Variety
Variety, or having a big bag of tricks, keeps our skating fresh and possibilities endless. With Instagram, skaters can post the same five tricks for years. In their mind they have 50 tricks, but others see variations of the same 5. Skaters can film a full part with 5-10 building blocks. Filming a second or third part, we hit a wall. 10-25 year olds never see that wall coming up.
We mostly do tricks we’re good at, and they quickly become habits. Imagine we did kickflips every day for 5 years. We could take time off kickflips and double our bag of tricks. It’s amazing how people take years off skating, and don’t lose anything. “If you love something let it go” we hold tricks too tight and grow tired of them over time. Do we do tricks every day because we are afraid of losing them, or simply out of habit?
Look to basics to build variety
Learning one new basic opens 100’s of possibilities. The best example is Ollies with either foot. If we improve our Ollie, we improve the 500 tricks built off Ollies. That one happens naturally for most, while most miss switch.  many kids take years to realize people ride with both feet.  The tricks just doubled or tripled.
If we double our bag of tricks,we will land some and not land others.
Getting close to new tricks matters. We can easily fall into the all or nothing mind. Did I land it or not? No, I failed. Lots of emotions go along with that statement. We even feel a sense of defeat in our body.
We can remind ourselves that hard work is never lost. There’re 50 tricks that I never landed, and 100 I did. We need to be patient for the right spot or right time for any trick. 
Often when we land a trick, there’s much room for improvement. Landing a trick isn’t everything, but for kids it is.
That’s not to say we should just keep trying the trick forever. That approach is logical, but does not work how we hope. With that approach we end up with a small bag of tricks.
At some point take a month off, or a year off that trick. Those 10 times battling it out mattered a lot.
Hopefully you got close in 20-30 minutes and didn’t keep going for 2 hours, because that traumatizes us. now do that with 20 tricks a year, that’s what pro’s do. Don’t give up after the first battle, maybe take a nice long break after the 3rd or 5th. You’ll land some and not others, it’s not personal. We always make it personal, landing or no landing.
Be aware that skaters judge each other always, “I’m better at that, he might be better at this…”
Hold yourself to a standard of being well rounded. Anybody can be good at one trick, let’s look at 100 tricks.
Aim for longterm balance. 180 both ways. Very easy to become imbalanced more and more. #1 imbalance is switch. Balance might be 30% switch 70% reg. Make sure you get variety in switch, variety within the basics.
Don’t fixate on flashy tricks. Goal is be adaptable to different spots, not do the same tricks at every spot.
100’s of ways to improve skating other than skating. We mostly see whats obvious, skate skate skate u get betta. Under the surface is, posture and breathing, and 100’s of ways to improve for 30 years.
When we skate skate skate to get better, we lose enjoyment. Might be one year from now, might be 3 years from now.
Skate new spots every day, 10 minute warmup somewhere new.
- Stay Free – Do not impose gerbal wheels on yourself