Your Problem Could Be Mental
The Practice Session
M ake your tricks into a storyPractice the end and middle as well as the beginning
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Think of a trick as a story. Every story has to have a beginning, middle, and end. Or else it's going to end up being some post-modern crap. Same with your skating. If you want to just practice the beginning, the rest is going to be like some modern literature: unreadable.
It's good to practice from Z to M to A, from end to middle to beginning. It makes sense to do this, because the end is often the hardest part. Oddly enough the end by itself can actually be very easy to practice.
Another important concept is to realize that end usually lasts longer than the beginning. Especially with jumps. With jumps, it's over so fast. After the takeoff, all there is left is the landing. Boom it comes at you. So really you should spend more time on the landing than the takeoff, because the landing actually takes up more of the trick's time. The landing is the hit on the ground, plus the flow out of it.
A smooth landing and exit can often make up for a weak or low takeoff. If the ending is solid, some minor flubs in the middle won't be noticed by anyone, except maybe you. If there's no ending except your end on the pavement, then that will be noticed by everyone.
For example, for my 360 slides, there are two parts. The first is a 180 slide, and the second starts from fakey. So I know I'm going to have to finish the slide switch stance. I always practice the second slide more, because it's switch. Then I put them together. To make the 360 easier, I will start switch and come out with my stronger stance on the second 180. The process of working backwards allows me to figure out shortcuts like this.
You can apply this idea to the 180 ollie or any other 180 air. If you're going to land fakey, you better practice fakey landings. Pick up your board and get up on a curb or knee high ledge. Practice some switch acid drops. You can use what ever grab is comfortable. Just try to make it the mirror image of your natural acid drop. Also practice a 180 boneless to fakey. The idea is you get comfortable with the second half, and add the ending.
You can also figure out ways of practicing the middle separately. The middle is often the heart of a trick. Sometimes it's useful to go back to the old school way of doing a trick. That means the trick without the ollie. So for a pop shove-it, you practice the old school shove-it. For a kick flip you practice the pressure flip. For an ollie you do a boneless. You may have to look through some old issues of Thrasher or find old videos to find old school tricks.
There's probably a way to isolate every part of a trick. Try to zero in on the hardest part and get that under your belt first, then add the easier parts and clean it up. It's like writing a story, where you write the plot first and add dialogue and discriptions to make it flow together. Sure you could write the beginning first. Or you might write the end first, but you certainly wouldn't leave it out.
Learn how to tell the story to yourself
Once you have the trick broken down into a story, you can give yourself signals or "cues" to trigger each part of the trick. This is done very rapidly, almost instantaneously, while the trick is in progress.
Talking to yourself is a very strong force, and it's often misused. When you break down a trick into cues that you order yourself to do, your mind is very occupied and there is less room for distraction, fear, neurosis, self consciousness, or any of the other things that make skaters blow tricks.
One thing you must do is develop a system of cueing yourself while taking off and while in the air. This means that you give yourself very rapid cues in sequence. I use verbal cues in my mind, because I'm pretty word-oriented. I might say to myself, "prepare, jump, contract, reach, compress" as a five part sequence for a jump. Or I might use three parts "up, left, check" to takeoff and land a rotating jump.
Images are faster than words
Another way you can set up cues is visual. Absurd though it may seem, you can think of little pictures of a skateboarder in your mind doing your trick. You can think of yourself in the pictures or someone who you think is an expert at that trick who you are trying to emulate. The visual sequence is the fastest mental way to cue yourself. I don't use it much, but I heartily endorse it if your mind works more visually than verbally. I use visual cues when I am really far along in a trick, when I have it almost perfected and don't need to think about it much. I find my mind is clearer when I don't have words in it.
