I'm 36 and disproportionately better at flatground than anything else for 3 reasons- 1. It's all I skate and 2. I'm too brittle to get heavily into transition or serious street skating. 3. Its a lot easier for me to get to a local parking lot to skate than it is to drive out to one of the skateparks.
And I'm fine with it, I've found my niche that I'm happy with.
If you aren't happy not progressing in the areas of skating you mentioned, the simple answer is to do more of that and less flatground skating. If you spend more of your sessions skating ledges, you'll improve through repetition and pick up new tricks along the way.
Find some low ledges and flatbars and just start over, get the basic tricks solidified and relearned and everything else will come after.
The reason you are probably finding that stuff more difficult is because there's inherently more pop required and a degree more commitment, and IMO more can go wrong vs skating flat- sounds like you've got a bit of a mental barrier with it that you don't have with flatground tricks....and the best way to tackle that is to get comfortable with the easiest stuff and gradually work up.
Appreciate your insight a lot. I think what you recommend about finding something super mellow and just starting over and re-working up is in order.
I do spend a lot more time skating ledges/flatbars even transition now a days than flatground now but when I think about it in the bigger picture over all my years of skating you are right.
I also think you're right on about having a mental block. I 100% agree the blocks are harder to get over on stuff other than flatground but there is definitely is also mental blocks on flatground.
I did some skate theory thinking about it. For example one of the first blocks you face on flatground is flip tricks. (excluding shove its) I assume this theory to closely be the same for most people with some variations obviously, but pretty similar. Using my own experiences, it took me about 11 months to learn how to kickflip. It was a huge barrier but once I learned it, it unlocks a certain barrier. It took about 11 months for one trick but within two weeks after learning that tricks, kickflips, I was able to heelflips, varial kickflips fakie flips and probably some other tricks.
Next barrier was 360 flips. I learned all those other tricks quick and pretty easily after kickflips, but when it came time to learn 360 flips it was another barrier. It took about 3 months to learn them, but once I got over that barrier and leaned them, within about 2 weeks again after learning them I was able to learn like backside flips, backside heelflips, half cab flips frontside flips very easily and quickly comparatively to 360 flips.
I could go on and on about certain tricks which are like barrier tricks that once you get over it and learn that certain trick, it unlocks tons of other tricks.
But point being of my whole thought exercise here is that all other aspects of skating are probably exactly like that. I think I am really underestimating that, and maybe always have. Thinking back on it, getting through and learning barrier tricks is really fucking hard. And I probably didn't really realize it cause I was just a 13 year old kid skating having the time of my life. But now that I'm much older and relatively advanced in a certain area so there is like an expectation that oh I can do these relatively hard tricks on flatground why can't I do these relatively easier tricks on a ledge or something.
But the reality is they are completely separate barriers that are even harder to get over.
Maybe I am fully on skate philosophy madness, but maybe not. Who knows. Fun to think about though. Appreciate what you said.... Now time to build myself a mellow little ledge and pretend I'm 13 again. lmao
Topic: Need help, disproportionately better at flatground (Read 1042 times)