Last night I had a shred session for the first time in a long time. I practice 5 times a week for about an hour each time. My practices have been entirely drills, and mostly single trick drills, or 2 trick combos.
I'm much better at many things now that I've ever been, but last night was the worst shred I've had since I was a complete noob. When I had a shred session about 2 months ago, the same thing happened.
So, I concluded that the muscle memory and psyhological mindset required for shred is not even close to the same as drills. In other words, drills are useful tools, but you need to practice shredding too else your creativity and ability to link is forgotten.
I figure, I should spend at least 1/2 of my practices shredding and the other 1/2 working on drills for things that don't go well in the shred etc.
What do you think the right mix is? Or am I just crazy?
the right mix of shred and drills
well I have never been fond of drilling, so I don't drill nearly as much as I play for fun, so I haven't encountered your problem.I do think you are right though, that if you only drill, you will have trouble thinking in terms of links midrun.
I don't know if you already do it, but if you are having a drill session, after every successful drill, you can just keep shredding till you drop. I'm sure you've noticed that this is common even in circle shred. Someone will hit a hard drill at the beginning of the run, and then continue. That should give you a good balance of shred and drills.
Another thing that could help, even though it is not the same as just shredding, is practicing routines. It gets you in the mindset of playing to the music, and a good routine should have creative links. This would probably be the most helpful if you don't plan it out ahead of time.
My last suggestion: when you are drilling, try to think of drills that are hard to wrap your mind around and don't feel natural. A lot of times when I try drills like this, I'll stop mid drill because I simply couldn't get my legs to move the right way. An example would be things like pickup>fairy set, which isn't a hard link at all, but I find if I don't think about it, I just end up doing a pixie instead. These kinds of drills should help you focus and hopefully it would carry over into your shred.
Hope you found that helpful, Bob.
I don't know if you already do it, but if you are having a drill session, after every successful drill, you can just keep shredding till you drop. I'm sure you've noticed that this is common even in circle shred. Someone will hit a hard drill at the beginning of the run, and then continue. That should give you a good balance of shred and drills.
Another thing that could help, even though it is not the same as just shredding, is practicing routines. It gets you in the mindset of playing to the music, and a good routine should have creative links. This would probably be the most helpful if you don't plan it out ahead of time.
My last suggestion: when you are drilling, try to think of drills that are hard to wrap your mind around and don't feel natural. A lot of times when I try drills like this, I'll stop mid drill because I simply couldn't get my legs to move the right way. An example would be things like pickup>fairy set, which isn't a hard link at all, but I find if I don't think about it, I just end up doing a pixie instead. These kinds of drills should help you focus and hopefully it would carry over into your shred.
Hope you found that helpful, Bob.
I have the same problem. I always play solo, it's so hard to freestyle shred because you get tired and frustrated very quickly. Then I feel like shit when I'm supposed to freestyle. I wish I had a solution. It's hard to force yourself to come up with stuff as you're doing the run when you're not in a circle, where you get influences and ideas from other players.
I agree practically word for word with the original post.
I've been drilling a bunch lately, which I think is justified since I'm coming back from over three years off. But things are starting to gel, drill wise, and it's time for me to put serious time into doing real strings. Creative stuff. Every session.
I've decided that I'm going to use my Sunday sessions to measure this progress. Twenty minutes of warmup / drills, then shred until I die, on tape. I'll post my best string each time to keep myself accountable.
I've been drilling a bunch lately, which I think is justified since I'm coming back from over three years off. But things are starting to gel, drill wise, and it's time for me to put serious time into doing real strings. Creative stuff. Every session.
I've decided that I'm going to use my Sunday sessions to measure this progress. Twenty minutes of warmup / drills, then shred until I die, on tape. I'll post my best string each time to keep myself accountable.
Colin Kennedy
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Basically, what I have started to do for the last couple weeks, is drill for half the time, and then string for half the time. Stringing is slightly difficult, because as mentioned you are alone and it is hard to come up with alot of creativity. What I do, is take the drills I have been working on and make them the first part of my string, and then just do simple bops/whatever until I think of something nifty to do.
I find trying to say "Do 20 guiltless" is rather ineffective. I don't think that making stringing a drill is a good idea, because you become so focused on getting the 20-whatever contacts that you become repetitive.
You'll surprise yourself how effective drilling seems to become once you start practising strings, even though you drill LESS than before, using them in strings makes you consistant enough to hit stuff that was, impossible 2 weeks ago, stringable...
Ramble...
I find trying to say "Do 20 guiltless" is rather ineffective. I don't think that making stringing a drill is a good idea, because you become so focused on getting the 20-whatever contacts that you become repetitive.
You'll surprise yourself how effective drilling seems to become once you start practising strings, even though you drill LESS than before, using them in strings makes you consistant enough to hit stuff that was, impossible 2 weeks ago, stringable...
Ramble...
Jay Boychuk
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I treat strings as a drill when I have solo sessions. Usually I drill length, but often I will also drill particular concepts I want to be able to use in strings with more confidence. Sometimes my combos become repetitive, but I get around this by practising different "modes". A mode is a base pattern which incorperates a certain concept or type of trick. To increase variety in runs I switch between modes midstring (sometimes very frequently!). Here are my primary modes:
tiltless
pixie/atomic shuffle
toe ducking/spinning
clip ducking/spinning
bops
clipper shuffle
tiltless
pixie/atomic shuffle
toe ducking/spinning
clip ducking/spinning
bops
clipper shuffle
Rory "Tophat" Dawson
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"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
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"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
I think you really need to define "drill" to be able to answer the question. If by "drill" you mean both sided repeating combos, or repetition of the one move over and over, then I think that should be a small complement of your training regime. If you mean "drill" in the conventional non footbag definition of the word, ie. repetitious training, then I think it should make up the majority of your training.
What you really need to do, is to go into training sessions with a goal, and do drills that relate to that goal. Make the goal what you actually want to achieve. If you want to achieve "good long shred runs, with good variety" then that's what you should be practising; that would be a fine drill. Then you need to be trying to hit runs that work towards that goal. For example you might drill the combo; blur>pigbeater>paradon>vortex>blender. With enough practice you'll end up being able to hit it easily mid run. You might just try hitting long runs with as many whirl based moves as possible in them - but unlinked or linked - so something like blurry whirl>osis>butterfly>stepping whirl>blur>pixie whirl>ps whirl>osis>whirl>symp whirl>osis>drifter>pdx whirl etc. I'd call all those things drilling, and I'd also say that they are things that would improve your shred.
I think to make the most of your training sessions you have to have a direction of what you want to improve on, and to work specifically on whatever it is you want to work on. I also think you need to spend a lot of time on that goal to have an effect, which means a lot of repetition, and I'd call that drilling.
I think the idea that seems to be being put forward in this topic, that you can either do repetitious both sided repeating combos, or just completely make stuff up on the spot is a fallacy. Do neither, train for what you want to be able to do.
What you really need to do, is to go into training sessions with a goal, and do drills that relate to that goal. Make the goal what you actually want to achieve. If you want to achieve "good long shred runs, with good variety" then that's what you should be practising; that would be a fine drill. Then you need to be trying to hit runs that work towards that goal. For example you might drill the combo; blur>pigbeater>paradon>vortex>blender. With enough practice you'll end up being able to hit it easily mid run. You might just try hitting long runs with as many whirl based moves as possible in them - but unlinked or linked - so something like blurry whirl>osis>butterfly>stepping whirl>blur>pixie whirl>ps whirl>osis>whirl>symp whirl>osis>drifter>pdx whirl etc. I'd call all those things drilling, and I'd also say that they are things that would improve your shred.
I think to make the most of your training sessions you have to have a direction of what you want to improve on, and to work specifically on whatever it is you want to work on. I also think you need to spend a lot of time on that goal to have an effect, which means a lot of repetition, and I'd call that drilling.
I think the idea that seems to be being put forward in this topic, that you can either do repetitious both sided repeating combos, or just completely make stuff up on the spot is a fallacy. Do neither, train for what you want to be able to do.
Hey Jeremy,
Well stated, I think what you just wrote is the conclusion I have been coming to.
What I was doing before was practicing single tricks in order to improve form (and my form was totally effed, so I think it was a good exercise at the time). I did limited linking with that (e.g. pixie butterfly > whirl > pdx mirage.. where whirl is the single trick I was working on) to make it a little more realistic.
What I'm doing now, is I have a list of the tricks that I want to get better at, and I'll do portions of my session trying to incorporate one or more of those tricks into strings, with the goal being to then have a nice long string around that trick. I tend to be a bsos guy right now (which I usually hate.. boring to watch in my opinion, but great way to build consistency). The "drill" part of it comes in that when I miss a particular combo leading up to, or trailing away from the "goal trick", I'll stop and hit that link a few times before I switch up.
Then, once a week or so, I work on form on single tricks again because that's still not where it needs to be.
Well stated, I think what you just wrote is the conclusion I have been coming to.
What I was doing before was practicing single tricks in order to improve form (and my form was totally effed, so I think it was a good exercise at the time). I did limited linking with that (e.g. pixie butterfly > whirl > pdx mirage.. where whirl is the single trick I was working on) to make it a little more realistic.
What I'm doing now, is I have a list of the tricks that I want to get better at, and I'll do portions of my session trying to incorporate one or more of those tricks into strings, with the goal being to then have a nice long string around that trick. I tend to be a bsos guy right now (which I usually hate.. boring to watch in my opinion, but great way to build consistency). The "drill" part of it comes in that when I miss a particular combo leading up to, or trailing away from the "goal trick", I'll stop and hit that link a few times before I switch up.
Then, once a week or so, I work on form on single tricks again because that's still not where it needs to be.
Bob R.