How do you guys master tricks? I have two methods:
#1: I do the first part of the trick over and over again until I can do it 5 times in a row. After that, I drill the first and second part together (or sometimes just the second if you don’t need the first to set it up) 'till I hit it 5 times in a row, and so on. For example, with spirt bomb, I practiced hitting the wrist mount and dismounting, then wrist mount to the first pop, then once I got that, drilled the whole thing together 'till I could hit it 5 times in a row.
#2: I work on a series of tricks at once. I usually do 2 or 3 tricks and they get progressively harder or newer. That way I can work on the consistency of tricks I already know and learning new ones at the same time. By the time I’m really competent at the first trick in the series, I’ve gotten a pretty good feel for the next one, so I take that first trick out of the series and find a newer one to tack onto the end.
I’ll post summaries of other training strategies here so this thread can be used like a reference.
well personally, i:
• hop a plane to siberia.
• find a printed newsprint photo of the trick and i put it in the corner of my bathroom mirror. so i see it all the time (i look in the mirror A LOT - you would too).
• put all my friends and loved ones into a horse-cart and then lift it a bunch.
• do the trick over and over whilst doing situps on the edge of a table (and every time i lay back over the edge, my judo-friend judo-chops me in the gut).
• run in the snow with an enormous log. (begone, GUTTERMIND!!!)
• drive my lamborghini around in a rage and think about how the trick mercilessly killed my friend.
• grow a beard.
• listen to a TON of ‘survivor’.
• spontaneously tear the newsprint picture of the trick off of my mirror and crumple it up, stating (albeit metaphorically) my newly-realized dominance over it.
• run in the snow some more, and outrun the kgb agents assigned to ‘keep tabs’ on me. then climb a mountain and yell ‘_____’ into the arctic wind ('’ is meant to indicate the name of the trick.)
• i perform the trick in front of a hostile crowd full of the tricks friends and countrymen. although they chant the trick’s name at first, i perform it with such guts and gusto that by the end of the trick, they switch to chanting MY name, which infuriates mikhail gorbachev.
I ditch school and then move into the mountains to have a training montage. Yo-yo under the waterfall and come back in a few months all buff and have a black belt around my waist.
I probably shoulda’ mentioned that most of the time I just throw and have fun. It’s only when I see a trick I really like, or when I’m feeling really intense that I pull out the training strategies and do some real focused yoyoing for about an hour.
In any sport, skill, or art you drill things. Sure, the activity in itself, drilling, isn’t too exciting, but the progress you make is, and sometimes that’s exactly what you need. If any one of you doesn’t drill tricks occasionally, I can promise you that you’re missing out.
