Press to handstand, navasana to handstand, coming back up in Karandavasana

OK, enough mucking about, I want to get this. I've started to see a pattern emerging, the Press to handstand, Navasana to handstand, coming back up in Karandavasana, they all seem to be concerned with getting the hips /pelvis up. I suspect that the secret to all of them is the lower back muscles, arching the back slightly to help bring your hips/pelvis back and up.

Have had some success. I tried some exercises yesterday evening and managed a press to handstand this morning and a float up and slow lower that I was quite happy with .

Below are the exercises. Not pretty perhaps but seem to be effective. The first one is going up to handstand, spreading your legs and lowering while trying to keep your backside in contact with the wall until your feet touch the floor. Then the same thing going back up. Kino demonstrates this option on her DVD as a fun way to come out of Prasarita padottanasana D. The next couple of exercises are the same but with legs together in preparation for the press to handstand.

These exercises are great for training you to keep your hips/pelvis raised for longer but there's still the issue of how to raise the pelvis/hips in the first place. I noticed that in my forward bend there's still a degree of curving of my back. It used to be terrible and it took a lot of work in pushing back in Downward dog and really trying to stick my backside out that I managed to reduce it. It's better, but still there and I'm attempting to raise from there rather than just my hips and I think that may be what's holding me back.

In the press to handstand, the first video, I try to reduce that even further by almost arching my back and it's that I think that made the difference in helping me get my hips up, quite way to go on this but I think I might be on to something.