Choosing the Trick of the Day

by Crazy Ivan


I've written before about choosing the Trick of the Day and some of the difficulties I have with it, but since we started our You Tube Trick of the Day Contest, a new set of complications have arisen.

See, when I pick the trick of the day, the biggest concerns usually revolve around how tough the trick should be.  I don't want the tricks of the day to be so tough that they're always useless to new players, but I also don't want them to be so easy that there's no reason for veteran players to check them out.

I skirt around that by and large by making the tricks a little tougher each day of the week, but that still doesn't solve the problem altogether.  I'm still left wondering how easy Monday's trick should be and how tough Friday's trick should be.  Wednesday's trick becomes something of a barometer of the week's theme so I'm often left scratching my head because my Wednesday trick is too easy or too hard.

Now, I add the new wrinkle of knowing that every trick I do is a possible addition to the stream of competing Trick of the Day Contest entries.  If I add a bunch of really easy tricks I'm allowing everyone to pad the numbers.  That's good because it allows people to stay competitive, but it's not exactly fair to the people who made their videos early and have to keep making more and more.

On the other hand, if I keep adding really tough tricks I'm not adding much to the contest at all.  That's not fair to anyone, especially if somebody mad skilled is already dominating the competition (not that that's a bad thing, Max...).

Today I did as easy a trick as I have on my list; the Pinocchio.  It's a simple nose stall that is basically an easier version of the Faceplant.



This is something that everyone competing in our contest can easily add to their next video to pump up their numbers.  But if I keep adding tricks of this remedial difficulty level I'm going to make it easy to best the existing record of 60 tricks.

I'm trying not to let the contest influence me too much.  I'm trying to just do the tricks I would probably do anyway, but I have to admit that I'm not doing that exactly.  I'd scheduled myself to do a week on Clipper Variations next week but for the sake of the contest I'll probably put that off for a bit.  Of course,  I also have to keep in mind that the vast majority of the people watching these videos aren't competing in the Trick of the Day contest, so I also have to remember to give those people what they want as well.

Not sure what the point of writing this was if not to simply bemoan my unforeseen dilemma.  The truth is that any new angle on the Trick of the Day makes it more fun so I welcome the challenge.  I guess if I didn't enjoy a challenge, I probably wouldn't do this job.