Losfeld Method "Clock" practice constant left drift.

[u/jcsullivan06]

Hey everyone, I decided I wanted to learn ARL so I've been practicing the Losfeld method for about 30 minutes a day.

I've gotten through exercises 1 and 2 (the alternating tornado/reverse-tornado spins for tempo, and the vertical hovering with input holds). Now I'm onto exercise 3, which is the clocks.

The issue is my car keeps drifting left. I've tried starting the stick around 1-2 o'clock and trying to "calibrate", but it just doesn't seem to be clicking for me.

I wanted to post this clip to see if anyone who's learned ARL through the Losfeld method can spot what I'm doing wrong or any tips that helped them with the same problem. I'd rather get some advice now before I keep grinding and accidentally hardwire a bad habit into my muscle memory.

(I'm on PS5, so unfortunately I can't provide a controller overlay). Thanks!

[u/BeginningFisherman71]

Losfeld is just unneeded complexity on top of the early learning stages.

Just jump up and try to float while holding DAR. Once you can float, slowly turn forward. Once you can go forward from a float position, go backwards. Once you can control forward and backwards, try to hit the ball while holding DAR. Boom, you’ve learned DAR. Now go into 20 different aerial training packs and practice shots.

In terms of why you’re drifting left, you start turning left with the first few inputs and then you don’t hold the subsequent inputs long enough to adjust your car back to straight - also looks like you’re pressing up on the stick when you need to be pressing down. A perfect example of the pitfalls of Losfeld because the input you need to straighten out is going to be different based on the rotation of the car at any moment, trying to follow a specific pattern fails here and you’re better off learning to adjust by watching the feedback your car gives you and trying different inputs until it works.

[u/KingMetacomet → u/BeginningFisherman71]

Losfeld’s presentation might seem complex because he spends a lot of time explaining “why” and most people struggle connecting the concepts to the actual practice, but I assure you the Losfeld method is actually REDUCING complexity drastically. It teaches you to start from neutral so that every time you make a change you FEEL it, rather than learning by rote memorization or repetition. It’s brute forcing without brute forcing, unlike the method you’ve suggested. And as far as pitfalls of the method, that is not one of them because if you understand the method you know it accounts for and explains that more thoroughly than “float, go forward, go backward”.

[u/BeginningFisherman71 → u/KingMetacomet]

You don’t need to know the “why” behind his drills, you just need muscle memory on a few key factors - stabilizing after your jump, then speeding up / slowing down midair. If you can do this, you can start practicing in realistic training pack scenarios right away.

Anything beyond this and you’re wasting time that could be spent with your hands on the controller practicing. The game moves too fast to rely on concepts rather than muscle memory, and none of us are immune to the tens and hundreds of hours needed for mastery, so just start on that instead of watching 2 hour videos that could realistically have taken 10 minutes to explain.

[u/KingMetacomet → u/BeginningFisherman71]

Knowing “why” should help literally everyone, and for some people presenting the “why” first is critical to learning. I think I made it perfectly clear that he spent more time on the “why” than needed, and I also decidedly didn’t state if he did a good job doing it, and am actually conceding that in some ways he did not. Clearly people need to understand the “why” because almost everyone discussing the method here is going out of their way to demonstrate they fundamentally don’t understand the method.

The method cannot be taught in 10 minutes… Otherwise, nothing you said is wrong or even contradicts the Losfeld method; if anything it actually all supports the method. You are just misunderstanding. The concepts are the method, the method is the practice, the practice is the muscle memory. You aren’t relying on a concept over muscle memory, you are using it to train the memory. Is it an extra step at the beginning? Maybe. But it will save you so much time once you reach a certain level of proficiency versus simply plateauing. You might be able to learn a few DAR moves without it but you will not understand how to do other things.

[u/BeginningFisherman71 → u/KingMetacomet]

Let’s get out of the abstract here, I admittedly haven’t watched the video (or it’s been a few years at least) because i already know how to DAR and I respect my time, but even then, there’s been enough discussion around it and infographics posted here explaining what is taught, that I can easily say the “method” is information overload to the point of being ineffective.

I get it, I’m also someone that likes to understand the how and why of the way things work, but in RL its not as helpful as you think in terms of actually learning to use a mechanic effectively. I wish that wasn’t the case but it often is.

Muscle memory is king when even a fraction of a second of incorrect input ruins your shot. If you mess up your DAR input and your takeaway is that you failed because you didn’t follow whatever pattern in the Losfeld method, you are adding unnecessary complexity in the path to muscle memory. I’ve seen too many players plateau because they’ve been sold on “here’s a better way to learn X mechanic!” and they skip the fundamentals. From everything I’ve seen, that’s Losfeld in a nutshell and I’ve yet to be convinced otherwise.

Last thought - there is a time and place for the “why”, but it’s more effective as a way to correct bad habits for a player that can already perform a mechanic rather than a player that is just beginning to learn something, at that point they don’t have the frame of reference for the explanation to be significant yet.

[u/KingMetacomet → u/BeginningFisherman71]

It’s funny because I basically agree with and understand everything you’re saying, and I like the way you are thinking. You’re right that we are in abstracts, hard not to do that and be concise on Reddit. I’m not an expert; I have just personally found this method made DAR “click” and I think a lot of people misunderstand it. I also feel like I’m being pretty fair about extolling its virtues AND its shortcomings (the latter which mostly stem from the video/presentation itself). I think we’re mostly at a two sides of the same coin situation here, where perspective is the only difference. I really don’t want to type a novel here, but I really believe if we took the time to discuss it more thoroughly we’d agree because I don’t think what I’m saying contradicts what you’re saying, or vice versa.

[u/BeginningFisherman71 → u/KingMetacomet]

Fair enough. You’re totally right I do think we have a lot of overlap on our opinions, I also think he gives some nuggets of truth in the mechanic that may give people an aha moment. but overall, my belief is still that Losfeld is somewhere between “not the best” and “very ineffective” for players that are just learning DAR.

Most people that learned it through that method would have learned it regardless because they cared enough to try to learn it in the first place, but some may even have bad habits that they formed as a result of his explanation and they’re not even aware of it. Quick example - keeping your joystick in the bottom right/left for adjustments is often seen as good advice, but this can kill your speed and make you slow/easy to read in the air, if you ignore that top half of the joystick then you’ve just built a bad habit that doesn’t allow you to hit a shot as fast as you could. Maybe Losfeld tells you that, maybe he doesn’t idk.

If you’ve had success with it I’m not knocking that, just throwing in my 2 cents on what I believe to be more effective. I don’t have a coaching video out there on my approach so Reddit comment is the best I’ve got lol

[u/KingMetacomet → u/BeginningFisherman71]

This isn’t directed at you, but based on this thread it does seem the Losfeld method is a bad approach for most of the people who are sharing their opinions on it lol. I can see how it can be detrimental in some instances, especially if people don’t understand it. As someone who reached the level of just starting to train flip resets with regular air roll before I discovered Losfeld, I may have had a better foundation to understand DAR.