1.Practice as often as you can. If you are striving to be really good at guard then thats what it takes...lots of practice
2. Start by stretching whatever limbs you are going to use lol. Do some quick arm stretches or leg stretches. We dont want any injuries :)
3. Begin your equiptment work with some spins. Get warmed up...dont just jump into tossing and other things. Push yourself a little bit more each time with your spins to keep up your endurance. Start with your normal comfortable amount then each time you practice increase it by ten.
4. Move on to more difficult basics to retain your skills. Doing it correctly once is not going to make it stick. You have to continue with it, guard is all about muscle memory. Do more complicated spins, backhands, speed/peggy spins, spins and stops, whatever lol.
5. Move to tosses (this is rifle and sabre mainly) do them sequencially. Dont go right up to sixes. Start with a few singles. This will help to warm up your muscles and also to make sure you keep your muscle memory. Move onto doubles, triples, quads, so on. Then challenge yourself and mix it up. Do a quad then go to a single. This will help you with your muscle memory.
6. So your main idea for practicing was to go over a routine or show. This is where you get to that. Now that you have warmed up you will find you are more succesful at doing your show then you would be just going straight into it. Start by going over parts you have been having trouble with. Do it until you get it right five times in a row. Then go on to running through the whole section or show a couple of times
So that is my practice process! It works fairly well for me lol so i thought i would pass it on :) Now heres some just regular pointers
1. PRACTICE OFTEN! If you dont, you will not be able to retain everything that you have done and your muscle memory will not stick very well.
2. Build up your endurance and challenge yourself. Dont just do the bare minimum to say that youve practiced. Go hard core. This will help you to improve greatly
3. Enjoy your practice and spinning time. Turn on some music or something, it helps the time go by faster...Dont concentrate too hard on what you are doing. It will sometimes cause you to get scared you are about to drop and then you will lol it never fails
4. Dont frustrate yourself. It just ends up making things not work. If you find yourself not able to get something then take a break and breathe lol it really helps.