Learn some tips and techniques on how to stay loose and relaxed when jumping in BMX in this free instructional video clip about basic BMX skills.
Garson Fields is 20 years old and has been riding BMX and mountain bikes for 7 years. He is currently attending college at the University of Vermont and pursuing degrees in both English and Philosophy.
When you are jumping bigger jumps than you ever jumped before or just sometimes even jumping a new jump, it is really easy to end up getting stiff in the air and ultimately that is about the worse thing that you can possibly do. Because even if you are going to come up short or overshoot the jump or any of the number of things that you can do, if you stay loose you are usually just going to ride right out or at least if you fall, you will already be relaxed and you will have less of an issue when you are rolling out or anything like that. So basically when you come off of a jump and say it pitches you a little bit sideways, you'll know if all of a sudden your bike is out over here there is not a whole lot you can do to save it. A lot of times if you get leaned up just a little bit a couple of degrees, it will feel horrible. A very natural reaction to that is just to sort of bone your arms out and stiffen them. It is just a fear action and it is really about the worse thing you can possibly can do. Usually if you make sure to stay loose and a big part of staying loose is keeping both your arms and your knees bent, you will be able to ride right out. The problem is that once you start straightening out your arms and your legs, you actually aren't able to absorb impacts when you land nearly as well. So basically you want to make sure you are landing and when you land, you absorb all of that energy because if you absorb all of that energy all of a sudden your tires don't have to try as hard to grip the surface you are landing on, you have less chance of sliding out. You will absorb a lot of the energy rather than bouncing it back out of your bike so you are less likely to land and get bounced off of your bike. So just make sure especially when you are jumping jumps that you are not comfortable on, that regardless of what happens that you stay loose because ultimately that is going to make sure that you are going to be as safe as possible even if things do go wrong.
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