Not seeing the results you want?
Got a question from Blair M:
I’m new to freestyle and things just aren’t sticking with me. I go out and practice 360s, but the next day I don’t feel myself being any better than the day before. Is it going to get easier? Am I doing something wrong?
Hi Blair! Without seeing exactly what you’re doing, I can’t say exactly if you’re doing something wrong in your technique, but I can offer you some insight and advice to help you get to the stage when you’re landing your tricks every time.
Sticking point
What you’re after is what I call the ‘sticking point’. Every skillset has one. It’s that point when you realize that you can do it effortlessly, with your eyes closed. It’s when it’s become almost second nature to you.
You know those guys in the park that just fly through and string together back to back 360s, 540s and 720s? They’ve reached the sticking point for those tricks.
So how do you get to that point?
I’ve mentioned this in a previous blogs, but basically you have to keep practicing and keep going through this period of seeing no progress. I know, you feel like you aren’t making any progress now, but rest assured when I tell you that every single one of us went through this stage.
It’s like walking down a long tunnel without a light. You start at one end and you keep walking for a long time and it seems like you aren’t making progress, but eventually you will reach that light at the other side.
Why this happens is because you’re in that period where you’re building up your muscle memory and mental memory. Your body and mind are slowly getting used to doing a 360 and even if you don’t realise it, your body is trying to imprint the movements of a 360 into it’s memory.
While your body hasn’t memorised the movements yet, you’re going to fall… a lot. It takes time and many attempts for your body to learn each little movement in the trick.
For 360s in particular, you’ll slowly get more used to initiating spin. The great part about this is that after you’ve mastered basic spins, you can take the same technique and fine tune it to learn 540s, 720s and all sorts of other spins.
One more thing I’d also recommend is reading my blog on muscle memory, it will give you some simple tips to increase the speed that your body learns new techniques and movements.
Hope that helps!
– Jed