Been getting into 5a recently, looking for some inspiration.
Curious to hear some of your favourite 5a freestyles/players!
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Theo always brings the heat! Check out @yoyoingbender on Instagram. He posts absolutely ridiculous tricks on the reg.
Also @JeiCheetah is a legend around these parts and has a great 5A tutorial series. Tyler Severance, Jake Bullock, and John Wolfe to name a few other favorites… @Beverchakus and @mable are always posting some bangers on the forums.
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Good lord - how does one acquire this skill
Lol but for real tho
Imma add to this thread when the ante 5a performances are finished getting uploaded.
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This is an old freestyle and he doesn’t hit every trick. But one of my all time favs. Slower style with really unique elements. Dana was so awesome.
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This is the one.
Yes Takeshi has an insane technical mastery of 5a that has lead him to numerous world titles. But he has almost zero stage presence and music choreography.
And that’s fine, he doesn’t have to care. He’s just that good.
But Jake Elliot dethroned Takeshi in 2015 with a freestyle that REALLY leaned into everything Takeshi didn’t. Music use, charisma, choreography…
This guy made a really compelling performance.
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IMO, Jake Elliot’s freestyle from the next year is even better. I don’t know what it is ( probably the magic knot trick) but this is my favorite 5a freestyle
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Give that man a cookie, for he has spoken then truth!
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Trying to pick a favorite is too hard for me. So many players I really like and take a lot of inspiration from have old freestyles that are super fun to watch, but I feel like it’d be a little disingenuous to say any of them are my favorites. The older stuff tends to have less choreography, more missed tricks, and less overall control. But they more than make up for it by it feeling like almost every player has such a distinct style with super unique tricks. A lot of more modern stuff is for sure higher in quality, but it’s a lot more homogenous and feels more like a display of raw skill than a showcase of unique styles and vastly different tricksets.
For anybody who wants to see some great 5A freestyles: Samm Scott, Kazuma Miyakawa, Daigo Komiya, David Mellons, and Jonathan Robinson are some of my favorite players to watch. I’ve also been interested in some of Ryota Torigoe’s stuff lately.
For fully modern stuff Shigehiro Yamada and Hideo Ishida both have some of my favorite tricks and presentation.
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These two:
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Very tough for me to choose just a few cause so many inspired me through my 5A career!
I think it’s important for me to share the one that actually inspired me to seriously take up 5A though which is this freestyle I saw from Nationals 2005. Young me had a few fundamental 5a tricks but this to me was something that made the style look so fun and free that I had to take it more seriously. Jack Ringca is largely the reason I do 5a today and it’s really thanks to this freestyle.
Further into my 5A life as I was building more of my freestyle tricks, this particular player was a very big inspiration to me. I really liked the fluidity and presentation of Ju Ziliangs style and tricks and I ended up taking many elements and inspiration from him after first seeing him that year at AP
Finally, it’s worth sharing what I consider to be my favorite modern 5a freestyles of all time from the GOAT Takuma Inoue. Not as popular as his worlds wins, but I really loved this freestyle. I got to see it live streamed and I was shocked in silence the whole time over how good it was. I still hold this freestyle in a very high regard.
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