Tricknics

What's a tricknic?

A tricknic is a grass tricking session with a special atmosphere, sharing many of the same characteristics associated with gathering tricking sessions and picnics, such as:

• Preparation and anticipation


• Other fun things happening


• Exciting and rare

Why tricknics?

Let's use a cooking analogy: you will remember a meal that took three hours to cook but you won't remember the bland bowl of cereal you had for breakfast that same morning. The more you cook special meals the better your cooking becomes. You will remember your tricknics more than your ordinary tricking sessions, and the more tricknics you have the better your tricking becomes.

A recipe for a tricknic

1. Check your weather forecast. Hopefully it looks like this:

Three days before the tricknic:

2. Continue daily training, but reduce volume and intensity of your training 3 days ahead.


3. Have 2-3 consecutive nights of high quality sleep. Sunday might be the best day for a tricknic for most people, since you probably had two days to sleep in.


4. Stop using stimulants at least 3 days ahead of time to upregulate your cellular receptors.


5. If you'll be listening to music during the tricknic, don't listen to music 3 days ahead of time.

Bragging rights: The entire month of February 2010 I did not listen to any music at all, just to see if I could do it. You know how strong the difference when listening to music with both earbuds instead of just one is, right? Well, the first listening experience after my music abstinence was like I had a third ear that I was never putting an earbud into! Try it, don't listen to music for a few days before your super tricking session, it'll psyche you up even more!

6. Plan on filming a video of the session by creating a list of things to film, try, and do.

7. Brood over it: The place, the tricks, the angles, the movements, the event, the weather.

Putting our psychic resources at stake ahead of time encourages us to pay sharp attention to our senses during the tricknic, because in retrospect we won't want to have squandered that time spent in preparation.

The day before the tricknic:

8. Charge your camera and clear space for memory (rewind your tapes if you're oldschool cool).


9. If you'll be listening to music: charge your music player and load/pin some fresh songs onto it (or burn some discs if you're oldschool cool).

A few hours before the tricknic:

10. Pack food!

I recommend tricking a long time during the tricknic. Which is difficult to do when you're hungry, so pack food! Real food, not fake food. Besides, picnics involve food. So shouldn't a tricknic?

11. Watch some inspiring tricking videos before heading out.
    (With a phone, tablet or laptop PC you could watch tricking videos while you trick too.)


12. Get your stuff together.


13. Prepare to battle the elements.

If it's hot outside take a cooler with ice water with you. Try dunking your shirt in it. You could also try drinking your shirt. Drinking your shirt will do a lot to keep you cool out in really hot weather. If it's cold outside, bundle up and rub a large, baked potato that was kept hot in tin foil wrapping all over your face once you arrive at the tricking site. Rub it all over your face until your eyebrows are filled with slightly shiny potato remnants. If it starts to rain on your parade be prepared with trash bags to throw away all your stuff. Because rain will ruin your tricking gear and you'll just want to throw it away afterward.

At the tricknic:

14. Upon arrival dump your stuff all over the place.

15. Set your camera up for the best angle before you begin tricking.

I'm very meticulous about this. The sun changes the way you look based on time of day and direction. I have records of "best angles" by date and sun location. I use a compass to match those positions. I sometimes even plan the location I'm going to trick at based on what angle is best, where the sun will be, and what could be in the background. These details can make a big difference when you are working on a video project and want the best footage possible. I also like filming low, aiming at the crotch. The crotch is the focal point of most tricks. The crotch matters.

16. Do a complete warmup.


17. TRICK!!!

Tricknic strategy

Have other reasons for going out:

The tricknic shares many of the special characteristics associated with a tricking gathering. And we don't have gatherings just for the tricks: it's also a time to bond with other tricksters and learn and enjoy ourselves. So we shouldn't have tricknics just for the tricks! For example, when I go out for a tricknic I also go out to get out of my house and enjoy the weather, stretch, enjoy a meal outdoors, explore things, etc. I always take my notebooks in case I want to write an idea down, and I may go for a walk after I finish tricking. A few years ago I started foraging. So sometimes when I'm finished tricking, I wander around the perimeter of my favorite tricking places gathering foliage that's been tainted with municipal herbicide.

Having other reasons to do the tricknic is important, because if your tricks end up sucking badly, you might question why you even bothered going through all the trouble in the first place. Sometimes you just feel like crap. Or you're full of crap and couldn't get it out. Expect this, so counter it by having other reasons for doing the tricknic and making good use of glycerin suppositories. You can add Luse glycerin suppositoryL to the A few hours before the tricknic: list above.

Secret tip: Your chances of having a damn good tricking session today are greatly increased if you had an awful one yesterday. So if your tricks suck at the Tricknic this afternoon, have another one tomorrow!!!

Have tricknics both regularly and rarely.

The only problem with tricknics is that once you start having them, you won't want to trick any other way. And the more tricknics we have, the more difficult it can be to enjoy a simple session. So you can either push the envelope by putting more effort into making better and better tricknics, or moderate them by continuing to include simplistic, spartan training sessions in the mix.

Thematize the session:

Here are some example tricknics from my history with a theme,

Yielding Corridor (2003): After school I got Jujimufu written on my back, took a ton of Guarana and went to the Marina to trick and play with ducks. Click here to watch it on youtube.

AntoinfinA (2004): Pure refleshment! Before Antoine Vaillant became a bodybuilding god, he was hip with tricknics too. Click here to watch it on youtube. And if you don't know who Antoine Vaillant is, check out his website.

Viking gathering (2009): We had so much food we had to carry it in big, black garbage bags. We had viking death metal, war paint, weapons; and we spent hours during each tricknic doing interesting things like chopping wood, climbing hills, and doing flips off cliffs and into lakes. We had five tricknics during this gathering to catch the necessary footage. Click here to watch the culmination of these tricknic sessions on youtube. And check out all the Viking spoof videos too. For even more, visit my friend's site, Storm Tricks

NSIV (2011): For the tricking footage in the NSIV, Antoine and I went to my local Marina and tricked for 3 hours in nuclear weather. We played it like an oldschool video game: Advancing area to area by tricking 20-30 minutes in one spot, beating the boss of that level, and moving to the next spot. Dragging our cargo load of shit along with us. Click here to watch it on youtube

About Tricknics

Tricknics are all about enthusiasm, celebration, appreciation, and other miscellaneous metaphysicalities. They're about focusing on finding ways to have a better time tricking, instead of only focusing on finding ways to get better at tricking. They're about cultivating your own personal tricking culture by pouring who you are into your tricking sessions.

Someone might object that I'm making tricking into something it's not by adding all this extraneous stuff. To that, I might say, that every single one of us tricksters has always made tricking into something it's "not" or accepted some other trickster's "not". It's just a matter of whether or not you're making it into a better "not" than your previous "not", or making it into a better "not" than someone else's "not". Tricknics are precisely one way I've found to do just that.