Ask the Editors: Help Me Get my Freestyle On
If you’ve ever watched a freestyle event, you are surely familiar with the term “progression”; it gets thrown around a lot. What it means is that tricks start fairly simplistic then continue to evolve (or “progress”) into more complicated variations. In other words, the foundation may be taking your feet off the quad in the air but in time the trick has progressed to become a Superman seatgrab.
This concept is very important for anyone looking to master aerial maneuvers on an ATV because while it may look amazing to see some of the antics the pro freestylers can do while defying gravity, the fact is you can be assured they didn’t start at that level. In fact, today’s fresstyle professionals generally have full training facilities with resin ramp landings and foam pits on account of the fact that it’s extremely common to botch things up when trying to learn a new trick.
What we suggest in your case is to build upon the foundation you’ve already established. Being comfortable in the air and upon landing is truly the best first step. From there you may wish to experiment with taking body parts away from the machine in the air- a hand from the bar, a foot from the peg. This is the fundamental skill on which all complicated ticks will be built.
Once you are at ease with removing a part and getting it back into position for the landing (remember that you generally want to initiate your trick while the ATV is still rising through the air right on in through the moment it achieves weightlessness before gravity starts pulling it back down. As it’s falling, you’re going to want to be getting back into riding attack stance), then you may wish to begin linking moves together. Hand and leg from opposite sides for example. You simply continue progressing from there.
Here is a list of descriptions of the advanced moves but remember, you work your way up to these. And a foam pit certainly wouldn’t hurt either!
