Advice for psychological barrier to jumping

[shellac]

So I got some clark pads for my RS in the hopes of learning to finally do some jumping, and I have to say I feel like I have some kind of minor phobia for trying to jump when it’s moving. 

I can jump my wheel fine if I’m standing still and holding a fence of course but when it’s on the move I feel like I’m going to eat concrete if I try it. It sort of reminds me of when I was first learning to ride an euc tbh. 

For the jumpers out there and advice for starting out?

Is it better to jump at slow speeds? I imagine if you’re going too slow that’s not good either and you’ll just fall over. 

Should I be using some kind of aid? I don’t have a shopping cart handy. Or should I just pad up, take a shot of whiskey, and suck it up?

[.....]

JUST DO IT! I dont jump much, but if you know the basic premise, its either your lack of muscle or youre simply psyching yourself out. Maybe some chanting is in order? Before you try, simply tell yourself... its just a jump, I know how to jump. Or my personal favorite...  "quit being a pus*y and just do it."  Sometime a little liquid courage can help too. Just enough to stop you from thinking too much and to get some brevity. I faced this same thing when learning to drop in on a half pipe on a skateboard. If you dont fully commit, you will get hurt. Same with my paramotor.. EVERYTHING is saying to stop, but reality is that FULL THROTTLE is what it takes.  I say to approach a jump as fast or faster than you think it will take. Simply time it and go for it. Up/down, no matter. You simply need just behave in the manner that logically will work. Yes, you may jump a little late... so what? Yes, you may find you need to go faster than assumed... so what? You will definitely fail if you dont just go for it. Keep your speed, keep your balance, bend down deep and JUMP! It aint like you're going for your first triple jump at 60mph on a dirtbike or nuthin'.  Oh yea, film it too, cuz odds are you may not succeed on first attempt, and its too fun to not watch fail. If you simply are trying to hop. I've found that saying 'hop, hop, hop', as I do it, makes it seem easier and helps promote basic insanity.

Beer in one hand, smoke in another, and a heavy sack dangling, THOSE are your aids...

If you can find a hype man, thatll help too. Someone pumping you up, AND it gives you an excuse to say "hold my beer and watch this". Nothing cripples your ability to amaze yourself, more, than hanging out with people who are too damn worried.

Edited August 8, 2021 by ShanesPlanet

[Menace]

Sounds like you've got a similar set up as me. Just Send it. Do it at a reasonable speed though. Don't try your first jump at 40, but anywhere between 10-20 is perfectly reasonable for just trying out a little hop while moving. Once you try it you'll realize that it isn't bad at all. Then you can move on to hopping onto curbs and over those cement things in parking lots at decent speed. That's a bit scary too.

Edited August 8, 2021 by Menace

[shellac]

thanks for the advice. sounds like i just need to hit the bottle of yamazaki and sack up. 

[The Fat Unicyclist]

Yamazaki Whisky... A little before and a bit more afterwards!   

[Scottie]

5 hours ago, ShanesPlanet said:

Beer in one hand, smoke in another,

Wait ... wait ...  What happened to the mantra, "Hold my beer and watch this!" ??? That should leave the trickster with just a smoke.

@shellac It wasn't clear to me if you are an old fart or not. If you are an old fart, then you just have some valid self-preservation instincts happening. It has been pointed out a few times by old farts here that when an old farts breaks/cuts/bruises things, that they stay broken/cut/bruised.

If you are a young fart ... damn the torpedoes ... full steam ahead!

[shellac]

@Scottie an in between fart i guess. i can heal, just not keen on crashing and burning. young at heart so i’ll go for it. 

[mrelwood]

What worked for me, was to first simply to learn to keep balance while preparing for a jump. Crouch, quickly back up, repeat. While riding of course, I did it only at around 10km/h though. Then I increased the attempted height, and hopped up just a very tiny bit. Then slightly more. Then I had a break because my legs were shaking. Then started over, and went a little further this time. And repeated the process. It didn’t take me  very long at all to jump up 10cm curbs.

I know some people are more “go for it and lick the wounds later on” style learners, but for me a slow advancement works better. Just like when I was learning to ride. Or to ride up curbs. Or to reverse. And so on.

[yoos]

I am not much of a jumper myself (yet), but one other thing that might help to learn without anxiety and risk is to train with harmless obstacles -- put some sticks, little cardboard boxes or simply chalk up some marks on the street. This way there will be no pressure to perform because you can simply drive over those obstacles without the fear of crashing (unlike a real curb where you might crash if you time your jump poorly). By inspecting your obstacles after an attempted jump you will learn how to time your jumps and how much force you need for various heights and lengths.

But of course you should first learn to crouch confidently and to make safe little jumps while riding straight before you attempt to precision jump. 

[conecones]

15 hours ago, shellac said:

So I got some clark pads for my RS in the hopes of learning to finally do some jumping, and I have to say I feel like I have some kind of minor phobia for trying to jump when it’s moving. 

I can jump my wheel fine if I’m standing still and holding a fence of course but when it’s on the move I feel like I’m going to eat concrete if I try it. It sort of reminds me of when I was first learning to ride an euc tbh. 

For the jumpers out there and advice for starting out?

Is it better to jump at slow speeds? I imagine if you’re going too slow that’s not good either and you’ll just fall over. 

Should I be using some kind of aid? I don’t have a shopping cart handy. Or should I just pad up, take a shot of whiskey, and suck it up?

Do you have prior experience jumping in other sports? MTB/BMX, skateboarding, skiing or snowboard jumps? If not, I would advise against “man up and hit it” because you can seriously hurt yourself even on a small jump if you don’t know how to bail and fall properly. 

The physics of jumping comes naturally to some but not for others, and it is mostly mental - most accidents are caused by lack of experience + having change of heart on takeoff or in mid air.

Overall, jumps are about repetition and letting your subconscious take over the motions, you don’t want to overthink it. I suggest start small and do it over and over until 100% comfortable before moving to bigger jumps, don’t do gaps, table tops only.

[Tawpie]

+1 for starting with non-objects! I am not a jumper but I do like catching a little bit of air off of small jumplets in the paths and (still) for me, the landing needs work. I tend to not land with even weight on both feet so the landing action is a slight swerve. It's getting better, but slowly, so that tells me that repetition is the key. Repetition without injury.

Bump jumping is a different story, I can bump jump a curb or small log. For me, it's about commitment. Can't change my mind, just hafta hit it with gusto else it doesn't work at all.

Edited August 9, 2021 by Tawpie

[shellac]

7 hours ago, conecones said:

Do you have prior experience jumping in other sports? MTB/BMX, skateboarding, skiing or snowboard jumps? If not, I would advise against “man up and hit it” because you can seriously hurt yourself even on a small jump if you don’t know how to bail and fall properly. 

The physics of jumping comes naturally to some but not for others, and it is mostly mental - most accidents are caused by lack of experience + having change of heart on takeoff or in mid air.

Overall, jumps are about repetition and letting your subconscious take over the motions, you don’t want to overthink it. I suggest start small and do it over and over until 100% comfortable before moving to bigger jumps, don’t do gaps, table tops only.

Overthinking is definitely 100% an issue. I dealt with that when first learning the EUC, and then learning to free mount it, and now with jumping. 

I don’t have experience jumping in other sports. I’ll try the advice in taking it slow. 

[mrelwood]

I just remembered one thing about when i learned to jump.

 As I gently increased the jumping power, at some point i noticed that the motor starts running backwards in the short amount of time in the air. So the wheel was tilting backwards.

 When I jump from standing on solid ground, I use the balls of my feet a lot to push me up. But that doesn’t work on an EUC.

Try this: Stand on solid ground, and jump up so that your feet leave the ground while flat. Heels and toes at the same time. Also try to land on the feet flat, not like we usually do toes first.

 This should help you concentrate the jumping force in a way that’s better suited for EUC jumping.

[Singasong]

Watch some Mike Leahy videos. That'll wake you up