Author: Juji
Published: Summer 06
I feel it is critical to bring the material that follows in this write up to light. I'm writing this more for the experienced tricksters, as the people who have been tricking for less than three years will likely not be able to use this kind of assessment to its full advantage; Moreover, your best tricking gains will be seen in your first two to three years of tricking, this assessment will probably not be needed when you are riding that rush. However, I feel everyone already reading this without a level of experience exceeding those first years could still find an interest in what I convey here because it will teach you something very valuable, you will have to read on to find out what that is.
To say it succinctly, if you trick you should be both self-conscious of your skill aptitude as well as your progress, NO EXCEPTIONS. At some point in the game you will likely see changes in your level, both good and bad. One day you will plateau. You might realize that you are often looking back X months or years ago when you were at your all time best tricking form; Your peak performance lost. While the latter possibilities are certainly undesirable, they happen to the best of us. Self-assessment is the crucial factor in determining whether you can return to your peak or exceed it. Anyway, like I said, the longer you have been tricking the more you can get out of the self-assessment I'm going to present. For example, a couple of years ago this kind of assessment would not have served me as well as it does today because this is an experienced based assessment. Today I have been tricking for about six years now, and I realize that if I had put this to use one year ago it would not have been near as useful as it is today. This is mainly because the longer I've been tricking, I feel the more mistakes I began to make trying to find that edge, which lead me in so many different directions. Of course those mistakes just gave me more to learn from! I'm ultimately wiser than I was.
I have written, and rewritten the layout of this article more than once. I came to the decision to do this in a step based manner. These approaches are generally very user friendly, and by deviating one step from another: Better understanding and application will result.
Make a chart on a sheet of paper like the following two images. Don't be afraid, click the thumbnails!
Alternatively, you can do this on a huge poster board or something large to squeeze in several seasons and years. You can start from the very beginning, or you can just start during the time period when your level reached its first real benchmark that will always be comparable to your current level. When I first assessed myself in this manner, I excluded everything before Mablung. Mablung (Spring sampler 2004) was what I felt was my first real benchmark - that it would still be comparable to almost everything after it as long as I tricked. From there I divided it into the seasons that followed.
Answer a series of WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, HOW
questions *Excluding WHY*. Such as: who you were, how you trained,
how you ate, etc in each column for that respective time period. Avoid phrases
such as Too much and not enough
and any words deriving their meaning
from said phrases. Avoid simplistic glorifications or unjustly damning anything.
Example of unjustly damning something: If you noted that you had a TERRIBLE
WARMUP PROTOCOL, it would actually be more useful to instead describe said warm up
protocol rather than putting any good or bad connotation into that recollection.
Example of simplistic glorification: AWESOME B-TWISTS. Just... No... Instead
be more descriptive as to why it was awesome. Such as that your b-twists were
done with great stall and ease. In general, answer all these questions in an
objective manner! Now, I'll give you a list of questions you might want to ask
yourself. This list is not absolute, but it's fairly competent!
Ok! Now those are the kind of questions you need to ask yourself and answer in each column. Of course, additional information will probably be readily available based on recollection that will be unique to each column; Now after a thorough mapping of where you've come from and possibly where you are going, you need to do something with this objective data.
Ask WHY to each and every answer you provided for those questions. Let's say you have always been approaching the single, ultimate and broad goal of being the best you possibly could at tricking. Find the reasons you did what you were doing when approaching that goal. This step is very important, you must ask why! If we skip this step and go ahead and pass judgment as to how the answers to the questions at hand effected our progress, we will not have an objective frame of mind, that instead results in passing judgment based on emotion! When we tend to look back in time, we often get something called nostalgia... It can certainly be the enemy in self assessment. Nostalgia is a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to, or of, some past period or irrecoverable condition. If we are yearning for our past peak, we often look back with fond (or funny) feelings towards that period in our tricking (and life); Thus, the problem that arises from nostalgia in this context, is that we tend to disregard WHY we did some of these things.
So, if you don't ask why, you'll end up doing something stupid; Like trying to do everything you did before and become what you were in a desperate attempt to regain a past tricking peak by reliving the past. Just because I ate lots of chili for dinner during one of my best tricking peaks doesn't mean I should eat more chili dinners to get back to that last peak. Oh wait... Chili definitely tastes good. Yes. It must be the whole reason I was doing tricks I haven't been able to duplicate since. I must eat more chili because chili = awesome tricks. :|
Pass judgment! Ask yourself if it was conducive or destructive to your goal. Or was it both depending on the circumstances? Maybe it was neutral and really didn't play any role towards approaching the goal of ultimate tricking? Maybe you don't even know! Well, it's your job to find out. This is why reading and talking to others about tricking/training/nutrition etc is so important. KNOWLEDGE helps you pass stronger, more accurate judgments. This is all you have got, so get it while it's hot! (I just had to have a rhyme, sorry.)
Tie together any coincidences and come up with your own personal truths. I call them take home messages, because I can take them home and have my way with them. A more detailed explanation of coming to your conclusions will follow in a moment.
After charting out a series of questions and factoids, questioning each of these with WHY, passing individual judgments, and coming up with your own take home messages - You should now realize you have effectively mapped your next plan.
For exemplary purposes, I will show you how you can use this assessment following the five steps.
Another example starting with step 2:
Apart from the two examples above, which I feel are more of a fill-in-the-blank approach to this assessment, there is also an underlying thought process that usually takes place and shouldn't be overlooked. I will now share with you that self-reflective thought process that usually occurs near the end of the step process. As a bonus, you might just find something useful in my own take-home messages which could save you lots of trouble in the future.
I've always made great progress on plyo-dominant training. I feel I made a whole lot of progress in the Fall of 2004, and I was only tricking on plyometric flooring for four months. It translated well to the grass. But apart from that, I've noticed anytime I did get something on plyo, it often translated into grass gains or was close to translation.
My take home message: Plyometric flooring is not evil.
I've always tricked best at sub 175 pound body weights. So I thought... Until fall 05. The truth is I got back down to 169 from a bw of 185 in only two months after summer 05! That's a lot of weight loss fairly fast for someone as lean as me. From past experience, I thought bw was a major determinant of tricking ability. So I pretty much started eating ridiculously small portion sizes and upped my fasted cardio through the roof to drop pounds - but I did overlook something. This approach was lunacy! Deadlift is a good measure of total body strength. Well mine dropped from a one rep max of 475 to 405 in that time! So what happened? Well, I stopped eating, I did too much aerobic energy system work, and I stopped lifting. So... It was the leanest I've ever been, scary lean, but I was slow from the aerobic training and lack of lifting which sapped a great deal of my neuro-strength. In the end I re-examined my experiences, my all-time best tricking shape was at 174 pounds / but my deadlift was also around 475 at that time too and my vertical jump was the highest it ever was.
My take home message: Keeping your bw low is essential, but strength levels must be maintained for a drop to pronounce itself in improved tricking performance. READ: RELATIVE BODY WEIGHT STRENGTH IS KING.
Something related to the previous assessment example: Aerobic work. I noticed a pattern, finding that the times I was rollerblading a lot also were marked with more difficulty in tricking. I usually did the same loop, not because I felt it was conducive to my training, but because I love doing it. But... Sacrifices must be made...
My take home message: Damn cardiovascular work! I hung up my rollerblades. If I need active rest I get enough of that just walking around during the day.
I once tricked 18 days in a row. I'm not talking about little sessions
either, I forced myself to trick 18 days in a row, all standard 1 1/2 hour sessions
post warm up. I've also gone through periods where I was only tricking once
every 7-10 days. I made gains from both methods.
My take home message: Tricking frequency is of secondary importance to all of the other factors which play a role in your training. You're not getting anything useful from this message you say? Well I didn't get much use from the observation myself. While I know the difference based on personal experience what the little differences are between frequent and un-frequent tricking - they are largely insignificant in the face of all the other factors which constitute your level of ability. (In other words: It isn't what you should really be paying attention to, you'll probably figure this out yourself one day if you haven't already)
It was obvious. I noticed that when I went through periods with more dynamic stretching my tricking improved a lot, especially my kicks.
My take home message: *DUH!* Do dynamic stretching and lots of it!
This is a strange observation. But I noticed every time I wore my
black running shorts, in comparison to my blue ones (the blue ones are about
2 inches shorter and have a v-cut on the side) I trick worse. Overall I noticed
I trick better in certain clothes as opposed to others. It's not a sole factor
of restriction either, and I figured out why! Beyond restrictive clothing, there
is also an innate coolness factor, or harmless nostalgia that goes with certain
garbs.
My take home message: Tricking in something comfortable is essential, but if you don't think you LOOK COOL, then it's not the absolute choice. If you look and feel cool, you'll trick cool. Wear stuff you think is comfortable and looks cool while tricking for the best result. COOL!
I've flipped back and forth on the issue of macronutrient combos. PC and PF good, CF BAAAAD!!! If you've never heard anything about this kind of dietary manipulation you've been living under a rock. Ok, so I've done it both ways even after being exposed to this information. I've gone through psychotic periods of making sure I was never combining carbohydrates or fats. I've also said fuck it, and had decided it wasn't that big of a deal considering the foods I was eating were healthy. Yeah. Unfortunately I took a close look and confirmed that the times I was psychotic about it were usually marked with lower body weight and better tricking. That's unfortunate because it's easier to lax a bit. Alas!
My take home message: In my own case, extreme avoidance of combining carbs and fats into the same meals has worked best for me.
*Whew* OK, I mentioned that those without much experience will not find much use for this write up, because let's face it: It's obvious if you just started you won't have anything to back track on. But I did promise that there would be something for you, and it should be obvious as well: GOOD RECORD KEEPING IS INSANELY VALUABLE! If you journal these kind of changes and events, even if they are small scraps, it will give a point of comparison years from now; And let me tell you, YOU WILL FIND A USE FOR ALL OF IT!
Now, some of the things you've done and didn't do didn't need much thought. Some things you just know - but some things (like the above) are trial and error based patterns that give you a clue that needs application.
So now it's your turn. Based on your own personal observations, write down your own take home messages. It's just a bunch of bulleted points. Finally, doing this will not provide all the answers, but it will get you on the right track to the next level. What happens after you accumulate your take home messages? YOU NEED TO TAKE ACTION. That action, inevitably, will one day end up being another column on your self-assessment record. Maybe a few years from now you will look back at what you had planned today and realize based on experience and your records you could have done things better. At that time you will have improved and will continue improving. I must go eat chili now because it's obviously a key factor in tricking success.