Practice Methods - Get better the fastest

[FootbagginBum]

What do you guys feel is the best method of practice? Not for fun or enjoyment like shred circles bring, but what really improves your game? What do you do when you kick alone?

Drills and endless repition of a move seem to dial certain things in really well.

Routines, (I'm talking tough ones at your level, not the way the finals at big comp's are tuned down for presentation, this is just correagraphed shred what I'm talking about) give you better ability to shred for long periods of time, but can leave you in ruts and take a lot of work for the result.

Endless shred seems to build your creativity, work the most things, and build the most muscle, but may not get very far?


I plan to use the concensus I get here for my own typical practice and to press it upon all the newbies I train.

I know the final answer will say you need all of these, but I'm talking about the big one that helps the most.

[NotHisRealName]

Not that I'm advanced (not that I'm above Novice status), but I think repetition is the key. It's like learning to play an insturment (not that I can do that, either). But like they say...
Practice, practice, practice.
I have taken to drilling all the basics again, so as to not get sloppy and rush to trying for bigger tricks. This I do when I'm alone, practicing. However, at a session or club meet, I usually warm up with small drills, before just freestyling.

[FootbagginBum]

Yeah, I'm just talking about practice at home, or with one other person, not shred time, we all need that in addition.

[calex]

Personally, I just drill over and over. I even drill the tricks I feel I have down pretty well, just to make sure they are smooth and automatic. Some find this boring, but I find the satisfaction of hitting tricks smoothly and consistently to more than make up for it.

[ToeGuiltless]

take one move, or set. practice it for 1 min, take 2 mins off. repeat until you are satisfied.

[Muffinman]

when i feel my runs are dumb and i want to work on length i just shred shred shred. but if i want to improve anything but run length i will just skool a move or combo over and over and over.

[FootbagginBum]

I like that time based approach Pinkus, I always used #'s, like doing a trick 15 times, time is much better, much less fatigue, I'm going to that approach when I do my schooling tonight.

[jonzy]

I think derek vandall would be a good person to ask that question. At shred zero last year he told me he had only been playing for like a year and a half or somethin . And i remember seeing this vid(erik maybe you still have it somewhere) of derek when he had only been playing for like a year or something, actually i just found it, sooooo sick, derek hits like pixie ducking whirl, pdx atom smasher>pixie ducking butterfly, and a ton of other sick stuff. But anyways, i think derek should share his wisdom with the rest of us

[RRendsvig]

What I do is I try to push the bar too high.
When I wanted to learn barfly I skooled blurriest, again and again and now I have a steady barfly.

Right now I want to learn pdx whirl so I practice Blurry Whirl.

Then hitting a move gives double pleasure: You hit a great move a couble of times and at the same time you learn to hit a more basic move midrun.

It worked great with osis ass-well. I was actually skooling Dyno (back when I had just learned clipper-delay) and I never hit it and I tried and tried and then I had suddenly myu osises dialed!

[FootbagginBum]

Wow, thats perfect for me because barfly and pdx whirl are the two tricks I'm trying to encorporate and I've hit Blurry whirl twice and blurriest 10 times.

[Juana]

the nagging voice of a former soccer coach chimes in:
"Remember: Practice doesn't make perfect, but PERFECT practice makes perfect!"

It's more important to make your attempts count...consciously make an effort to have good form, set in the correct place, timing, spotting, breathing, etc. All things considered, a handful of good quality attempts is better than skooling a trick to death with bad habits. Besides, you don't want to over-skool a new trick the wrong way and then have to relearn it which takes even LONGER!! trust me-I just finished relearning a few sets and it took forever because I had been practicing them the wrong way for so long!!

[Tha Big D]

I don't know if you want to take my advice, but here it is (since Jon asked for it) :

When I started I think that being around and shredding with people that are alot better than you (in my case, Erik and Mark) really helps alot because they can introduce you to moves or give you ideas of how to do moves or even show you how to do a move.
When I wasn't shredding with Erik or Mark, I was at home in my basement watching shred vids while shredding. I think this is mostly what helped me... I never really schooled one move like mad unless I just wanted to hit the move. Anyway, when I watched the vids, I would see someone hit something cool and figured, "Hey! I might be able to do that." So I didn't really have this huge complex structure to schooling... I just tried to have fun...

Sry if your dissapointed, but having fun worked for me...
If your actually looking for advice... first of all I wouldn't ask me. But my opinion is to watch other people. And practice for hours each day of course.

[NotHisRealName]

YES! That's a good point.
Being around more advanced shreaders is definatly a huge advantage. That's the only way you can get feedback on the things you're doing wrong.

I'm actually concidering doing my second year of a science degree over in America, just for the footbagging experience that's over there.
I plan to suck some knowlege out of your US brains, and come home with some skills that'll make the MFC jellous.

[jonzy]

I think derek has some good points. Shredding as much as you can and getting as involved as you can really helps(watching shred vids lots, shredding with lots of better players etc). I know that after i go to a tourny or jam i get totally stoked and start practicing alot more, and watching like 2 shred vids a day, and i can really notice that i progress faster.

[FootbagginBum]

K, first of all, I don't have anyone better to look at aside from competitions, hence my signature.

Second, I don't have any problems with sets (except surging and compound sets like sailing, but I'm not ready to start work on either of those) so I won't have to relearn anything big, and my form is usually good even if I can't hit the trick.

3rd. I'm not just an avid player and a forum geek, I am completley obsessed with the sport and play about 4 hours a day, and much more if its Thursday, Saturday, or if someone spends the night, and, I watch at least 25 minutes of video a day of various types (I have over a 2gb database [205 individual moves], all good form, so i watch different things each day) sooooo.... telling me to play a lot doesn't help, I'm asking if I play for 2.5 hours a day, alone, aside from shred at or after school, would drills, work on the same thing, or shred to music be the most effective? Just a generalization on what'll make your overall skill improve

PS: I just had the best shred session outside of worlds in my life, 3.5 hours, so tired I can't move, its great.

EDIT: there was no negative connotation meant in that, but reading it it sounds like I'm being a bit disrespectful to elders but it's not intended, I think its just because I'm tired and can't use my charisma powers...

[Matt]

i got totally unstoked after i went to the us open. This intermediate was talking to this girl about how freestyle wasnt fun anymore.

[Senor Grommet]

i think the best way to get good very quickly is to not only take the physical steps necessary to improve coordination, but also to have some sort of intelligent mental approach to the game of footbag.

ex1: I started to teach a friend how to footbag, from the basics of learning how to lower his leg to catch a toe stall to advanced stuff like hip turn (rotation) for an atomic set. He got sooo good soo fast. Then he hurt his knee. The important part of all of this was his approach to the game. Every time id ask him to try something new, he would first rehearse in his mind all of the components of the move, practice it in his head, then attempt the move without the bag 5 to 10 times. Then he'd pick up a bag and school it for about a minute. Hed usually hit the trick within 5 attempts or so, that is if the trick was in the realm of possibility for his skill level.
think having a good mental game is important: it gives you confidence; and actually, many scientific studied have shown that simply thinking about something, lets say a footbag move, activates the parts of your brain that are associated with the actual physical movements. Thus doing it in your head can be like practicing to acieve muscle memory.
Ex2: does not yet exist

thats about it,
grommet

[FootbagginBum]

very cool way to put it, I will definatly pass that last little message on to my newbies that always want to rush into trying the tricks and never even want to ghost bag (you know, without the bag, thats my term for it, cool hunh). I always practice move without the bag but don't usually analyze the move internally for more than 2 seconds. I, as a scientist who likes having a more step by step approach to the sport, will definately apply that to my game more often.

anyone else? pros? pros? pros help me? kenny?

[Noah Jay-Bonn]

I think you're doing everything right Footbagginbum. The real key to getting good fast is to put the hours of practice into it. If you're playing over 2 hours every day you're doing fine.

I also play by myself most of the time, so here's how I normally break up my practice time:
I start with a warm up-- kicking for about 2-5 minutes, toe and inside stalls for about 2-4 minutes, a bunch of wraps, then consecutive clippers on each side (5-10 then switch sides). After that I drill mirage> illusion> legover repeat for a few times through. Then I switch to butterflies, and do that until I do about 10-20. During this I also throw butterfly> pdx Mirage reapeat and ss butterflies. Then osis's. Then Butterfly> whirl repeat. Dynos and Blenders. Then drifters. Then Symp Mirage> Symp Pixie repeat. Somewhere in there I do ducking mirage> diving mirage repeat and ducking clipper> diving clipper repeat. Paradon>Barrage both sides. Dod and barflies. After all that I warm up my sets- consecutive taps, pixie set > pixie set, fairies, and then stepping. Then consecutive ripwalks followed by butterfly>blur repeat and butterfly> blizzard repeat. Then I do some double leg overs and torques and THEN I am good and warmed up and ready to play. This warm up takes me a little over half an hour or so. More than you ever wanted to know about my warm up

I then normally shred for a while-- but as you may know, shredding by yourself can get tiring very quickly, so I normally work on concepts in between a couple runs. Another thing that I find useful is to try and start my next run with the move that I dropped on in the previous run. So if I miss a torque at the end of my ruun I would start the next run with butterfly> torque and shred from there. This is a good way to get down the moves that are inconsistent in your runs. When I feel too tired to shred I work on concepts for a while. The biggest thing that helps me hit new moves is to check where the rest of my body is rather than just my feet (important parts are torso turn, head position, arms, and if I am over the bag or not) I find it much easier to hit new tricks if you're legs are good and warmed up, so normally I try to shred for a while then school concepts, then shred some more. I also try and do at least one 2 minute routine each time I play. This really helps build endurance, and if you have a routine made this will make it consistent.

The warm up stays pretty similar each day, but depending on what I want to achieve, the rest changes. For instance, I haven't been shredding nearly as much recently, but working on concepts much more instead, but I have new shoes now so I will not be working on concepts next time I play, but shredding hard and trying to break my shoes in right. Really it all comes down to what you want to learn-- if you hit long strings of only three or four moves you might want to work on learning new moves, but if you hit lots of moves, but only have runs three or four long, you might want to work on shredding a lot.
Hope this Helps,

Noah

PS Another thing: this game is all about determination-- if you want to hit something, work your ass off and don't tell yourself you can't. Be Positive![/b]

[FootbagginBum]

:applause: Theres a good answer folks.

So, according to that, which Iall put all the other stuff with, I'm doing everything right, but what I feel I'm lacking is a good warm up. I do small random warm ups of kicks toes and clippers, then start buttrflying into shred.

So, if I do that, I'll drill all of my small tricks on the way, and then be able to hit anything cause I've already done every kind of set and stall.

Thanks all. Keep any great ideas coming.