How to analyse your clips to unlock tricks
Every trick has a trick to it, a certain bit of information that you need to unlock to understand how to do it. But there are certain tricks that feel like no matter how much you battle them, no matter how many attempts you do, you just can't figure them out.
For these situations there's a tool that can be an absolute game changer to helping you figure out a trick you're stuck on. One that if you aren't holding it in your hand, you probably have in your pocket...
That tool is something pros are using in pretty much all sports - video anaylsis.
So I do online coaching for skaters where I guide them in building habits that help them skate and feel at their best. We work on things like training, mindset, recovery and nutrition and another part of the service is helping them figure out tricks through things like video analysis.
In the video below I show you how you can use this tool and how it helped one of the skaters I coach go from struggling to hardflip on flat, to doing them down gaps in a few weeks.
So as you saw in the video it took just one little technique change for Austin to figure out hardflips. He was close and could land on them with a decent amount of pop, but his weight distribution was holding him back from truly locking them in.
This is something he probably couldn't feel (if he wasn't aware of the problem) and something that was hard to see at normal speed. It took breaking down the video in slow motion to really see what was going on.
Could he have figured it out on his own? Yeh for sure, but he'd been battling this trick for a while already, so who knows how much longer it would have taken. In this situation the video analysis gave him a shortcut to figuring out the trick.
So if you're stuck on a trick, start filming yourself and analysing your attempts. If you don't know how to do this or want my help then you can check out the coaching service I'd highly recommend comparing yourself to pros or other skaters who have the trick you're learning dialled.
Why? Because these guys have really put in the time to figure out the most "optimal" technique, allowing you to compare what you're that's similar to them and what you're missing.
Now that doens't mean there's only one way to do tricks, many people have different techniques depending on things like their body size, mobility, style, etc. But there are many similarities and general rules for each trick that video breakdowns really help you see.
So start breaking your clips down and if you're not sure where to start or you want my help, check out the online skate coaching page to learn more.