How To Skateboard For Beginners
Skateboarding is a thrilling, exciting sport. Skateboarding has been growing in popularity lately, because of it’s variety of different things to learn and ways to ride. Skateboarding can be performed anywhere, whether it’s in your backyard or at your local skatepark, it can be performed anywhere you like. But for the person trying to enter the world of skateboarding, it can be quite intimidating, so we created a guide on how to become a confident skater!
1. Choosing your first skateboard
Choosing your first board can be a hard task. Your first board should be quite inexpensive, and one that fits your liking. Regular decks are great for tricks and other skills like turning because of its curved shape, but longboards are not not normally longboards for beginners, but are great for teaching yourself how to balance because of the flatness and longness of an average longboard. Choosing a deck can be an intimidating task, because of the wide variety of options, but choose the one that you love the most and fits your style.
- Also make sure you have all your gear that you will need to start skateboarding, make sure you have knee pads, helmets and arm pads because when you begin skateboarding, you are bound to fall over many times, so make sure you are safe. Skate shoes can also be useful to get better grip and help out beginner skateboarders a lot.
2. Finding your location
You need a location! Finding a location for skateboarding is quite important for your progress. Make sure your location is quiet and has nice flat ground, a skatepark is not recommended for beginners because of the crowded areas, also skateparks can be an intimidating place to start. Find a nice place where you feel comfortable and safe.
3. Basic Skateboard Movement
Balance:
Balancing on a board is the first step to skateboarding. Place the deck on a flat, solid surface so it will stay still. Once you stand on the board, it will start to rock under you, but this is normal and you will get used to it.
Make sure your feet are aligned sideways and your body is facing the same way. This will help you balance, also making sure your feet are spaced out properly can help out as well. The foot you place in the back will push you forward and the other one stays on the board. After a while you will start to feel comfortable, start to move your body around and get a feel for the skateboard.
Moving Forward:
Eventually you will start to feel comfortable on the skateboard, start to push yourself forward with your back foot and try to balance at the same time. Make sure you take extra care on this step, this is core to learning how to skate. When you start moving forward at first, you will wobble around and it will be quite uncomfortable, so just keep moving forward and try to gain your balance. You are not meant to go far, little strides at a time and eventually you will be able to push yourself harder and further.
Stopping:
Even though you are not meant to stop on a skateboard, it is good to know how to in case you get into a situation that you need too. Stopping is quite a simple task, just place your back foot on the ground, but make sure you do it at the right time. Stopping a skateboard at the wrong time such as as if you have lots of momentum, could send you flying off! Make sure you stop moving forward before you stop yourself, make sure you have lost momentum and you feel comfortable stopping.
Putting your foot on the floor isn’t the only way to stop, another way, despite not being recommended, is leaning your weight on the back half of the skateboard so it flips up, creating friction between the ground and stopping the skateboard.
Turning:
Turning on a deck is a more advanced skill than any other we’ve talked about. Turning on a skateboard is a complex, intimidating move to learn and you can fall many times attempting to learn it. The secret to turning is using your weight, when you would like to turn, shift your weight to whatever side you would like to turn to. This will move the skateboard, eventually the skateboard will do a 360 spin and you would of turned.
Another tip to turning, one I wish I had when I was learning is to bend your knees, make sure your body is at a low centre point of gravity. Make sure you know what foot is at the front of the board, because if it’s your right, if you want to turn right, shift your body forward but if you would like to turn left and your left foot is at the rear of the skateboard, rotate your ankles left to help turn the skateboard. If your left foot is at the front and your right is at the back, do this opposite.
Falling:
No, falling is not a skill and you should not be trying this skill, but in your venture of skateboarding, you will fall, a lot. So knowing how to fall is a good skill to have, because you don’t want to hurt yourself. Before we talk about falling, when you ride you should always have a helmet, knee pad and arm pads are not needed, but are recommended.
4. Getting Comfortable
No Medic would try to heart surgery on their first day, would they? This kind of relates to skateboarding, make sure you are comfortable on your skateboard before you try anything crazy. Doing Ollies, kickflips and all those things they do on the t.v is something they have been practicing for years! Do you think Tony Hawk was able to go up and down ramps when he started? Probably Not. So pace yourself, and have fun.
5. Skateboard Tricks
Skateboarding Tricks are a huge part of the sport. Eventually you will want to learn how to do skateboarding tricks. Here we won’t tell you how to perform these tricks, but if you would like to learn how to click here. Skateboarding tricks can be a hard thing to learn, very hard. Learning these is not recommended if you don’t know the basics of skateboarding but if you start to feel comfortable skating around, try to do some tricks. Ollie, Kickflip, Ollie North, Nollie (opposite of a ollie) and No Comply are all great places to start your adventure in skateboarding tricks, so try it out and see what you can accomplish!
6. Practice, Practice, Practice!
Skateboarding isnt a easy sport to learn at all. Actually, it's probably one of the hardest to learn in the world, also it's a very frustrating sport to learn and can take months or even years to master everything. Practice is proven to improve you over time, so don’t expect skateboarding fame overnight, this process is a hard, long fought process where you will get frustrated. When you get frustrated, just take a break and come back later. Try to practice skateboarding whenever you can, if you have free time at home or even riding home from school can improve your skills a lot. So overall just keep practicing and you WILL get better!
So good!