I'm struggling to learn the small jump over the koopa in front of the two goombas in 1-2. Sometimes I jump too soon and hit the bricks. Sometimes too late. Sometimes too high. I'm really all over the place on it.

Anyone use and good mental or visual cues? What do you all look at when you do the jump? The koopa? The bricks? The ground? Mario?

I'm aiming for a sub 5 time at this point and feel pretty good about the rest of my strats, but this is still killing like 80% of my runs. I'd greatly appreciate any advice!

I dont think there is any visual cues. It just takes practice. I practiced for about 20 minutes a day for a week and I got in down by the end of it. It just takes practice. Also, look at either darbians or kosmics Super Mario Bros Any% Tutorial. That should help a bit. :)

If you don't have a time quicker than 5:10, then I really wouldn't recommend trying tricks like that yet. Look at some easier methods of a getting faster time. Because basically all 1-2 tricks shown in most low 5 minute runs are simply difficult.

In case anyone else struggling at this reads this thread... I came across a suggestion for small jumps that helped me get more consistent: briefly let go of B and quickly swipe across the A button instead of tapping it. Then recover thumb position in time for the second jump.

Kudos to RoyLGamer who mentioned it on andrewg's stream the other day. You can see it in action on somewes' record video (looks like he does it for both the small jump in 1-2 and for fast accel.)

If you play on keyboard or something, then just work on pressing A for as little time as possible, that is kinda what I tried to do because I never slowed down for those jumps and I won't be able to start now because now I do 1-2g. ye just practice pressing jump as fast as possible or do what jlf43 suggested if you're on controller

EDIT: jesus I didn't realize that jlf43 was the one who made this thread Keepo

tap left... it's the only way i can do it consistently - and you don't lose a framerule, so it's 100% as fast as not tapping left