Freestyle contest advice – Part Four

2016: World Round-Up

I entered my first ever contest on the other side of the world despite not having any info about how to prep or having any fellow Aussies joining me. I was just a kid, fresh out of high school, with a dream and passion flowing through their veins.

‘Nervous’ was an understatement for how I felt. I told myself to ‘bring it on’ and reminded myself ‘it’s normal’ and ‘everyone feels the nerves’.

Little did I know the incredible world I was about to roll into. Stepping foot inside that roller rink, meeting other freestylers for the first time was like reuniting with family you didn’t even know you had. You’re connected to people of all ages, races, religions, and genders, thanks to a piece of wood with wheels, and it keeps you at peace.

Although we were all competing against one another, that feeling of everyone wanting the best out of each other really helped push progression. I felt I placed well for my first contest—7th place in the AM division. I knew this was it.

2017: World Round-Up

When the dust settled, I had a 20-hour flight to reflect on everything I’d learnt. I started to plan for the next contest.

I had received some great advice from the likes of Tony Gale and Denham Hill on avoiding repetition and moving on after messing up. I learnt the structure of a routine, how important music is, the categories judges score points on, how important consistency is and what I had to do to improve for the next time.

I started writing down a list of tricks I wanted in my run and worked on figuring out ways to connect them with footwork to create a sense of flow. During this time I would work on different footwork links while also improving, adding and learning those ‘banger tricks’.

I entered the Round-Up again and placed 8th in the same division. While I was a little disheartened that I dropped a place, I realised the competition was getting fierce. I needed to step things up.

2018: World Round-Up and King of Freestyle

I started to gain more confidence in my abilities and myself. I started engaging with the crowd, getting a clap going at the start of my run, and began with fast footwork to spark that initial interest. I placed 4th in the AMs, my highest placing at the time.

The difference between 2017’s and 2018’s contest prep came down to structure, training and style.

Structuring a run timed to music that flowed well and had some unique tricks wasn’t an easy task.

Visualisation helped with structure. Once I had my run written out on paper, I started to visualise how those tricks flowed into one another and how they flowed with the music.

Training then came down to breaking the whole run into different segments and practicing those segments individually, slowly linking them together.

Style came with time and mine started to develop the more I practised.

I wanted to broaden my horizons and decided to compete in Japan. By this time I had a structured routine written out in an old notepad and treated it as gospel.

When performing my final trick in my first run, I botched a side flip from rail and smacked my head on the wooden floor. One of my favourite moments. I placed 3rd in the AM contest and surprised myself when I placed 4th for the King of Freestyle (Pro + Am). I had a new goal of turing pro.

2019: World Round-Up and Euro Freestyle

2019 was my final contest as an amateur. I placed 2nd at the Round-Up. My sponsor Maple Road Skateboards and I decided it was time to go pro. We created a board with my name on it—what a moment this was.

I went to Germany the same year to compete in my first pro contest. Things were getting serious…

…Seriously fun that is. Germany, 2019, so bright and alive.

At my first ever pro contest, I placed 4th, right behind the guys I looked up to and barely in front of the most talented skaters in the world.

Going ‘pro’ in the freestyle world is a badge of honour more than anything. You still need to earn it but you don’t get paid. As much as the freestyle scene has grown and is still growing, to the mainstream world and especially Down Under it is still thought of as quite niche.

2020: World Round-Up

Everything changed when COVID-19 hit. The world came to a halt but some pretty creative and awesome ideas came out of this murky situation.

For instance, the World Round-Up decided to hold their contest online for 2020/2021, which gave people the chance to save money on plane tickets and or compete for the first time.

There were a few new faces from Australia who were dipping their toes into freestyle. Flynn Baird is an awesome dude who grew up in the same area I did; thanks to his gymnastics background, he showed incredible skills from the get-go. Daniel Aubrey and Rohan Cowley were fellow Maple Road Skateboards teammates who had been quietly honing their freestyle skills. Veteran Aussie freestyler David Mock, a legend in his own right, joined in. All had the chance to compete without having to fork out thousands to get to the other side of the world. The online format was awesome and a super inviting way to get people involved in competing.

Preparing for an online contest isn’t much different to IRL-contest prep. Brainstorm tricks, piece how those tricks will get you flowing to the next, structure a run using those tricks, play around with what music fits best and skate your little heart out.

2022: World Round-Up

2022 came about. The past two years had been rough. Going through depression, a lot of personal/family/drug issues, and being in lockdown for half of it had me not in a great mental or physical state. Nevertheless I got a call asking if I wanted to go to the contest in Canada, with just three months to prepare and being in one of the worst states of my life. I said I’d be there.

Looking back I could have trained a hell of a lot harder than I did. My main focus at that time was the visualisation process and I didn’t pay enough attention to actually skateboarding.

The time came and I jumped on that plane $5000-out-of-pocket but still starry-eyed. This contest felt different—it had been 3 years since competing in front of a crowd and with my state of mind, lost luggage and a broken board, I folded. To me I embarrassed myself. Surprisingly I didn’t place dead last but placing didn’t matter to me. My goal with contest runs is to bring life to what I visualise and have fun doing it; I didn’t achieve that.

I plummeted after that, falling deeper into depression and out of love with skateboarding. Battling with whether I should keep going on with this skating journey, being sick of feeling sick, I finally decided to seek help. It took time and I still am climbing uphill but knowing we ain’t at the peak yet is what drives me now.

Lurking in the background, since moving out to Melbourne CBD in 2021, has been an incredible group of skaters known as the ‘Olliefans’. As much as I love a good solo sesh, having such an awesome crew of friends to skate and hang out with has made this climb so much more bearable. I may not show it enough but I will forever be grateful to them all.

Present Day

It’s now October 2024. I have 7 months until the next contest, World Freestyle Championships 2025, held in Germany.

I decided I wanted to compete again and started preparations from January 2024. Like clockwork I went through old contest-run notes, watched past footage and started mapping out a run, breaking the whole run down into 5 different segments, then practicing the segments individually, then practicing two segments at a time until I could do the whole run.

I’m still learning a lot and doing the most learning and training I’ve ever done to prep for an upcoming contest. Here are a few things I’ve taken away so far:

• Balance is key. Having a balance of training, visualising and rest helps keep a level head and prevents burnout, especially if you work full-time or have other responsibilities. Push yourself but don’t overdo it to the point of exhaustion and burnout, it only stop-starts the process. 

• Set little goals. Obviously the goal of any contest is to win and have fun doing it. For me it’s also about creating what I want to create. As big-picture goals, these are great to have, but having little goals help too. One of my little goals is to jump on my board every day; as long as my feet hit grip once a day, whether it’s for 5 minutes or 5 hours, mission accomplished.
• Things take time and that’s okay. One of my favorite things to say (only because it rings so true) is ‘the more you do something, the better you become at it’. A little goal I set myself is to have my whole run on film by the end of September. I achieved that on October 2nd and was the happiest kid. Past me would’ve been bummed that I was two days late, now I’m just happy to be smelling the roses. Enjoy the process.

• Skateboarding isn’t the only training. Something I never really paid attention to up until now is my diet and exercise routine outside of skating. Eating burgers and chips for dinner every night sounds lavish but it didn’t do me any favours. Paying attention to what I eat and working out on the side has helped the progress of training and prep more than I imagined.

• Don’t be too hard on yourself. Outside factors will come into play that are out of your control. Don’t let yourself get too down on them. If you haven’t achieved what you wanted today, there’s always another chance to achieve them ten-fold.

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Here concludes the fourth part of our series on freestyle contest advice. The fifth part, which will feature thoughts from Azzam Syafiq, will be posted on November 30, 2024.

*Editor’s note: Josh Dunstone’s World Round-Up photos were taken by Jim Goodrich.