Beginning Tricking Guide
My philosophy when learning new skills is “learn it right the first time”. It’s really tempting to rush for bigger and bigger skills right away but the better your foundation is, the higher you can go in the long run, so just enjoy the process wherever you’re at!
The way this program works is it is split into 12 weeks. Each week will have 3 days with main sessions with the remaining days containing supplemental training and maintaining skills. You can follow the days laid out, or pick 3 days that work best for you, but I would recommend spacing the main sessions a day apart. Each main session will last about an hour to 1 hour and a half depending on how much time is spent on each combo.
The first week will have 4 different tricking combos that can be built upon and upgraded in following weeks.The first week contains very basic tricks so if you can already do them with good form feel free to skip it and move to a more challenging week.
Focus skills: These skills are any new skills that are added to a combo, or key elements of the combo that usually take extra practice, even if you have done them before.
Warm up: For a warm up it is important to get your heart rate up, and put your muscles and joints through some of the movements that you will be practicing. You can follow the warm up video or do your own, but it is important to do something. With a proper warm up you are a lot less likely to be injured and you will also increase your energy and performance for the actual skills.
Combos:
- When training combos practice each skill individually first. Once you can do a skill 3 times in a row, then it can be added to the combo.
- Start in slow motion, then slowly speed up the skills and connect movements between the skills.
- Practice different parts of the combo individually. Each combo is made of 4 main skills to begin with, so practice connecting skill 1 and 2, then just 2 and 3, then 3 and 4.
- Aim to spend at around 15 min on each combo drilling skills individually and all together. Usually it is best to only focus on one combo at a time, but sometimes it can be helpful to switch to different skills or combos if you are getting stuck on something, and then come back to it later.
Conditioning: On days when there is not a main session there is a conditioning session. These sessions will help build up specific areas of strength and endurance to level up the combos. If you have a trampoline available these are also great days to work on tramp skills.
Overcoming Fear: (video) The fear of doing flips can be a major obstacle in flipping progression. But your body is just trying to keep you from dying and you can’t blame it for that. To overcome this there are 3 main techniques.
- Progressions
- Visualization
- Bails
Progressions:
To convince your body and mind that you won’t spontaneously explode when trying a new trick, you have to take movements that you are already comfortable with and then slowly turn those into a new trick pushing the boundaries a little each time. The more progression steps you do, the less scary the trick becomes because your body knows what to do.
If you get stuck at any point, you can always go back to the first progression and work your way back up. You can repeat this as many times as you need.
Visualization:
Your mind can’t tell the difference between remembering doing a trick, and visualizIng it for the first time. You can use this to your advantage. By going over the trick in slow motion in your mind you can effectively practice something really scary with no risk of injury.
The more detailed your visualization can be the better. You should be able to break the flip down to different key parts in your mind and feel what it would feel like in reality to throw your arms or lift your chest or push all the way through your toes.
Practicing the different shapes of the trick can be helpful for this, as well as watching videos of people who do it really well and looking at their body position in each part of the trick then thinking about yourself doing the same thing.
Bails:
Being able to bail out of any trick is a huge confidence booster. If you know you can save yourself, even in a worst case scenario then you can send it with confidence.
Your body is really good at moving. …….
Week 1:
Focus Skills:
- Round kick
- Hook kick
- Pop 180/360
- Outside crescent kick
- Scoot
- Blaster scoot
- Cartwheel
- Cart hyper
- Macaco
Combo 1: Round kick, Hook kick, Scoot, Pop 180 Outside crescent kick
Combo 2: Round kick, Hook kick, Cartwheel, Pop 360
Combo 3: Blaster scoot, Pop 180 round kick, Hook kick, Cart hyper
Combo 4: Round kick, Hook kick, Scoot, Macaco
Monday (main session)
- Warm up (15 min)
- Combo 1 (15 min)
- Combo 2 (15 min)
- Combo 3 (15 min)
- Combo 4 (15 min)
- Cool down/ Recap (10 min)
Tuesday (conditioning session)
- Warm up
- Handstand training
- Cool down
Wednesday (main session)
- Warm up (15 min)
- Combo 1 (15 min)
- Combo 2 (15 min)
- Combo 3 (15 min)
- Combo 4 (15 min)
- Cool down/ Recap (10 min
Thursday (conditioning session)
- Warm up
- Jump training
- Cool down
Friday (main session)
- Warm up (15 min)
- Combo 1 (15 min)
- Combo 2 (15 min)
- Combo 3 (15 min)
- Combo 4 (15 min)
- Cool down/ Recap (10 min
Saturday (conditioning session)
- Warm up
- Core training
- Cool down
Week 2:
Focus Skills:
- Tornado Kick
- Switch hook
- Pop 540
- Pop 360 round
- Master Scoot
- Aerial
- Back Handspring
- Valdez
Combo 1: Tornado kick, Hook, Masterscoot, Pop 360 outside crescent
Combo 2: Round, Switch hook, Cartwheel, Pop 540
Combo 3: Blaster scoot, Pop 360 round, Hook, Aerial
Combo 4: Tornado Kick, Hook, Scoot, Back Handspring/ Valdez
Monday (main session)
- Warm up (15 min)
- Combo 1 (15 min)
- Combo 2 (15 min)
- Combo 3 (15 min)
- Combo 4 (15 min)
- Cool down/ Recap (10 min)
Tuesday (conditioning session)
- Warm up
- Handstand training
- Cool down
Wednesday (main session)
- Warm up (15 min)
- Combo 1 (15 min)
- Combo 2 (15 min)
- Combo 3 (15 min)
- Combo 4 (15 min)
- Cool down/ Recap (10 min
Thursday (conditioning session)
- Warm up
- Jump training
- Cool down
Friday (main session)
- Warm up (15 min)
- Combo 1 (15 min)
- Combo 2 (15 min)
- Combo 3 (15 min)
- Combo 4 (15 min)
- Cool down/ Recap (10 min
Saturday (conditioning session)
- Warm up
- Core training
- Cool down
Week 3:
Focus Skills:
- Diveroll
- Butterfly kick
- Parafuso
- Illusion twist
- Cheat 540
- Gainer flash (modified)
- Backflip/ Flash kick
Combo 1: Cheat 540 kick, Hook, Masterscoot, Modified gainer flash
Combo 2: Parafuso, Punch 180 round, Hook, Cartwheel, Punch diveroll
Combo 3: Butterfly kick, Pivot Tornado, Hook, Illusion twist
Combo 4: Tornado Kick, Hook, Scoot, Pop Backflip/ Flash kick
Monday (main session)
- Warm up (15 min)
- Combo 1 (15 min)
- Combo 2 (15 min)
- Combo 3 (15 min)
- Combo 4 (15 min)
- Cool down/ Recap (10 min)
Tuesday (conditioning session)
- Warm up
- Handstand training
- Cool down
Wednesday (main session)
- Warm up (15 min)
- Combo 1 (15 min)
- Combo 2 (15 min)
- Combo 3 (15 min)
- Combo 4 (15 min)
- Cool down/ Recap (10 min
Thursday (conditioning session)
- Warm up
- Jump training
- Cool down
Friday (main session)
- Warm up (15 min)
- Combo 1 (15 min)
- Combo 2 (15 min)
- Combo 3 (15 min)
- Combo 4 (15 min)
- Cool down/ Recap (10 min
Saturday (conditioning session)
- Warm up
- Core training
- Cool down