Are you a skateboarding beginner or just starting to skate seriously and wanting to learn new tricks? There are some things you will need to know before you start kickflipping down stairs.
Get off on the right foot.
What is your stance? Are you goofy foot or regular, meaning, do you prefer to skate with your right foot foward (goofy) or your left foot foward (regular)? If you don’t know yet, try standing on your board in regular stance (left foot on the front of the board) and pushing to move forward. Now try standing on your board in goofy stance (right foot on the front of the board) and pushing to move forward. What feels more “natural” to you? If you’re still not sure, stand on your skateboard and have someone push you, first in one direction, then in the opposite direction without having changed your stance. You will most likely feel more comfortable with one of the two.
Get comfortable on your skateboard
Before you start learning advanced tricks, it’s important that you are comfortable on your skateboard and are in complete control. Foot placement on the skateboard is important, to start, try out with your front foot over front bolts and back foot on the middle of the tail. This placement will vary greatly as you begin to learn new tricks.
Ride around, a lot. Practice pushing, see how fast you can go, push as hard as you can without losing control of the board. Setup an obstacle course with cones or miscellaneous household objects to practice turning and time yourself or practice with your friends to see who can complete the course in less time. Turning can be done by leaning to one side or the other which will cause the trucks to lean and pivot, turning the wheels or by kick turning which is pushing down on the tail with your back foot to lift the front wheels just enough to use your front foot to guide the nose of the board in the direction you want to turn.
Once you have this course mastered, add some difficulty by including obstacles that require you to slow down or stop completely. Practice stopping by either dragging your back foot, dragging the tail of the deck on the ground (put your weight on your back foot which will push the tail down) or by powersliding (turning the board and yourself 90 degrees), which is accomplished by pushing your back foot out in the direction you are traveling while transferring your weight towards your back. This will effectively have your wheels and board sliding sideways while you face forward in the direction you are moving. Friction caused by the wheels will slow or stop the board. Sometimes a series of powerslides may be necessary to stop completely, powerslide until you feel the wheels binding (which will cause you to spill), pull your back foot and weight back to riding stance, then repeat the powerslide again, each time you do this you will be slowing down.
By now you may have discovered that controlling the board is achieved by correctly transferring weight when and where needed, if you are having trouble with balance and control, pay attention to your body position and how you are distributing your weight. This control and awareness will be vital to learning new tricks on the skateboard.
