Now, it's true tricking has an unforgivably steep learning curve for beginners, so advice like this isn't always helpful, because people get discouraged and then give up. It can take months to learn any one trick whether you're experienced or not. In the past, this was the only reason any aspiring trickster would give up. But today, the modern novice trickster will give up not only because of this discouragement, but also because of distraction. For those outside looking in, trying to make sense of modern tricking is like trying to make sense of a cluttered desktop.
When I started tricking there were only about one dozen tricks. I'm actually serious! Getting into tricking was really easy back then because you could learn the names of every one of these tricks and know who was who in the tricking world in like half an hour. It's hard to believe, but this was what the tricking world was like back then. It was small. I mean, there was actually no such thing as a swing through! And corks were a rarity! Back then, new tricks were invented at the glacial rate of, oh, I don't know, a few per year? I want you to think about all of this for one moment, think about this pretty hard:
If you lived in the kind of tricking world I just described, how would you train?
Clear your desktop
I have a lot of respect for new tricksters these days, there are just too many tricks to learn. Too many styles and niches. It's a lot harder getting into tricking nowadays because of the sheer number of choices. Discouragement walks hand in hand with distraction now. My advice to anybody outside the tricking world looking in: pick just one, basic, popular trick and learn it. Don't pick some weird trick like a donut boy or a spyder. Pick a back flip or a 540 kick. Don't pick more than one trick. Because failing two tricks turns into failing three tricks turns into failing five tricks turns into failing twelve tricks. This doesn't mean just keep crashing it the same way: break it down into prerequisite movements and work on progression drills, but make sure they are all leading up to that one trick. Be very disciplined about all this. Because if you can't even do that one trick, you can't do any tricks. Diversify? No, don't do that, it won't work yet. Diversification doesn't work until you can do lots of tricks very well, at which point it's essential. But when you are just starting you need to get past that steep learning curve before you diversify. You'll get past that steep learning curve when you can actually do one trick well. Then another trick. Then another trick. You'll have fun and succeed with tricking not when you continue failing one hundred at a time, but when you begin owning one at a time. So clear your desktop. Get to work.
“Martial Arts TRICKZ” is in Arial. Tsk, tsk…
I think you could include learning as basic of tricks as you can to even the learning curve. Maybe start with basic gymnastics moves. Learn rolls and handstands, then cartwheels, then round-offs, aerials (but not Arial!), and so on. Then maybe a b-kick. Tricking’s way more fruitful if you learn that way, rather than starting off with a backflip.
I’m a skateboarder. I like to start my sessions with a few stationary tricks — ollies, 180s, shove-its. Then warm up to ollieing over things, half cabs, and pop shove-its. I do this every single session. Only after that do I go after new tricks. For me, it’s the frontside shove-it and the heelflip. I know the front shove is the next trick to land, but I play with a heelflip, too, just to get a taste.
I love reading about tricking and dabbling it it too, because so much of it applies to skateboarding.
It is very true that sometimes one of the reasons we don’t progress is because we try too many things at a time, but I don’t know if I would recommend to a complete beginner to just choose ONE random trick and train that until he lands it, because… well, sounds weird, but he could choose THE WRONG TRICK! And by that I mean a trick he may just not be ready for.
Personal experience: the first trick I ever wanted was the Aerial. It took me 3 years on and off to land it. (Yes, I’m quite ungifted, if you ask me) Had I based my tricking motivation solely on my capacity to learn THAT ONE trick I didn’t understand, I would have quit out of frustration. Luckily, within the other tricks I decided to try, I happened to land some within my capacity, and that gave me the motivation to keep up and eventually try again and land the first trick I wanted.
So, honestly, I have no idea what the solution to the problem could be. XD
“If tricking is not fun, then you’re doing it wrong I guess”
I’ll go out on a limb here and say that there’s nothing fun in trying to learn a musical instrument without being able to get a single note right. This whole idea we perpetrate that tricking HAS to be fun is quite naive to me. Tricking can be damn frustrating at times and we should aknowledge that. There’s nothing wrong, it’s perfectly normal.
Andrea, that definitely is true as I admitted before, but if you get too frustrated with yourself, you may find yourself demotivated to keep tricking.
Hahaha, it took me many months to get a backflip. Probably because I never gave myself a chance to recover. I tried it relentlessly. Fail after fail everyday. I should of only gone 3x a week. Oh well, I learned that I need to trick more for the fun of it rather than to die trying to get a new stupid trick. If tricking is not fun, then you’re doing it wrong I guess.