When you rock up at the beach what’s your plan? Hit the water as quickly as possible, do some tricks, same old same?

For years I’ve always stuck to a simple plan to make my sessions more fun, exciting and enjoyable…

The Rule Of 3

If you want to make the most of your next session; if you’re keen to learn something new; if you’re finding that you’re just going out and trying the same old tricks, then you might want to try out the Rule of Three.

It’s pretty simple really, we’re going to set ourself three targets for our session. Why three? Well it gives us enough variety without taxing our brains when all we want to do is get on the water. You can also study up on three tricks and retain enough information on each to help you progress.

When you get out on the water and that first trick you try results in crash after crash you can quickly change gear move on to something else and not get frustrated focusing on that one thing. And more often than not when you come back to the first trick you’ll have some fresh thoughts on how to crack it.

Choosing your tricks

Here are some simple ways to pick the right tricks:

  1. Small Improvement – A trick you can do consistently but add a small progression – a grab, a tweak, more speed, more height, more power.
  2. Improve Consistency – A trick that you have landed before but 50% or less on the landings.
  3. The Next Step – A trick that you’ve never landed but is your next big goal.

Mix and match tricks using these rules as guidelines, but I’d recommend not picking three “Next Steps” unless you are particularly ambitious(!), the smaller progressions will give you a confidence boost and keep things fun.

Examples:

blog-rule-of-3-logoYou can do great front rolls, so why not try…

  1. Front roll with a tail grab
  2. Popping (Hooked-in)
  3. Front roll transition with a nose grab

Or you’re just starting to unhook & got some Raley’s under your belt, so give these ago

As you can see there is lots of variations but it is essential you think before you go out and set yourself specific challenges AND THE KEY:

Tell a friend what you are going to try & get them to tell you their 3 tricks.

A little bit of rivalry is a great way to keep you focused. When you see them trying, it will spur you on and you know when you hit the beach they’ll be asking, wanting to know how it went!

Please don’t think this is just for the ultra competitive. If you like to just cruise around that that’s fine but we all like to feel we’ve improved in some way, we all have small things that we could improve on and I promise it will make this and all future sessions way more enjoyable.

We have over 100 trick definition videos available on YouTube, these are a great way to get some inspiration for a new trick or technique. What to see something we haven’t covered, let us know. And also check our the Trick Progressions, they show the 3 or 4 tricks that build up in difficulty before the reaching your main goal.

So what 3 tricks or techniques are you going to try next?