THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I've completely misunderstood the ankle technique, until this video. When you put it in a "dribble a basketball" motion, it made so much more sense.
When I first watched this video and heard about "dribble a basketball" I didn't really notice it was so important. But thanks to your comment, I tried with that in mind and...it worded !!! So, 1000 thanks !!
Revisiting this lesson after I raised the throne up and loosened the spring tension. Huge difference, I’ve been playing with too much tension and it’s been hindering the progression. I’m just trying to be the best drumming version of myself I can and Your definitely keeping Me motivated. Thanks again Cam.
I've always wanted to improve my double bass speed and control without doing the obvious: take time to practice to improve! Sometimes I get very motivated and practice double bass for a week or so, then I let it go... Now it's time, let's do this 🤘
From Mexico 🇲🇽, es el video que vengo buscando desde hace meses atras, apenas compre mi doble pedal y no encontraba video que me explicara paso a paso la tecnica, gracias por la información, saludos 🥁🙏 Suscriptor nuevo 🤙
@@nangotoman9429 me a servido demasiado, primero inicie con tempos lentos, pero tratando de hacer bien el movimiento del tobillo, y poco a poco eh progresado tanto en velocidad como en tecnica! Saludos!
Hi Cam thanks for the video do you have any tips on how to combine the left and right foot ? Can do each foot but when put together each foot doesn't alternate well.Both foot seems to land together if that make sense? Cheers
Thanks Cameron! What I do is kinda use ankle weights while playing so that later when I play without them it kinda helps me go fast, it's not the best but it does help me a bit! But this has been a useful video man! Thanks!
@@metallurgico haha! The first time you do it, it gets very awkward to walk cause you've been playing with weights and all of a sudden your leg is too light xD but hey! It helps me with control and speed so I'm not complaining!
Questions! 1. When I rest my leg on the pedals, show the spring tension be enough to hold up my legs? 2. Is it better to practice with shoes on or no shoes?
Hey Cameron, thanks for your advices! My problem is this: I can effortlessly maintain a certain speed for each individual foot (let's say 150 bpm left and right for 10 minutes; it always takes a few seconds for the right foot to adjust though). However, bringing the feet together afterwards (same bpm), I cannot. Their motions overlap in speed, so it's still asynchronous. Reducing the speed seems complicated for the ankle technique. So should I just keep trying to train each foot individually to specific speeds in hopes that I gain control and make them running together more fluently in the future? Or is that approach rather useless? Maybe others have experience, too. Thank you very much and good luck to you all🙏
Your goal is to be playing with both feet, so you need to practice with both feet. If you can't play it fast, slow it down. Focus on the movements, and if you're looking for exercises, I want you to sign up for my free mini course: academy.cameronfleury.com
Thank you. On any other video I've seen, they all suggest max spring tension. I can not control my feel at all. I actually just loosened my springs back to how I keep my single pedal, and it's made a huge difference 🙃. What I'm finding odd is I'm leading with my L as if I'm keeping time on my 16ths. Would you suggest I switch? Excellent video
Whatever works for you! Every situation is unique, and it's not wrong at all. Keep doing what you're doing, and make sure to maintain / develop the "weaker" side as well.
Thanks so much for the guide. This has helped me a lot more than any other tutorial here on UA-cam. Everyone was saying to tighten the spring to max and play from slower speed; both of which I had a hard time doing. Thanks for clearing this up Question but any tips of how to start tge first stroke/beat. Once I got the motion going, it’s quite easy to maintain it at my comfortable tempo. But I’m having a very hard time starting that motion. Any advice to overcome that?
You're very welcome! Yes I do, have this heel toe technique mini course so that you can finally nail the technique: academy.cameronfleury.com/free-courses
So u r basically saying that u literally contract the upper leg and u keep it floating like that? So, how do you sit then? I mean, if u do that, u could possibly feel like you re falling forwards right? Or do u just sit backwards enough that u simply stay solid where u are?
When you overtighten the spring on your pedal it's going to increase resistance. By increasing resistance that means we need to exert more force to get the same movement out of the pedal. Remember, tighter spring = more rebound. Having a tighter spring will not increase your speed, especially if your muscles aren't used to that kind of resistance in spring tension.
Hey Cameron! Great video, very helpful! Does the foot stay on the pedal the whole time or does it leave the footboard for a split second during the stroke? Have been trying to achieve mastery of this technique for the better half of 3 years now with no success :( and everyone mentions that their staring tempo is 150 or 160 while I seem to struggle with like 110 using the ankle technique, so my leg stroke is actually faster, so I must be doing something wrong lol
Your foot should stay on the pedal. This technique is designed for faster tempos. It's going to be very difficult to control at slower speeds. Use the full leg motion at slower tempos. If you need some more in depth help go to the pinned comment and sign up for the mini course. My gift to you!
Use leg motion till you get to 160. Then start ankle motion. Even at 150-155 I could still use leg motion but 160 seems to be the ceiling for leg motion and ankle motion takes over.
can this ankle muscle use be used for single foot kicking too? I have some songs where there is just a bit fast double and my leg tenses up trying to do them unless i use heel toe which i dont really like using
Hey Cameron! Thanx for the nice vid, very helpful... I play drums for about 25 years, but I had always issues with single strokes duble bass above 140. About 15 years ago I started to use heeltoe and I'm able to play clean and tight up to 240. But I always wanted to play it with single strokes. After I had seen your vid, I started to practice the ankle motion again. My problem is, that my feet often hit the bassdrum at the same time, so I still cannot control the motion properly. Any advice? Thank you! Adam from Hungary
What is most interesting here is that your ankle technique seemingly is the complete opposite ankle technique taught by Marthyn Jovanovic (Double Bass Drum Mastery guru). His main points in terms of ankle technique is, apart from not using glutes, hamstring or hip flexors (i.e no upper leg involvement), to: 1) Contract the calf muscle 2) NOT activate tibialis anterior 3) Focus on raising and lowering your HEEL (in other words DO NOT tap with the ball of your foot or your toes) Your analogy with the ball bouncing and beater rebound is apparently more based on tapping the front/ball of your foot (?), as opposed to raising the heel. This is probably what causes confusion among many. Another analogy would be: Hold your palm flat out above a surface. When you want to hit the surface, do you focus on tapping with the fingers, or do you raise the meaty part of your palm/wrist in order to hit the surface? Marthyn is confident in the latter option. You (and seemingly also Thomas Lang) appears to be more into tapping and entertaining the build up of tibialis anterior. Thoughts? Here is Marthyn btw: ua-cam.com/video/0tpr6CVQFPw/v-deo.html
Tapping with the ball of your foot and or toes is the result of raising your heels. You cannot completely not use your shin muscles. That's false. Love msrthyns work btw, I think he does a great job helping drummers around the world.
Is it possible to get as fast as with the heel-toe technique? I realized most of extrem Metal drummer (especially in Deathcore) use Heel-Toe for the fast parts
This is exactly what I'm doing with my feet too. I'm currently at 160 bpm, left leg going from 8th to 16th notes with a 5 minute timer. Same thing with the right leg. Then after that I do both feet, going from 8th to 16th for 5 mins. Often I do sessions multiple times with the left or right foot in one session. It's super boring and tedious but it does work! The hardest part I'm finding out isn't the ankle motion itself, it's synchronizing the actual switch from leg to ankle and having it sound good PLUS have the ankle motion go smoothly on both feet.
I've watched a hundred vids; never satisfied, always frustrated. The only solution is what you say, blade. Tedious practice and adjustment. You simply hafta be obsessed with drumming in order to get gud.
For whatever reason, when I try to "bounce" the pedal with my right (dominate) foot, my ankle wants to spasm into a nervous twitching motion. I can't seem to relax the motion, even at a slow bpm like 120.
Hi Cameron I am new to double kick Simple question When your play 16ths with your 2 feet and 2 and 4 with your left hand on snare Does the snare hit with the right foot or left foot? Since i am start the kick with my right i figure the left hand and right foot are hitting together Is this correct? TY
Left hand and right foot will line up if the left hand is playing on beats 2 and 4. To make it easier to figure out for the next time, count it out loud. 🤘
I've watched so many videos on ankle technique and using your calf but it just doesn't click with me. I have no idea how to engage my calf to move the pedal in any kind of rhythm. I always end up using my shin muscles. Frustrating
@@CameronFleury hey thanks for your reply. I can do that, but it never made sense how to do that quickly to actually play anything. I actually had a breakthrough like 5 days ago. Something about the movement clicked with me. Now I'm trying to slow it down and get more power from it
Technique is definitely something you should work on but there is one important thing that you need to not overlook and that is having quality equipment and maintenance in that equipment making sure that it is in good working order or else all the technique in the world is going to be for nothing. Well, not nothing but I hope you get what I mean. Just my two cents (30 plus years playing drums) HAPPY HITTING 🤘🥁🥁🤘
Technique is where all good drumming stems from. Bad technique will be the likely result of injury. While having good drum gear can you leave you feeling inspired, I don't necessarily agree that quality equipment will change how you hold a drumstick. Thanks for sharing Jonny!
Hi. I have been practicing the ankle technique for 3.5 years now and still can´t control my left ankle over 210 bpm 16th. It is totally uncontrollable, it is twitching extremely irregularly. A clear muscle issue. Is the a secret weapon to solve this problem, or shall I leave the ankle technique and go for Heel-Toe instead? Thanks in advance. / Andreas
Hey Andreas, I'd like to help you out. Could you send me over a short video showcasing what you're talking about? Send it here: cameron@cameronfleury.com Talk soon
@@CameronFleury Yes, I will try to make a short summary on exact where/when the issue appear. I will contact you ASAP when I have finished the recording video session for you. Thanks for answering!
@@CameronFleury Hi, the video is finished. Just have to do some edits to it, and hopefully I can send it to you in the mid/end of the next week. Thanks. / Andreas
➤➤➤ Double Bass Drumming Webinar🎁
→academy.cameronfleury.com/masterclass
when the adhd leg bouncing finally pays off
Forreal, the hard part now is learning the same twitching motion with my left leg haha
@@daveyvasquez8916 yeah, that's really hard.
Im currently trying to play with more spring tension on the left pedal to build strenght
@Eden21425 that's currently what I'm looking into, time to finally get this technique down!
😂
WORD!!!!
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I've completely misunderstood the ankle technique, until this video. When you put it in a "dribble a basketball" motion, it made so much more sense.
Glad to hear! You're very welcome 🤘🤘
When I first watched this video and heard about "dribble a basketball" I didn't really notice it was so important. But thanks to your comment, I tried with that in mind and...it worded !!! So, 1000 thanks !!
Revisiting this lesson after I raised the throne up and loosened the spring tension. Huge difference, I’ve been playing with too much tension and it’s been hindering the progression.
I’m just trying to be the best drumming version of myself I can and Your definitely keeping Me motivated.
Thanks again Cam.
Great to hear! Keep at it. You've got this 🤘🙌
Late to this but great comment, slackening up until it clicks really really works
Great stuff! Keep em comin 🤘🤘
Thanks! Will do!
Your videos are being very usefull to me man, thanks a lot! Good, simple and graphic examples, I'm getting better everyday
I've always wanted to improve my double bass speed and control without doing the obvious: take time to practice to improve! Sometimes I get very motivated and practice double bass for a week or so, then I let it go... Now it's time, let's do this 🤘
You can do it! Looking forward to seeing you in the course! \M/
Thanks a lot! Very helpful!!! Have a nice day
Just what I needed this week! 🤘🏼🥁🤘🏼
Enjoy!
From Mexico 🇲🇽, es el video que vengo buscando desde hace meses atras, apenas compre mi doble pedal y no encontraba video que me explicara paso a paso la tecnica, gracias por la información, saludos 🥁🙏
Suscriptor nuevo 🤙
buenaa! y como venis? estas practicando y mejorando la tecnica? Yo estoy por arrancar a practicar!
@@nangotoman9429 me a servido demasiado, primero inicie con tempos lentos, pero tratando de hacer bien el movimiento del tobillo, y poco a poco eh progresado tanto en velocidad como en tecnica! Saludos!
@@MIEK2112 buenisimo! Le voy a dar, a ver que pasa! Saludoss
Hi Cam thanks for the video do you have any tips on how to combine the left and right foot ? Can do each foot but when put together each foot doesn't alternate well.Both foot seems to land together if that make sense? Cheers
Excellent double pedals lessons Cameron👍🎼🥁🎼👍!!!
Thanks a million!
@@CameronFleury You're welcome Cameron my friend 👍🎼🥁🎼👍!!!
Great Lesson Cameron. Thank You!
My pleasure!
Nice!
This video Gives me positive energy ⚡
Thanks Cameron! What I do is kinda use ankle weights while playing so that later when I play without them it kinda helps me go fast, it's not the best but it does help me a bit! But this has been a useful video man! Thanks!
That's a great idea! Thanks for sharing Kenneth! Thank you for watching.
That's some Goku training
@@metallurgico haha! The first time you do it, it gets very awkward to walk cause you've been playing with weights and all of a sudden your leg is too light xD but hey! It helps me with control and speed so I'm not complaining!
@@kennethasher7386 Gene Hoglan uses ankle weights, and Richard Christy too. I´ll give it a try! :D
Questions!
1. When I rest my leg on the pedals, show the spring tension be enough to hold up my legs?
2. Is it better to practice with shoes on or no shoes?
1. Yes to a degree.
2. Whatever you feel comfortable playing in.
@@CameronFleury thanks man! Starting to figure it out. My axis pedals are super helpful and I’m progressing quickly. Thanks so much for the tips!
Hey Cameron, thanks for your advices! My problem is this: I can effortlessly maintain a certain speed for each individual foot (let's say 150 bpm left and right for 10 minutes; it always takes a few seconds for the right foot to adjust though). However, bringing the feet together afterwards (same bpm), I cannot. Their motions overlap in speed, so it's still asynchronous.
Reducing the speed seems complicated for the ankle technique. So should I just keep trying to train each foot individually to specific speeds in hopes that I gain control and make them running together more fluently in the future? Or is that approach rather useless?
Maybe others have experience, too. Thank you very much and good luck to you all🙏
Your goal is to be playing with both feet, so you need to practice with both feet. If you can't play it fast, slow it down. Focus on the movements, and if you're looking for exercises, I want you to sign up for my free mini course: academy.cameronfleury.com
@@CameronFleury thanks for sharing your knowledge, I try to figure it out!
Thankx Cameron for real good explanation and demonstration. The free workout is a bad link 404
✌️
Nice video, as always!
Thanks so much! \M/
It took a minute for my brain to adjust to you having three legs. Oh okay wow there's another screen at the bottom!! He is not a 3-legged man!
😂🤘
Do you discuss the synchronization between left and right in your couse? I find it almost impossible to control alternating with ankle technique.
In the full course yes, in the mini course no.
Well said man !
Thank you!
Good to know others run low or no spring tension🤘
To each their own! Whatever works best for you!
Thank you. On any other video I've seen, they all suggest max spring tension. I can not control my feel at all. I actually just loosened my springs back to how I keep my single pedal, and it's made a huge difference 🙃. What I'm finding odd is I'm leading with my L as if I'm keeping time on my 16ths. Would you suggest I switch? Excellent video
Whatever works for you! Every situation is unique, and it's not wrong at all. Keep doing what you're doing, and make sure to maintain / develop the "weaker" side as well.
Thanks so much for the guide. This has helped me a lot more than any other tutorial here on UA-cam. Everyone was saying to tighten the spring to max and play from slower speed; both of which I had a hard time doing. Thanks for clearing this up
Question but any tips of how to start tge first stroke/beat. Once I got the motion going, it’s quite easy to maintain it at my comfortable tempo. But I’m having a very hard time starting that motion. Any advice to overcome that?
You're very welcome! Yes I do, have this heel toe technique mini course so that you can finally nail the technique: academy.cameronfleury.com/free-courses
Sadly the course doesn’t seem available anymore
So u r basically saying that u literally contract the upper leg and u keep it floating like that? So, how do you sit then? I mean, if u do that, u could possibly feel like you re falling forwards right? Or do u just sit backwards enough that u simply stay solid where u are?
How far up should I be raising my heel?
Far enough so your heel is off of the ground. Not too high where you're restricting your range of motion to bounce the pedal. If that makes sense!
Hey Cam ... what about the slave pedal being way too slow from the right one and if I overtighten the spring then the resistance grows ..
When you overtighten the spring on your pedal it's going to increase resistance. By increasing resistance that means we need to exert more force to get the same movement out of the pedal. Remember, tighter spring = more rebound. Having a tighter spring will not increase your speed, especially if your muscles aren't used to that kind of resistance in spring tension.
Are we allowed to sit on drummers leg while they playing the drums?
Hey Cameron! Great video, very helpful! Does the foot stay on the pedal the whole time or does it leave the footboard for a split second during the stroke? Have been trying to achieve mastery of this technique for the better half of 3 years now with no success :( and everyone mentions that their staring tempo is 150 or 160 while I seem to struggle with like 110 using the ankle technique, so my leg stroke is actually faster, so I must be doing something wrong lol
Your foot should stay on the pedal. This technique is designed for faster tempos. It's going to be very difficult to control at slower speeds. Use the full leg motion at slower tempos. If you need some more in depth help go to the pinned comment and sign up for the mini course. My gift to you!
Use leg motion till you get to 160. Then start ankle motion. Even at 150-155 I could still use leg motion but 160 seems to be the ceiling for leg motion and ankle motion takes over.
Heyy broo I got the ankle technique..
Inspired by u...
I can beat in 100 tempo in one pedal
Coz I don't have double pedal
And I'm only 14 year old
can this ankle muscle use be used for single foot kicking too? I have some songs where there is just a bit fast double and my leg tenses up trying to do them unless i use heel toe which i dont really like using
Of course you can use this for singles!
Hey Cameron! Thanx for the nice vid, very helpful... I play drums for about 25 years, but I had always issues with single strokes duble bass above 140. About 15 years ago I started to use heeltoe and I'm able to play clean and tight up to 240.
But I always wanted to play it with single strokes. After I had seen your vid, I started to practice the ankle motion again. My problem is, that my feet often hit the bassdrum at the same time, so I still cannot control the motion properly. Any advice?
Thank you!
Adam from Hungary
Hey Adam, I'll definitely make a video about this!
@@CameronFleury Thank you very much!
What is most interesting here is that your ankle technique seemingly is the complete opposite ankle technique taught by Marthyn Jovanovic (Double Bass Drum Mastery guru). His main points in terms of ankle technique is, apart from not using glutes, hamstring or hip flexors (i.e no upper leg involvement), to:
1) Contract the calf muscle
2) NOT activate tibialis anterior
3) Focus on raising and lowering your HEEL (in other words DO NOT tap with the ball of your foot or your toes)
Your analogy with the ball bouncing and beater rebound is apparently more based on tapping the front/ball of your foot (?), as opposed to raising the heel. This is probably what causes confusion among many. Another analogy would be:
Hold your palm flat out above a surface. When you want to hit the surface, do you focus on tapping with the fingers, or do you raise the meaty part of your palm/wrist in order to hit the surface? Marthyn is confident in the latter option. You (and seemingly also Thomas Lang) appears to be more into tapping and entertaining the build up of tibialis anterior.
Thoughts?
Here is Marthyn btw:
ua-cam.com/video/0tpr6CVQFPw/v-deo.html
Tapping with the ball of your foot and or toes is the result of raising your heels. You cannot completely not use your shin muscles. That's false. Love msrthyns work btw, I think he does a great job helping drummers around the world.
Is it possible to get as fast as with the heel-toe technique? I realized most of extrem Metal drummer (especially in Deathcore) use Heel-Toe for the fast parts
It's not impossible, and there are a lot of drumming greats who can achieve insanely fast speeds using singles. The choice is yours!
This is exactly what I'm doing with my feet too. I'm currently at 160 bpm, left leg going from 8th to 16th notes with a 5 minute timer. Same thing with the right leg. Then after that I do both feet, going from 8th to 16th for 5 mins. Often I do sessions multiple times with the left or right foot in one session. It's super boring and tedious but it does work! The hardest part I'm finding out isn't the ankle motion itself, it's synchronizing the actual switch from leg to ankle and having it sound good PLUS have the ankle motion go smoothly on both feet.
Awesome! Transitioning from the leg to ankle is challenging. I'm sure you'll improve with more hard work and patience!
I've watched a hundred vids; never satisfied, always frustrated. The only solution is what you say, blade. Tedious practice and adjustment. You simply hafta be obsessed with drumming in order to get gud.
For whatever reason, when I try to "bounce" the pedal with my right (dominate) foot, my ankle wants to spasm into a nervous twitching motion. I can't seem to relax the motion, even at a slow bpm like 120.
Again it's tougher at slower speeds. The ankle technique is designed for faster speeds like 150-170+. Watch the video again.
Hi Cameron I am new to double kick Simple question When your play 16ths with your 2 feet and 2 and 4 with your left hand on snare Does the snare hit with the right foot or left foot? Since i am start the kick with my right i figure the left hand and right foot are hitting together Is this correct? TY
Left hand and right foot will line up if the left hand is playing on beats 2 and 4. To make it easier to figure out for the next time, count it out loud. 🤘
@@CameronFleury Thank you Cameron Will do and thats what i thought just wanted to confirm. Cheers.
My man 🌶️
Thanks Jacob!
@@CameronFleury no sweat my dude
I've watched so many videos on ankle technique and using your calf but it just doesn't click with me. I have no idea how to engage my calf to move the pedal in any kind of rhythm. I always end up using my shin muscles. Frustrating
Try lifting up your heel to contract the calve muscle.
@@CameronFleury hey thanks for your reply. I can do that, but it never made sense how to do that quickly to actually play anything. I actually had a breakthrough like 5 days ago. Something about the movement clicked with me. Now I'm trying to slow it down and get more power from it
@@rabidpickle Glad to hear! Keep chipping away, you've got this! \M/
Is it normal to feel tightness at first on my weak leg around my ankle ?
It will happen because you're working out those muscles. Think of it like weight training!
Technique is definitely something you should work on but there is one important thing that you need to not overlook and that is having quality equipment and maintenance in that equipment making sure that it is in good working order or else all the technique in the world is going to be for nothing. Well, not nothing but I hope you get what I mean.
Just my two cents (30 plus years playing drums)
HAPPY HITTING 🤘🥁🥁🤘
Technique is where all good drumming stems from. Bad technique will be the likely result of injury. While having good drum gear can you leave you feeling inspired, I don't necessarily agree that quality equipment will change how you hold a drumstick. Thanks for sharing Jonny!
Thanks a lot \,,/
You're very welcome!
2 years trying yes with methronome etc my body just doesnt do it
Hi. I have been practicing the ankle technique for 3.5 years now and still can´t control my left ankle over 210 bpm 16th. It is totally uncontrollable, it is twitching extremely irregularly. A clear muscle issue. Is the a secret weapon to solve this problem, or shall I leave the ankle technique and go for Heel-Toe instead? Thanks in advance. / Andreas
Hey Andreas, I'd like to help you out. Could you send me over a short video showcasing what you're talking about?
Send it here: cameron@cameronfleury.com
Talk soon
@@CameronFleury Yes, I will try to make a short summary on exact where/when the issue appear. I will contact you ASAP when I have finished the recording video session for you. Thanks for answering!
@@CameronFleury Hi, the video is finished. Just have to do some edits to it, and hopefully I can send it to you in the mid/end of the next week. Thanks. / Andreas
I cant even get in it…every body says its like bouncing a ball, but im to stupid to just use my ankle and my cave muscles xD
You've just answered it for yourself. Calve and ankle!