I’m Tim “The Six String General” Granlund and I’m going to show you how to air guitar.

Next step, we’re going to talk about the Acrobatics and this is what sets apart the men from the boys. This is your chance to get totally f—n wild and crazy and over-the-top and just put that exclamation point on your performance, and just knock people’s faces and just totally rock their minds.

Okay, so you can start—you know, when you’re performing and there’s just some big like beat in the song maybe or there’s just some great moment with big riff starts. Maybe you can start with something just basic. You do a little kick like that. Maybe you want to show off your dexterity a little bit, get the spread eagle thing going, so you can do two legs. You go up and go bang! Like that, alright? Pretty crazy.

But now, you really want to show off. Start working some spins in there, okay? So let’s say you’re going—you’re going—the song is coming to its big conclusion and you want to end up on the stage with a big finish, you go up, you spin around, boom! On to the knees, you rock out, finish up on the knees. You just—you’re so exhausted you can’t even get up anymore and the song is done. You rocked too hard, that’s it. That’s all you’ve got.

Now, the other thing you want to keep in mind is look around you, look at your surroundings at the stage, think of it like a playground. This is your chance to just use your surroundings, use everything around you. This is how you can really differentiate yourself. Anybody can just jump where they are. But here, you’ve got speakers here. You want to climb up on the speaker stack, alright. You can get up here. Give the jump to the crowd, get them going, get them to cheer you on, get them to make you want to just take that leap of faith. I hear them, they get me going, then the leap, boom! There you go, you’re going.

But keep in mind, you got to be a little careful, don’t break a neck or something. If you did that, maybe because you were just rocking so freaking hard. You can also work some rolls and maybe you want to bust out your ninja moves, your flips, your handsprings. Of course, there’s a granddaddy of all the acrobatic moves you could ever do, the infamous stage dive. We don’t have a crowd here right now, so I can’t show it to you. But just—you’re going to see adoring fans out there. Don’t be afraid to just point to them, tell them you’re coming, get ready, run and just take that leap, go off. They will catch you, you will ride on the wave of rock and just live in the glory and they’ll put you back on the stage and do your triumphant finish.

Of course, make sure they catch you people, although maybe if they don’t catch you, you’re an extra credit. Okay, so that’s just a brief overview of the acrobatics you can work into your routine. Next up, we’re going to talk about song selection.