M2M Day 120: The final day of backflipping
This post is part of Month to Master, a 12-month accelerated learning project. For February, my goal is to land a backflip.
Today was my last backflipping lesson of February. While my hope was to land a few more unassisted backflips, I was still mentally impeded and failed to do so.
This was either because…
…I wasn’t committing to jumping high enough.
…or, if I did jump, I immediately reached for the ground.
If I kept fighting, it was likely that I might eventually land one, but I decided to use my final session in different way: To build the confidence I need to train completely on my own.
And, with this goal, I was very successful. At least, I feel that way. I’ll only know for sure at the next open gym.
To build this confidence, I started on the trampoline, and tried to throw backflips as high as I could. I don’t have any video, but, according to Elijah, I was rotating above my shoulder/head height. If I continue practicing in this way, I’ll gain better spatial awareness, become more comfortable in the air, and build my confidence in general.
More importantly though, I need to drill my backflip hundreds of times where I’m most comfortable, which is the tumble track. In reality, the tumble track is barely different than the floor, but mentally it makes a big difference.
I’m pretty comfortable throwing higher backflips on the tumble track, and just need to keep on going until I’m calm, adrenaline-less, and consistent.
I’m not sure when I’ll return to AcroSport, but, if I’m serious about perfecting my backflip, I should probably find at least one day per week to go.
This plan sounds nice in theory, but, since a new challenge starts tomorrow, it will be interesting to see if I can keep this commitment to myself.
I hope so.
Read the next post. Read the previous post.
