Learning / Bike Whips Gone Wrong

Learning to whip is a progression that almost happens naturally as you get better and more comfortable in the air. 

Everyone will get their in a little different way. Some have surely broken themselves off trying to learn though. Usually too much commitment and not actually understanding what they are trying to do. 

I had way more sketchy moments learning to whip a MTB than a motocross bike

I agree that it happens naturally though 

Now this is interesting, I wonder the same thing. Ive been riding for years and cannot whip for love nor money. When i was trying to learn whips on my bmx bike, i fractured my patella in the middle. Shit that was back when i was 12yrs old though lol

Just like what others are posting, it's something a rider develops as they get faster.  As a rider improves, speed increases and they charge harder into jumps as they are getting around the track.  If they don't start to absorb or scrub, they are going to way over jump.  So this tends to let riders get more comfortable charging and then essentially "carving" into the jump faces which naturally starts the whip.  Then if you move the bars left or right (not "turning" the bars, but moving the bars sideways) as the bike is carving the face, it throws the rear wheel out.  To bring it back, you do the opposite movement with the bars while straightening with the core/legs.  Typically, start small and subtle to get a feel for it.  If you do it right, the bike naturally comes around to straight.  Also, its fairly common to not always bring it back to straight when first learning it, which teaches the rider how to handle the bike with the back tire landing a little out.  Keep the front wheel straight and on the gas, the back wheel will straighten out.  Its kind of good to learn this SLOWLY on smaller obstacles so a rider can get comfortable with the feeling.

Its not like thinking, "hey I'm going to go throw a fat whip and see how it goes".  It's what happens as a rider gets faster and thus needs to learn how to keep the bike lower off jumps while carrying speed.  Watch other really good riders do it and then watch yourself, then work to do better more like the really good riders.  

That’s actually a really good explanation 👏 

I've been stuck at the "butt whip" stage of the progression for like 20 years now. 

When jumping anything gets natural then you start to explore more automatically unfortunately in my case because I had no fear of jumping anything it takes only one mistake progress is dangerous 😜

Totally agree on what others have said.

Just ride and ride and as you jump more it becomes automatic.  I remember as a beginner I couldn't even fathom the thought process of using the rear brake in the air to dip the front but after time doing that became instinctive when it was needed and it happened without even thinking about it, which is really cool when those skills develop into a natural flowing instinctive movement.

I was never one to throw fat Barcia whips as they werent really common place when I raced.

One bike skill I could NEVER master though and one I still envy on people who can do it is a sweet long controlled wheely.

I could always do a nice wheely under hard acceleration, but never mastered a long controlled one and thats not without a lot of trying...even on BMX bikes when I was a kid I could never really get it to where I could do any more than say 3 or 4 good ones in a row.

Some riders can just wheely on queue and ride off into the sunset....lucky bastards

Buy an old bike you don’t mind crashing old protection clothes and go find that sweet balance point it’s the same thing like natural jumping you just know how.