If you’ve ever watched someone learning to do a handstand, you’ll have seen her put her hands on the ground, and kick her feet into the air ... just a little.

Usually, there’s a long string of split-second hops before anything close to a handstand is achieved.

In order to learn handstanding, your feet have to kick into the air ... and past vertical. You have to feel balance, and then the treacherous tip forward. To even go too far.

And so you’re taught — when you tip over — to tuck your head, and to roll forward, instead of falling hard and flat.

* * *

And there it is: how do we learn to fail in a positive way? In a way that we learn. And recover. To fail in a way that’s not catastrophic. To fail toward progress. How do we do it?

Well, we don’t do it with little hops. No. We can’t achieve our greatest potential until we loft our highest and we learn to push past vertical ... if but a little.