If you've never done a handstand, let me paint a picture of what it can feel like at the beginning: There's panic (or at least there was for me, someone who grew out of gymnastic potential in the seventh grade when I hit five feet, ten inches). Balancing your body weight on your hands is, in the most basic sense, foreign. Your fingers suddenly have to act like toes. Your legs flail in their newfound weightless oblivion. Your sympathetic nervous system—which controls the fight, flight, or freeze response—can get activated by the perceived danger of the situation. Your chest tightens, and it gets harder to breathe.
In other words, it's terrifying.
