Wednesday, April 27, 2011

The First Fundamental Steps

Stance: There are 2 choices. Regular and goofy.
Regular- Left foot forward, push off the ground with right foot.
Goofy- Right foot forward, push off the ground with left foot.

How do I know what stance I am?

Step on a skateboard and determine which stance is more comfortable for YOU.
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Riding

Next, you want to learn how to ride. Place your front foot in between the nose and center of the board and place your back foot on the ground. Push behind you with your back foot and step back onto the skateboard. In order to turn, you can lean forward and back, relative to the direction your torso is facing.

Can't lean to either side? Try to loosen your trucks. (See previous entry for definition on trucks). This will give them more wiggle room and a better ability to lean. You can loosen them with a skate tool. Just Google it.
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Braking- There are 2 main ways of braking.

Scraping your tail, or braking with your skate shoe.
Scraping your tail on the ground by leaning gently backwards while riding causes friction against the ground, causing you to slow down and stop. This also lowers the tail (opposite of nose, the nose is the beginning of the board) of the skateboard
This is not recommended as it wears away at the "tail" of your skateboard.

Braking with your shoe is usually more effective, looks cooler, and is more cost efficient.
Since skate shoes are more durable than a wooden deck, they will not have to be replaced as often.
To brake, you step your back foot off the board and let it scrape against the ground.

Again, this causes friction, slowing you down.

Thanks for reading, if you liked this, put some feedback in the comments.

-BloggingSkater

20 comments:

  1. Interesting read, could be a good start to a series of tips.

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  2. wow i like this! a good resource for absolute beginners and way to find some basic info.

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  3. This is pretty good, I never knew about skate shoes being a better alternative to stopping than using your board.

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  4. I agree with using the shoe to stop... but I usually need about 2 pairs of shoes a year. Also, you can tell i'm goofy, because my right shoe looks brand new and the left shoe is wrecked.

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  5. the shoes are definitely a necessity. I tried to use sperry's for a bit last year and they just wore right through.

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  6. Even though I get the theory, I'll never be albe to do that xD

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  7. Great tips for people wanting to start, peronally i stopped skating a few years ago

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  8. Stance I find interesting because I always thought it was relevant to your dominate foot (which you step with first) due to balance and push and such.

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  9. theory is not practice... xD

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  10. Pretty interesting, i've never been able to skateboard despite trying; always ended up just falling off:| Maybe if I had read something like these tips back then, things would have turned out differently - who knows.

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  11. I remember trying to skate, I was pretty terrible at it haha.

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  12. Used to skate when i was younger, good tips

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  13. I tried to skate but after it took forever to learn I couldn't ollie, I kinda gave up haha

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  14. My boyfriend tried to teach me the essentials of skating but actually i think your tips are more helpful. Thanks

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  15. Definitely will read up on this. I wish I could skate :(.

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  16. if only i saw this back when i was younger :( +1

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  17. pretty cool guide. tried skateboarding when i was younger and decided it wasn't for me, but i'll be bookmarking your blog for a younger cousin of mine who wants to get into it. =]

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