LWC: How to train flipside.

[jay7]

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Topic conclusion from the Likewater forum:
"How to learn flipside?"

Discussion on how to learn flipside began with the lack of a concise, step by step explanation on the internet specifically focused on footbag. To become a great freestyler it is universally accepted that you must be well versed with your trick selection using both legs, and often the first tip a new player will receive is "train your flipside". However, it can often be hard to explain to the new player exactly how this is done, properly and efficiently. Most of the ideas present are obvious and logical, but seemingly nowhere have they been collected into one post.

Major points included within this discussion for beginner players were as follows.

1.) Learn everything, right from the beginning without a flipside. Then you wont have to waste as much time catching up to your strongside.

2.) Repetition is key. Make sure your goals count well executed attempts, rather than just sealed attempts. If you hit 5 strong, well executed clippers in a row, make sure that you hit just as many flipside, even if it takes more failed attempts. Hitting poor flipside clippers in this case and counting it as "sealed" will do you harm in the longrun.

There is however, the case that should be mentioned for well developed players. Lets say you are three years into the game, but you still have flipside components. Here are the main points discussing this situation.

1.) The human body isn't necessary built equally on both sides. Note that, many of the best players in our sport do not have 100% equal form on their tricks, but yet they are completely both sided. It is important however to attempt to get your form as close together as possible, to have the fastest learning experience on new tricks.

2.) Your flip / strongside can change over time. Doing the flipside in runs is a great way to start narrowing that gap once again.

3.) Analyze, analyze, analyze. In order to correct your flipside, you must analyze it until the point of understanding the fundamental problem. For example, if you have a flipside drifter, and you try and try to eliminate the flipsided aspect of it. You may not understand the problem at it's ground roots. For example, perhaps the problem is your mirage, or clipper? Fix those elements, and you may find your flipside will vanish.
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For both versed, and new players alike, you must analyze. A general summary on how to analyze why one side is easier, doesn't hurt, etc, and what might be helpful to think about is as follows.

1.) Do the strong side component a few times from a handcatch, as perfect as possible and really think about what happened. To really think about it, I think you have to consider a few main parts of your body.

Going from the top down..

a.) Posture, both in front of you AND at the side of you. This might not be as obvious with toe components. For example, do a toe stall right now and set for a pixie. Do you find that you watch the bag hit your foot the exact same way both sides? Do you find that you lean in one direction or another?

Posture doesn't just end at your shoulders, but posture ends at the muscle group on the outer-most part of your body, right under your ribs. For spinning, osis, and paradox tricks I find that stretching one side, and compressing the other side of your body can make a difference.

b.) Hip position. Note where your hips are in relation to your posture. "Opening" and "closing" your hips can help a great deal with efficiency.

c.) Knee position. Carefully note whether your knees got to the same height one both sides. Obviously toe tricks are affected by this, but some tricks like Torque as well.
You can also see if your knee's are cranked inwards, straight, or outwards. A good example is toe stalls. Some players catch the bag with their knee's cranked to the inside, so that your foot stalls the bag outside of your body. Some players catch it straight inline with their body, and some with their knees cranked outside, so you can see the bag under you.
Are your knee's parallel? For some tricks like whirl, it can be helpful to think of your knees ending up parallel to one-another, rather than being perpendicular or just far away from one another.

d.) Finally the feet. Consider crank, toe crank, and whether your feet are actually pointing in the same direction for each movement. For something like barrage, is your toe pointing down or up as you dex the bag? For whirl, do you dex the bag cranked, or uncranked?

2.) Once you notice exactly where you are with your strong side, try your flipside. Drop or no drop, did it feel as confident? Do your strong side again, and sometimes repeating the process of going from strong to flipside can trigger something you NEVER noticed before, and for moves ahead of you it is possible to shorten the time to learn flipside dramatically.

3.) Once you notice the differences, DRILL it into muscle memory. Sometimes you can have a marvelous session, where you can FINALLY do something flipside, and then the next session you simply "can't" get it again. To eliminate this from happening, try drilling the concept multiple times taking notes on what is happening, and then re-visiting the component 20 minutes later, and then ANOTHER 20 minutes after that you can't forget how you did it quite as easily. The next day, if you still forget, or are unhappy with the results try repeating the steps above and usually you can correct any mistakes from my strong->flipside in a fraction of the time.

The major participants in the discussion, impacting the outcome:
Aleksi Airinen
Anssi Sundberg
Jay Boychuk
Olaf Piwowar
Szymon Kalwak

Summarized by Jay Boychuk

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[Muffinman]

If you have a video camera, film yourself and you will gain better insight into and better ability to gauge differences between your "sides". If you film sessions you will also notice unconscious tendencies and patterns in the use of your good and flip sides, which is helpful in developing a bothsided mindset. Sometimes it is a lot easier to SEE what you are doing wrong if you can't feel it.

[Wasabi]

Very helpful topic, and a very good read. I'm going to follow these steps faithfully now that footbag season has come around my area.

[Eric Chang]

YOU COME TO MY FORUMS THREATENING MY LANDS AND MY QUEEN

THIS IS STANFORD.COOL!!!!! -kicks jay into a hole-

But on the other note, fun to read I suppose.