Maybe you’ve recently bought the best pogo stick for your child, or yourself. But now what to do? Many children have no difficulty in hopping onto their pogo stick and then using it to bounce up and down. Believe it or not, it is actually adults who tend to feel the most intimidated by the thought of starting to use one!
This may be because they are more self-conscious but it is worth remembering that even professional pogo stick users make mistakes.
To learn how to use a pogo stick like a pro, try following the simple steps below and you’ll be taking your first few hops in no time.
How to Get On the Pogo Stick
First, remember to wear protective gear for pogo sticks – it isn’t just for kids! That way, only your pride will be hurt if you don’t get it spot on at your first attempt…
Find a solid and level flat surface to practice on – concrete is best. Watch the video below to see how its done then we’ll cover all the steps one by one:
- Stand the pogo stick upright and facing slightly away from yourself
- Hold onto the handlebars
- Place one foot on the footrest
- Start to pull the stick towards you as you place your second foot on the other footrest – try to spread your weight equally between the footrests
- Try to balance as long as you can, then jump off and land on your feet
- Tip: If you find this difficult, try doing it next to a wall so that you can steady yourself with a hand on the wall whilst getting your second foot on
How to Make your First Bounce
- As above, but when you have your first foot on the footrest, press the footrest downwards before quickly placing your second foot on the other footrest
- The stick will start to push you up into the air. As it lands back on the ground again, jump off it and land on your feet
How to Bounce More Than Once
- Get on the pogo stick as described in ‘how to make your first bounce’ above
- The stick will start to push you up into the air
- As the stick lands back on the ground, immediately thrust downwards with both of your legs. You should look as if you are starting to move into a crouching position
- Then quickly jerk the handlebars upwards so that your body moves back into a fully upright position as the stick bounces off the ground again
- Repeat – jump off the stick when you have had enough fun or when your legs say “no more!”
Tips on Bouncing
- You will lose your balance if you don’t start bouncing as soon as both feet are on the stick
- If you begin to tip over, just bounce in that direction and lean your body in the opposite direction to the tip
- To stop the stick moving away from your body – and potentially breaking – grip it between your legs by pointing your knees inwards, hold the handlebars towards your body and lean slightly over the handlebars
- Until you are more experienced don’t try to bounce too high
- If at any time you feel yourself going way off balance, don’t be afraid to throw the stick to the ground and land on your feet – it’s better to risk damage to the stick than to you!
Practice Tips
If you still struggle to stay upright, practice your balance OFF the pogo stick. Use a balance board and try the following:
- Keep the board still whilst standing with feet at either end of the board
- Rock back and forth on the board by shifting your weight from one foot to the other whilst you have one foot in front of the other on the board
- Tilt the board from side to side by shifting your weight from one foot to the other whilst standing with your feet side by side
If all of that sounds fiendishly complicated – yikes – try watching the following video on how to pogo stick for beginners. It will quickly rid you of that idea and you’ll soon be itching to hop on your stick and get pogoing.
Pogo Stick Tricks for Beginners
First you must nail the basics of bouncing up and down pretty much on the same spot, following the guides above.
From there, you can move on up to building your endurance:
- Start to keep a note of how many consecutive jumps you can make and work on beating your own record each time
- Find another pogo-er and see who can do the most jumps in a set time
- Create a basic ‘assault’ course with increasingly difficult challenges, such as obstacles to navigate and low steps to jump up or down
- Try racing over a certain distance against the clock of another pogo-er
Instructions on how to perform some basic tricks – such as hopping with no hands – can be seen in this pogo stick video:
Fun Pogo Stick Records
The performance of a pogo stick isn’t really a major consideration in terms of maximum height unless you are interested in competitive pogo sticking.
If you are, you should be looking at purchasing a more extreme pogo stick like the Flybar Super Pogo 2 – see our pogo stick product reviews. For the more competitive among you, here are some fun records to try and beat 😉
Record | When | |
---|---|---|
Most Consecutive Jumps | 88,047 bounces | July 2, 2015 |
Highest Jump | 11 feet and half an inch | October 15, 2016 |
Fastest Mile | 7 minutes 40 seconds | June 24, 2017 |
You can see more pogo records on the Recordholders website.
Or check out this awesome video to see some of the more extreme stunts such as “jump-rope slam dunk”, “Buddha into one foot” or the “backflip dismount” that you could build up to in time!