The "McMetz"
The
mcmetz is a popular trick invented by Mike Metzger in 1999.
The
hardest part about learning Mcmetz's is that you have to seemingly
'huck it' your first time, but with enough practice of doing
everything you need to do up untill that point, the first time will
only be the first time for taking that next step of removing your
arms from the bars and "wrapping" your feet around.
A
common way to work up to a mcmetz is to learn double consecutive
saran wraps - that is do a saran with one leg and immediately after
that do a saran with the opposite leg. This is very close to a
mcmetz, except with the mcmetz both sarans are done simultaneously.
This will actually be more of when you have saran'ed one leg and that
hand is back on the bar, you are already beginning to saran the next
leg. I didn't learn McMetz's this way, and nobody has to. I did want
to point it out so that it is a possibility. Although not everyone
does this, it is not a bad idea to learn single sarans on both legs
before trying a mcmetz. In a three jump sequence, do a saran on one
leg, then the next time around saran the other leg. Then on the third
time jumping do the mcmetz.
When
attempting a mcmetz, the best way to prepare your self is to do
small barhops
(learning
fully extended barhops can also be helpful in this process).
You
want to get your knees even with your hands while they hold on to
the handlebars.
Keep
doing these small barhops until you are completely comfortable on
them. When its time to do the mcmetz, you want to do the small
barhop, and open your legs until they hit your arms. It is important
not to overdo your barhop... if your knees are too far past your
hands it will be much harder to get back onto the bike. this point
you want to release both of your hands from the grips and in one
simultaneous motion, wrap both legs around the bars while keeping
your hands just over your legs. Once you get your legs closer to the
pegs you should get your bearing on the bike and re-grab the
handlebars (if you already haven't grabbed them instinctively). The
first few times you try these you should only take your hands off
enough to get your legs through them. This is to keep your
fingers/hands close to the grips so they have a minimal distance to
go to get back in control of the motorcycle. Once you get more
comfortable with these, your hands will come off of the bike further
and further.
The
most important thing to keep in mind if attempting the mcmetz is to
COMMIT. The mcmetz is one of those tricks that if you lose your
bearing or freeze up half way through the trick, you could be in for
a trip to the hostbital. If you find your self letting go of the bars
and flailing from the motorcycle, the best thing to do is to KNOW
WHERE YOU ARE on the bike. Get your hands to the grips and your
feet to the pegs before you drift to far away. The MOST IMPORTANT
thing to get back on if you begin to come off the bike is your HANDS
ON THE BARS. Once you have the bike gripped with your arms, you
can guide/pull your feet back.
There
are exceptions to this rule (see the bottom of this page). Every now
and then your legs and arms conflict on this trick, and if you have
one arm on (like in the video at the bottom of this page) you can be
patient with the other while you get your legs on. Landing with two
legs and one hand is no problem, but an unexpected no handed landing
spells disaster.
Video
1 (Side views)
Video
2 (Front view)
Step
by step instructions (Front View)
Because
this is a three-demensional trick (it has movement going up/down,
forward/backward, and side-to-side) it is a tough trick to illustrate
with two-demensional images. I have found that this angle does the
best job to show the motions of the feet, but the bike's pitch is
impossible to show here. I'll do my best to explain below what I am
doing to adjust the bike.
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What if I freeze-up and make a
mistake while
"wrapping" my legs around my hands and handlebars?
See
video.
If I am not patient with the
motion of my arms coming off the bars, around my legs (which must get
to the sides of the handgrips in order to clear my arms coming back),
and back to the grips, I risk having my hands snag my legs (or just
slightly brush against them) which will delay my hands getting back EXACTLY
when I expect them to, and it's a possibility that I'll lose
coordination and miss my grab back on the bars. There is a way to
prevent any major issues if this happens - stay calm. In the above
video clip, my hand only slightly brushes against my leg which moves
it over an inch or so, but that is just enough, because it caused me
to lose coordination and I accidently attempted to bring my hand back
on THE OUTSIDE of my leg, which is obviously impossible
because my leg is on it's way back to the footpeg. I know I'm missing
my bar grab and in for a rough time, so I am patient with my hand and
move it backwards and away from the bars where it is out of
the way. As soon as I feel it is not conflicting with the
more-important aspect of landing (having my legs back on the pegs), I
calmly return it to the bars - just before landing. Point here is
this: Mistakes happen. You always want to do your best to practice
and prevent them from occuring, but that isn't always possible. The
best way around them if the do happen is to stay calm and assess what
needs to be done to land safely. You can land with a hand off the
bars, but it is always important to have AT LEAST one foot securely
on it's peg, if not two feet.