So you’re trying to master that handstand, but gravity’s having none of it! Let’s dive into the mystery of ‘why you can’t hold a handstand’.
Four main culprits that might be messing with your progress are: strength, mobility, confidence, and technique.
Strength
A certain amount of strength is needed to hold a handstand, a lack of strength in your shoulders and arms will make holding a handstand really hard! If you’re trying to get to a handstand position, but can barely hold for a few seconds against the wall, then holding a freestanding handstand will feel near impossible. But the good news is there’s steps you can take to build strength for the handstand. Start by building up the basics, Learn How To Do A Push Up
Mobility
Mobility is an often overlooked, but can make all the difference to your handstands. 
To ‘test your handstand mobility’, stand against a wall and raise your arms overhead, seems easy enough… Here’s the catch, you’ve got to keep that back flat against the wall and arms straight!
If you look a bit like this then you’ll need to work on your mobility. Here’s some mobility exercises to improve your handstand.
Working on your thoracic movement and shoulder mobility may take a while but when you achieve that beautiful handstand you’ve been dreaming of, it’ll be worth it! Not to mention the miracles it’ll work for other areas of your training too!
Confidence
Lacking confidence to be upside down or the fear of falling is totally natural. After all we are trying to hold ourselves upside down with our legs in the air! Luckily there are some easy steps you can take to overcome the fear of being upside down.
Firstly you need to get used to having your feet higher than your hands. For this you can practice an elevated pike hold. This position imitates the handstand but is scalable to different levels, allowing you to build up that confidence!
Your pike may look more like the 1st 3 images if you have less mobility in your hamstrings and shoulders, but both are absolutely fine. As your mobility improves so will your handstand and pike positioning.
Begin by starting with a small step or box. Once you feel confident, gradually increase the height of the box until you can raise one leg up to the wall and kick up from the box into a wall handstand.
And voilà, you’ll be holding a handstand! 
To gain confidence for a freestanding handstand you’ll need to have a good dismount. Which basically means knowing how to fall!
A dismount is how to come out of a handstand safely when you start falling towards your back. Instead of landing on your back, you would bail out to the side, almost like a cartwheel. Here’s a guide on how to dismount from a handstand.
Technique
Technique helps massively! If you’re just kicking up and hoping for the best, odds are you’re not going to be holding that handstand for very long, at least not consistently! To consistently hold a handstand you need the right technique. Let’s start with the base of the handstand, the hands… Making a spider shape with your fingers will help with the balance because you’re able to press more into the ground. We need to use the fingers like toes, if you were falling forwards whilst standing you would be pressing into the ground with your toes, the same thing needs to be done when in a handstand. If you’re falling forwards you need to press into the ground with your fingers, and this spider shape allows you to press harder.
Next thing is your alignment, if your handstand looks like a banana it’s going to be a lot harder to engage your core to help with balance. Here are some ‘drills to improve your handstand’ alignment.
