downs, the daily grind. This is what training is about—being in the moment, feeling the movement, and appreciating the experience of building progressions and implementing the plan.
If I could go back in time and do things over, I’d have a bit more insight into training efficiently, but the only thing I would really change would be to appreciate the little moments more on a daily basis.
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2. Quality over everything
There isn’t any secret drill that the best coaches are hiding from the masses. Gains come from doing the basics extremely well. If you create a strong foundation, then the rest of the skills will layer on top effortlessly.
Around year two of my handstand journey, I was performing drills that were far too advanced for my skill level and shoulder mobility. The result was shoulder pain,frustration, and about a year of wasted time. These weren’t bad drills—they were just too advanced at the time. I use some of them in my training today, as I’m much more experienced and stable in my shoulder positions now than a few years back.
The problem was that these drills were difficult for me to perform even 5 out of 10 attempts, and they were impossible to perform correctly at all.
Once I was able to take a step backwards, recognize my limitations, and prioritize solving basic issues in my regular two-arm handstand, the one-arm finally started to become consistent. I have since used this approach to regress and restart on my front lever training and apply a more methodical approach that has resulted in me being able to hold a full front lever after about four months of tightly specified programming. Over the previous five years I had worked with professional calisthenics coaches, without ever acquiring the skill—for the very same reasons I struggled in the handstand.
Train the skills you can train, and train them well. Apply this to anything you are working towards and don’t be afraid to take a step backwards to enhance your quality. I promise it will pay off in the long run.
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3. Stay patient and the progress will come to you
Even today, some of my best handstands come when I am completely relaxed without a direct focus in my mind. When I hyper-focus and get frustrated and try to “make” the sets work, they rarely do.
Trying to force progress doesn’t work. The same thing happens with strength training and flexibility. The harder you force things, the more you get injured and the less progress you make.
Stay patient and simply do what you’re doing in the moment—and do it well—and you’ll make progress. . You have to go through ups and downs and trust a few programs to feel this process unfold before you can really relax and just let the training do the work for you, without putting the extra mental strain on top of it.
But if you’re here and you’re reading this, trust me—relax and do the work. The gains will be there as the years pass by. Worrying about it and trying to sneak in extra sessions, eke out extra reps, and skip rest days is only going to slow things down.
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4. Flexibility makes everything better
After decades of bro sessions and CrossFit workouts, I was stiff but still quite athletic. I could do handstands and play sports, but handstands highlighted my limited mobility in a very real way. As my flexibility increased, something else happened as well—I realized how much easier it was to drive for long distances, sleep comfortably, and even simply get dressed.
Flexibility is more popular than ever on social media, but I think it still gets misunderstood as an endeavor in and of itself, or as something for women or weak men, in the general population.
I’ll just state it plainly: If you think flexibility is going to make you weak, or less manly, or that it’s just for showing off, this couldn’t be further from the reality. Good mobility is a valuable tool that allows you to move better in every aspect of your life. If you’ve never spent time on your mobility, I guarantee it will improve the quality of your life—inside and outside of the gym—to a degree that shocks you.
Spend time on your mobility. It will literally change your life.
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5. Singular focus can open doors you never knew you’d walk through
My focus for the one-arm handstand was twofold: to complete a difficult challenge for myself that I could be proud of, and to remember what it was like to be a beginner so I could better relate to my clients going through the struggles of their own training journey.
A simple goal: develop a one-arm handstand. Now, five years later, writing this article from my favorite co-working café in Bali and living a life I never dreamed possible, it’s obvious that I gained more than a one-arm handstand along the way – great friends and clients from all over the world, the confidence to pursue my goals and ambitions with full effort, the ability to focus in a world filled with endless perceived opportunities, and an overarching optimism that I confess was not my natural inclination even a few years ago. It has literally changed who I am as a person—and much more for the better.
Focus in one direction can feel like sacrifice, but if you can stay focused, do something that is hard, and do it well, the rewards will be broader and more amazing than you could ever imagine.
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If you’re driven to chase something, do it. Don’t let that burning furnace inside turn into heartache and regret. Dive in all the way and with full effort. Don’t look back and don’t let up.
The thing you’re chasing will probably give you much more than you think, and the amazing part is that you don’t have to expect any of this for it to happen. All you have to do is really care about your goal and chase it to the ends of the earth. The rest will take care of itself.
