Build a handstand you can trust.

No. The course begins where the practice actually begins — with what a handstand is supposed to look like, how the joints stack, and the six cues you will repeat to yourself while you are upside down. You learn to bail out safely before you are asked to hold anything for long.

The reverse is also worth saying: experienced practitioners are not allowed to skip either. Miguel’s instruction in the course is explicit — even if you can already perform a straight handstand and the straddle, tuck and L-shape variations, you still work through the whole curriculum in order, so that nothing in the foundation is assumed.

Three to four training sessions a week is what Miguel recommends in the course, for beginners and experienced hand balancers alike — starting with three, with a day off in between, held for three or four weeks before you consider adding more.

The sessions are short. Within a block you work two to four sets of each progression, holding five to fifteen seconds at first and building toward thirty. The warning in the course is about the opposite mistake: students who start at five sessions a week almost always burn out, their wrists hurt, and they stop altogether.

Very little, and none of it specialised. Wall space — smooth, with enough room to spread your legs, since every drill in the course is done against a wall. A hard, flat surface: wood is Miguel’s own preference, and a thin mat or carpet is fine as long as it is under about 2.5 mm, because anything softer makes balancing harder.

Two other things are asked for rather than optional: a stopwatch, to time your sets and rest periods against the standards in the programs, and a camera — a phone is enough — to film yourself and compare your form with the progression videos. The course teaches you to judge your own handstand, and you cannot judge what you have not seen.

Yes. There is no deadline and no cohort. It is a self-guided course, and Miguel says plainly that some students will be on one block for a few months while others move faster — and that you might spend far longer on some blocks than on others.

One thing to know before you buy: the lessons are sequential. Each one unlocks the next as you complete it, so you work through the curriculum in order rather than jumping to the block that looks most interesting. You are free to go back to any earlier lesson at any time, and you are encouraged to.

The Complete Course is the method taught as one continuous path in a single course — theory, conditioning, entries, bail-outs, rebalancing and the fourteen block programs, in the order Miguel intends them to be learned, with one set of standards running through all of it.

The individual Level courses are smaller, separately priced steps, so you can begin with one piece rather than committing to the whole path — and each has its own page describing exactly what it covers. If you want a precise answer about how a specific level maps onto the Complete Course before you buy, ask rather than assume: write to info@artofhandstands.com and you will get a straight answer from Miguel himself.

The bundles are priced separately and compared side by side on the bundles page, so you can see what each one contains before you decide.