the ability to flow through a skatepark will make you look much better than a person who learned tricks but isnt comfortable rolling away. there was this one guy at my park that looked like a pro but couldnt even shuv it because the only thing he learned was riding in all stances ollies in all stances, 180 in all stances and manual in all stances.
Here's the secret: The person who wins at Skateboarding is the person who is having the most fun. For some that's doing new tricks, for some is perfecting existing trucks, for others it's just riding around.
hey, just wanted to say that your videos are some of the most beginner friendly out there and just always really great to watch and i feel like every time i watch one i learn something new! keep up the great work :)
Hi Sarah I love your videos and they have helped me a lot. I got my 1st skateboard in the Spring of 2021 I got a new one this Spring. I'm 57 years old and skateboarding has turned my life around, I'm healthy again. Exercise and fitness were my goals but I fell in love with the routine of skating every day. Trust me you will improve fast if you do it every day!
Thanks Sarah! I've been skating since last November with a cheap cruiser from Decathon and got a proper skate on January when I said "yes! This is my new fav thing ever", but truth be told, I keep cruising the bike line because when I try the other skate I still find it uncomfy and see so little improvement from one day to another... And hearing riding is enough made me feel better and reminded myself to be a bit more patient. I think I'll go back to the skatepark soon enough.
Your philosophy on learning to skate is so refreshing and inspiring. Thank you for your videos, they've helped build my confidence and shape how I learn to skateboard. Why am I skating if I'm feeling pressure and not having fun? The most fun I have currently is cruising through the city and getting in a flow state so to speak. It's super relaxing and I don't care anymore if I haven't learned to ollie or anything. It's only been a month since I got my board anyways!
Exactly!!! I see people at my park all the time who can barely skate going straight to kickflips and looking very choppy and awkward and never committing to land them. The FIRST thing to do is get very comfortable on your board and balancing!! It will make learning tricks so much quicker and easier and probably reduce the chances of getting hurt. In addition to Sarah’s suggestions, I would also recommend using a half pipe and just go back and forth kick turning(not dropping in), basically bowl riding.
I keep seeing this video on my recommended but never watched it until today. It was the best choice I could’ve made. THIS VIDEO IS SO AWESOME!!!!! I learn something new from all your videos and incorporate them into my skating. Thank you for putting yourself out there, you’re the best role model any skater could ask for ❤
I discovered your channel today and I like it so much! I started skating last month at my 30's and I like how you speak and specially how honest you are. Most of "pro" skaters told you that in your first day you can ollie but that's not true. I like when you analyze how to do a no comply (because apparently it's too easy for explaining in a video...). Keep it up! I'll stay tune :)
I am 16 months into skateboarding now and few days ago I learned to ollie up and off a curb, which wouldnt have been possible without good riding skills. used to ride around on my cruiser setup, but thanks to the new dragon formula wheels (yes, that shit again) I am actually cruising on my trick board, its insane. then I find a spot, like a nice street with a nice sidewalk and no cars and I spend like half an hour there, its awesome. before I learned how to ollie and shuvit I worked on kickturns on ramps, nosestalls, body varials ... all great stuff and you can combine those simple tricks with all kinds of obstacles, so dont think that just because a body varial for example is easy at some point, that it doesnt have a lot of utility. getting really good at the basics pays off big time. and its alot of fun. when I first started learning ollies, I did spend like an hour every day on a towel and it was really exhausting and not much fun. same for shuvits, took half an eternity to click with me. hell, rolling off a (relatively high) curb, I spent an hour only attempting that and nothing else and it ruined my fingers just from picking the board up so many times in a row. and I landed it like thrice in all that time ... I thought persistence was a good idea, and it probably is, but in that case I really shouldve worked on my ability to ride comfortably and roll off smaller curbs, until that felt really natural, instead of beating my head against the wall. afterwards it took me another 2 weeks of sporadic attempts, until I actually got that ... now its simple for me, dropping of ledges no problem, but it didnt have to be so damn hard. anyway, great video, I totally agree with that notion.
Another great video! The overall message is reassuring to hear for me at least. I think I sometimes get too involved in learning tricks instead of just riding around. My goal when I started a couple months ago was never to do anything too crazy, I mostly wanted to learn how to ride along the coastal sidewalk where I live (Mar del Plata, Argentina). But then I figured I DO want to learn stuff like the ollie, as well as different ways of getting down and up the curb (e.g. boneless), different ways to go over large cracks in the pavement, and such. Finally, I realized I was going to need to learn a bunch of 'simpler' tricks just to improve my overall control and make a solid foundation for when I try to learn the ollie. Thank you for the suggestions and tips as always!
That's so interesting because I was the opposite. I wanted to learn tricks and never imagined just wanting to roll around, but now I love just riding! And tricks 😂 Glad you're having fun and finding your way though! That's awesome. I bet cruising the coastal sidewalks is fun too!
I agree. My motivations are very similar to yours. My board is my primary form of transportation and I’m pretty comfortable rolling around. Now I want to learn enough to never have to step off my board unless necessary so, rolling off the curb, ollies up the curb and over large cracks in the sidewalk. Perhaps maybe a kick flip down the line.
Thank you, absolutely needed to hear this. I am thirty and looking at getting into skating for the first time when the snow melts, and it seems like a lot of videos on here focus so much on tricks, but the main reason I want to skate is just to cruise and enjoy nature. If I do learn tricks along the way, great, but that's not the primary motive here.
ah, that's awesome to hear! Especially if you have a cool place to cruise around and actually enjoy the nature around you. I'd love to find a spot like that. Hope that you can have tons of fun when the snow melts this spring 🙌
This is what I do as a new starter.. I mix it up by testing on my switch stance and then just riding in fakie and nollie which are still super hard. But I want to be able to ride flat in all stances before hitting a transition.. And do fs and bs lean turns in all 4 stances.. It feels awesome.. No tricks at all required.. But I'm super comfortable on the board and if I try something and it goes sketchy I'm generally happy however I end up rolling
started skating in may and an old acl injury acted up in june when i was trying ollies, so now i've just been pushing around the neighbourhood on some cruiser wheels. getting an mri for the knee soon, but this video made me feel better about what i originally just viewed as lost time in my learning process
Hey Sarah, I just discovered your channel a few days ago while looking for a female skater to watch!! I've just decided this year (at almost 30) to finally learn how to skate after years of wanting to. I mainly just want to cruise but really struggle with having the confidence to get out there since I'm a beginner beginner. Your tips were all super helpful and I'm going to try and channel your confidence!
ah that's awesome! Welcome to skateboarding. I'm glad you're finally giving it a go. Confidence is like any muscle, it builds with consistent effort. So, cheering for you 💪
I’m very new to skateboarding, stood on a board three times so far and started pretty old too (31) but this is hands down the most helpful video I’ve seen for beginners (and I’ve watched a ton). I wish I had someone like you to skate around with, you seem really chill and I hope I’ll look as comfy on a board as you one day 😊
Ah, welcome to skateboarding! 🙋♀️ You definitely will! It just always takes longer than we expect I think 😂 But I'm excited for you! Keep having fun and that comfort will follow!
Ive been skating for about four months now two of which were recovering from falls. What I noticed when i meet other new skaters or kids at the park is they all wanna do kick flips and 180s up banks. They'll even try ollie off three stairs. Yet most of the time, they have bad cruise flow, cant do fs/bs kick turns efficiently, cant go up transition, fs/bs on transition or banks, cant revert fs/bs, or even just dropping in. I told myself ill try any new tricks if i feel up to it, but most of the time i go back to the basics, getting comfortable with bs/fs kick turns on transition, going up coming down fakie on transition, dropping in, etc. These basics are overlooked by many new skaters wanting to jump straight to treflips but cant even get a consistent ollie. Ive gauge my progression right now not on how many tricks i can do but being able to do simple yet hard things such as drop ins and fs kickturns or wall rides on transition. Even worse when you try these basic things in switch. My problem is that at my age just getting into skating has been bad on my knees. Constantly swollen, knee effusion on both knees, and i always feel like i need a wheel chair after a session. This has been slowing my progress as i need long breaks in between. Im in no rush but that feeling of wanting to skate when you cant sucks. Im taking a couple weeks to a month hiatus again to let my knees recover.
Yeah, that's really common. But, the best thing to do is make skating your own! That's when it really becomes enjoyable. I had a pretty nagging knee injury about half the time I was skating. So, I feel for the knee pain just a bit. I would say if you have any interest in freestyle skating, freestyle footwork and such is a fun way to stay active on your board and not worry about jumping or anything! I know I'd take days just for rolling around and freestyle when I felt sore but still wanted to get out and skate. Either way, listing to the body is important of course! Hope you can enjoy your hiatus and get back to skating 😃
Freestyle hasn't been that appealing to me at least not right now. My goal is to be able to cruise transition with ease but the front sides and deeper bowls have been challenging. I take it at my pace and every little bit of progress makes me feel good even if its a simple going up transition and coming back fakie. My first time I slammed hard going fakie on a 4ft transition that took me out for a month had bone bruising on my ribs. Now i can do it fairly easily as long as i dont hit the coping. Even just skating fast has its own challenges. But thats where cruising and riding as often as possible helps. I totally promote that with any new skater. I tried to learn the 180 no comply your way and every other youtube way and i just couldnt get it. After all the cruising and doing other things now im at least able to get the board to shuv more often. Just gotta work on doing it in one smooth motion jumping back on. Great vids none the less appreciate it.
@@rdzx1073 it’s not for everyone 😃🙌 I’m obsessed with flatground right now. So it’s at the forefront of all my skate thoughts haha Transition is it’s own cool niche. One I have very little experience with. But, it’s awesome that’s what you’re into! Looks very fun to cruise around and ride and flow! Keep pushing and having fun and I’m sure you’ll get where you want to 🙌🙋♀️
I completely agree 👍🏾. I will just go to the park with a goal of "stay on board". I want to be comfortable riding up, down, backwards and off things. I tried switch pushing the other day and that was harder than learning to Ollie 😂.
Facts. I am so glad that the first board I bought was a cruiser with nice comfy soft wheels. My first month of skating was spent cruising. Pushing around the park, downtown, my neighborhood. Also going to the skatepark and practicing tic tacs, kick turns on banks, and things like that. When I bought my first park set up and started practicing tricks, I found I started progressing pretty fast because of that riding comfort.
This is an awesome video for beginners to intermediate folks! It took me until I was 30 to really start skating, largely because I never really focused on how fun *just riding* was until then. I’ve been trying to work on little pops lately, and linking them together. In a recent Christopher Hiett video, he shows how part of his warmup is doing a string of really fast, small ollies. Surprisingly difficult to link them together! I have also been getting into switch ollies and nollies, but the idea of deliberately using little pops and little lifts is a great idea, as even that is still a challenge.
Oh man that look back trick looks fun also the back wheel reverts are so fun I do them FS and sometimes I get some pop from them and they just feel so good definetly something I suggest trying on banks if you do em right you can be set up for a trick fakie trick by the time you reach the top and it's so fun
Hey Sarah, Tony Gale said that "back wheel powerslide revert" is a two wheel powerslide. I asked the question about that on the F-Forum. :-) Thanks for your videos. They are very encouraging and helpful.
Solid advice. I have been riding for 2 years, on and off due to lockdowns, work, etc. I waited for a year before I started working on ollies. I made sure I could ride comfortably, bs and fs kickturn and long distance push before trying anything. And music during skateboarding is just
Pushing is an essential skill. I can barely ollie a 4 stair but I feel like I push better than some pro's since I constantly work on it/skate transition
i dont remember when i started to try learning tricks, but it wasnt that long time after i got comfortable with my board xD got a rocket ollie and still cant normal one haha. but also learned few tricks without ollie, cant do them really well but still something
I'm a beginner(62yr) who practices at the skate park in the mornings, but I don't listen to music because I wanna be fully aware of my surroundings/other skaters. I loooooove listening to music, so this is a good reminder to spend some time by myself practicing and just jammin'. Thank you, Sarah. Would love your thoughts on pushing.
ah no, that's a great point! I wouldn't listen to music in a crowded park either, and , I tend to listen to it on the quieter side anyway, without noise cancellation. Gotta find the right time/balance for you! 🙌 hope you can sneak in some music though. Makes a big difference when just cruising around.
Skating is different for everyon, but I would definitely say it's really important to be as comfortable as possible on your board. Just cruising around helps alot with that, but It when it comes to tricks I sincerely believe you should learn as many tricks as you can, it makes you confident on your board. Almost everyone in my local learned ollie, shuv, fs 180 then all of them fakie, maybe nollie and then proceeded to try to learn kickflips/heelflips. Before I learned the kickflip (around 11-12 months in) my bag of tricks was already huge, probably around 30, alot of them were really weird tricks like hand plants, sweeper, rail stands, shuv body varial, flamingo but all of those helped me significantly with learning the more complex ones like hardflips and tres even dolphin flips. Definitely don't underestimate those weird comparable easier 'tricks', this is probably the only reason why I'm relatively good for 3ish years of skating. Trust me, the bigger your bag of tricks the easier it gets to learn almost anything new but just don't chase the obvious ones to early, there is a whole world of creative tricks out there
Big bump. If you're interested in learning tricks, each trick you learn builds up on that foundation and every trick you learn after becomes a little bit easier. 🙌 No trick is too simple, easy or for "beginners only". Felt that huge this summer trying heel flips. Learning to kick flip after 9-ish months of skating was so hard, but learning to heel flip after 2 years and a big bag of foundational skills / tricks is so much easier. Night and day 🙌
Another great video making me realise that I have been wanting too much too soon :D Thank you for being different from other channels as you have mentioned "5 Tricks you can learn in your first session" which can lead to a lot of frustration.. Just seeing someone be like: It is actually okay to take it easy and get comfortable first. That is perfect. I will be more patient with myself and build a better foundation :)
Thank you so much Janina! 😃 I struggled with patience soooo much in the beginning (and once in a while now too). Really the true key to skateboarding is probably patience. That's the real secret 🙌
I skate on my 15 min break. Even if I just cruise around I feel good afterwards. I thought maybe I look weird to others because I work graves and I'm skating in the dark. If you get lost in your music it really does helps block out all the distractions.
Hi Sarah! About board control and balance. Have you heard of balance board? Maybe you can add it to your arsenal of exercises to enhance your balance. Cheers!
ahh that's awesome. I've always wanted to get to small wheels too! But, mine tend to flatspot first, and I sound like a helicopter rolling around the park 😂
Do you think 'little pops' would help with my confidence to ollies over stuff? I struggle to ollie to my full ability over cracks, so if I choose random things while cruising and do those little pops over them, do you think it'll help my confidence? I'm really trying to build to ollies up curbs but MENTAL BLOCK!
Taking a break from tricks and all that funky stuff can prevent burnout. Skating, at its core, is fun and chill. What's more anti-establishment that just enjoying your day not giving a damn about trends and all?
@@SarahParkMatott Wow, I thought you were younger than me, your skills for your age motivated me, you are so good. I'm 21 years old and I picked up the skateboard again, I hope everything goes well..
As an older person, I’m glad I spent a good deal of time just cruising and getting comfortable before moving on to tricks. All of your suggested “tricks” were/are in my rotation (except the no comply 180, still can’t do them). I also like to include jumping on a stationary board after taking a step or two. I found these less intimidating than hippie jumps. I now include giving the board a little push before jumping on and body varials into this practice. Thanks ✌️
Im 38 and just got back on a board after 2 decades and I made the same choice as you, I have decided to get used to being comfortable on my board as opposed to just jumping in and trying kickflips or anything like that. Manuals, body variel, ollies, low 50/50's, shuvtis, no comply's ect. ITs funny because a bunch of the younger kids at the park can all do a kickflip but nothing else, I cant do a kickflip yet but I'm better over all then them because of my choice of practice. Not that "whos better" matters to me, im in it this time around just for fun and exercise i just use that comparison because it seems like the younger ones just want to jump in and be doing tricks with no real foundation behind them.
Sarah, this is AMAZING advice. In my opinion, you provide the most important skateboarding advice on RU-vid because you are speaking to EVERYONE in an inclusive manner.
First I would like to thank you for all your videos. I leave in France and I really appreciate your video channel. I have a question: how to properly adjust my truck? Could you talk about this one of these days? Thanks you 🛹
Thank you! Really happy you enjoy the videos. I'll make a note of it. Truck tightness is just preference. I tend to experiment by loosening the bolt 1/2 a turn at a time until I see what I like. I bet I can make that a quick short though! :D
i've been getting back into skating more regularly the past few months and, at almost 40, i'm happy just cruising or doing low impact tricks. endovers, slappy bs noseslides, etc. one thing i've liked doing recently is a fs pivot to fakie quick enough and with enough speed to keep moving in the same direction.
This video made me feel so much better! Thank you so much for sharing it. I started longboarding about a year ago but I’ve been very cautious and I mainly focus on just cruising around. When I was actively trying to learn tricks, I was a lot more likely to fall, get hurt, and be too nervous to get back on the board - so I wasn’t skating as often. I kind of learned that I have more fun and skate more often when I’m just riding around and I’ve been getting more and more comfortable with that. I also have really rough pavement where I live and there are cars, so it’s safer overall for me to keep my wheels on the ground and my eyes in front until I find a skate spot that’s smoother with less traffic.
Ah, I'm so happy to hear that Lauren! Skating is so diverse in terms of style. Unfortunately, the only styles we really see are the "trick" heavy ones which can put pressure on some of us to "perform" in that capacity. But, I hope you can find some good spots to skate and expand into whatever skating you'd like and enjoy it your way, even just cruising 🙌 😃 Cruising is soooo much fun 🤠
I practice riding my board by driving a bycile way for 15 (2. 25km) or 30min (4.5km) in most skate sessions. But I am not sure, if I should get other wheels for this riding practice because now I have 54 with A102 and such riding long distances with them feels exhausting 😅 On the other hand, I just stared 1 moth ago and I am afraid my muscle memory gets confused with 2 Set ups and that it's counterproductive before I got used to one setup more, before adding another. What do U guys think?
An inspiration I had was when watching an old school skate vid and seeing a skater go as fast as possible pushing fwd in order to gain speed to clear a tall stair. He was going max speed while turning using his front leg only. I was like “wait you can change directions one legged while pushing?” 😂 I used to get frustrated when my board wouldn’t push straight, but since watching that vid I always play with my front leg while pushing to have that control. watching all experts riding is always fun…so effortless, in control….
Yeah, when I go down hills I put one foot on the ground if I need to steer around a corner and brake with one foot a little in order to not go too far out as I turn, so I'm turning on one foot at better than 20mph going downhill around sharp corners that I can't take just tightly enough just by leaning. Your muscles adjust to stabilise your leg and allow you to steer with one foot while remaining upright enough to be able to recover, if you do it often enough. You'll learn though from just pushing around as fast as you can, and not putting your back foot back on the board, just sorta hang it in midair off the side of the board. I used to practice by doing circles in the karate kid crane pose lmfao. It's a bit like ice skating I guess, you just have to be strong enough to maintain the correct angle without your ankle rolling over. As far as I'm concerned just riding on a board increases your game all round. Being comfortable is a key part of skating, and just riding around allows you to completely relax and just react to the terrain. I'm not that fussy about the surface I ride on because I've learned how your weight needs to be distributed front to back for each surface, so I'm happy to roll down a dry mud hill or rough asphalt as I am smooth tarmac, concrete or plywood. You just have to remember to lean back a bit more on rough asphalt as you hit it if you're already moving at speed as you decelerate a lot faster on the rough stuff. One of my favourite hills has driveways striping the pavement/sidewalk, and they're all made of different materials, some are rough some are smooth some are pebbly in places which you have to avoid lol. So I have to adjust my weight and balance constantly as I go over each one as some speed you up and some slow you down, and after about 40' there's a fairly sharp turn to the left, just as you come to a pebbly patch of concrete so you can't take the corner wide or you fly off your board and break six ribs like I did at Easter lol. It's a fun hill, but it has a lot of adjustments you need to make to stay safe and get the maximum speed out of it. It's not so dissimilar to doing tricks, it's all about foot placement, balance and timing.
Riding around and balancing on one foot is something I've done a ton of this summer both regular and switch. It's sooo important and helpful. 🙌 Great addition.
Those "back wheel powerslides" are called BS powerspins! Super fun, but they are way easier when you leave the front wheels on the ground and just skrrt around.
Ah, I've seen those! I really enjoy the back wheel versions because I don't go fast enough/have skill enough to do the ones where all your wheels touch 😂
I do use my iPhone for a lot of stuff. But, I like cameras. And I recently got a nikon z30. I've been filming everything with that recently since it's so much fun to use 😃
riding is for sure enough to progress. would be even better if there are small slopes. for my case, i cruised around the street and running trails with a longboard for 4-5 months before going back to the skatepark. i didnt dare to do any other tricks other than rock to fakie. one day my friend said im good enough to do full cab and rock and roll. then we tried back to back and he went first. then we were shocked that i could really first try both tricks. during my rollings, i always do little manuals too and i found it really useful when I needed to save myself from falling on slopes.
Do you think that for a begginer that wants to get into freestyle skate, is a freestyle skateboard good enough to just cruise around in skateparks/basketball courts?
Freestyle skateboards are often smaller than a regular skateboard, but you can ride them around a park or basketball court! I ride mine around for fun much like I did in this video. If you want to cruise around on your freestyle deck because you want to learn freestyle and build up more control, using the freestyle deck will work and help you get used to the small size. However, I wouldn't recommend a freestyle deck if your main goal was to cruise haha
Those are called walk the dogs! And i do have a couple videos on them. This is the most recent one I have ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-peUIIK8_Gcs.html Glad to hear you find the videos helpful!
That 250 hour benchmark is useful. Been 4 months for me, but I realized now that I'm only at 50-70 hours after 4 months. I'm an adult with a job and can only really get an hour in a day (and have only really been comfortable enough to do that in the last 2 weeks or so). Now I don't feel nearly as behind :D All the youtubers suggest "riding around and getting comfortable on your board for a while", but they make it sound like you'll be very good at pushing and completely ready for tricks in a week or something. 250 hours is a LOT, unless you're a kid and it's the summer. And even then, it's basically the entire summer, 3+ hours every day.
Learning switch this week. Already getting past the "I randomly lose balance and fall off turning" stage, and just got to the "I can push, but slowly, and with a lot of involuntary leg cramping" stage, and it's probably only been about 2 hours total. And I get noticeably better and can feel my legs getting stronger after every session. I think it's going to be another week before I'm at the "I actually can feel the board with my feet, and adjust my foot position without cramping them" stage, and probably one additional week for "pushing fast and leaning into carves". Once I'm up to par with this, I am absolutely going to learn a bunch of stance-switching tricks, and I suspect riding is going to get a ton more fun.
Yeah, I learned over a summer with a friend, but we were staying at the skate park from 10pm to just before 6am most days, and skating from A to B most of the time. It can be done in a few months if it's intensive, but it's best to take your time and be comfortable and relaxed just rolling before trying things that require you to land on a board, whether or not it's moving. It takes time for your body to reflexively throw out an arm in counterbalance and get the fine tuned muscle memory, and the best way to learn that sort of thing is to just ride around and go over little twigs, cracks and grit that slow you down rapidly and force you to change your balance to compensate. It's also worth learning to fall properly (crumple, slide or roll to shed the momentum) before you start taking heavy slams doing tricks.
Exactly, it's why I've been mentioning it as hours. A lot of people do make it sound like you can just "get comfortable" in a few weeks or something---and it's more complex because "comfort" isn't exactly something you can define and have work for everyone. So, I like to mention my experience of about 250 hours. It might take more or less for you, but it's also a good perspective if you can only skate an hour or two every week. It's important to have that framework I think 😃 Glad you're feeling good and putting in those good hours! 🙌
@@Si74l0rd I'm going to have to do that somewhere besides my apartment complex's garage, cause the texture they put on the concrete makes it a cheese grater. I learned what fixomull is because of skateboarding XD. So far the pads and remembering to lean forward is serving me more than well enough, but yeah I am sure those alone won't prepare me for rails or ledges, and I'll have to relearn to aikido/judo roll, etc.
@@blarghblargh Yeah fair enough, a certain amount of skin is gonna get sacrificed in learning, but no need to invite it by practicing on nasty surfaces early on in your progress. I'm in the UK so there aren't really any restrictions on where and when I ride, but I'm aware it's a trickier situation in America, especially in urban areas. A local car park is probably your best bet as long as no-one minds. Anywhere with official security isn't usually worth the hassle though, even here, though where I live security are generally pretty relaxed with skaters and the parkour crowd. I'd be devastated living in America though, what I enjoy most is blasting down long hills, either on the road surface or the pavement/sidewalk, depending on how busy the road is and how bad the pavement surface is lol. That's the bit I enjoy most about skating from A to B, and the most exhilarating and euphoric experience, but you need to be really comfortable on a board to commit to it, much like skating a quarter pipe or halfpipe, if you don't commit fully it's an accident waiting to happen, and just a moment's hesitation has cost me broken bones in the last year. Flat ground with some small cracks and seams and not too rough a surface is your best bet for beginner and intermediate if you can find anything locally. Just to practice weight transfer from one foot to the other to allow the board to pop over small cracks or debris, and get used to that, then learning to roll off kerbs and low surfaces, or between different sorts of surfaces. Even different skateparks can have different concrete or surface textures, so finding as many different places to practice as you can helps your feet learn the different textures and you get a sense of how fast you can go and how good the friction will be when you're turning. Sometimes you get wheelbite before the wheels lose traction, sometimes the wheels let go first, if you oversteer too heavily. I tried skating on ice one year and went diagonal around a banked corner lol, couldn't stay straight no matter what I did! No traction at all. A lot of fun though ;D Then just build up to a gradual gradient and different surfaces. Even on rough surfaces you can run a couple steps and throw the board under your foot (with a bit of practice) and then you can learn the amount of deceleration on the rough too. But getting comfortable just rolling and steering with your feet is the first step, and learning to stop. Rough tarmac is good training for the deceleration in a power slide though, once you're good and comfortable riding around. They both reduce your speed with great rapidity and need a lot of back lean to compensate.
Heyy Sarah, amazing video, I'm not sure if you remember ur first viewer but I see ur progress. You are AMAZING. small question, what earbuds were those u showed in the video?
ay, thank you! I do remember. Stoked to hear from you. And yes, these are Beats Studio Buds, but they do fall out of the ear a bit. So, I would probably not recommend them for skating. However, they're what I have 😂
What a breeze! I like what you said in another video, "skateboarding is my escape...," this is very much true for me too; it's so meditative for me, that I've started to divide the time I set aside each day for actual meditation, and use the half (and more) for skating. And then I just put on some music too and I just go. It's usually Elliott Smith's "Either/Or." I swear, that album is the best for skating. It puts you in that zone, and you're just in your little pocket universe, but at the same time you also start to see the world differently---you focus on one little thing at a time and everything else is just background. So cinematic. 😂 And then by the end of it, whether you simply just cruised around or got to practice a couple of tricks, it's progress all the same, anyway, you wouldn't care because you'd be soaked and dripping wet with elation. Cruise on or shred hard, friend! "It's just a brief smile crossing your face, running speed trials standing in place..."
This is precisely what I started doing! I rode to class every day when I was in college. But when I started working full time over 8 years ago, I just stopped skating. Now I’m working on basics over lunch
Awesome video. Just riding around was a huge help to me after 30 years away from skating. I fell into the trap when I first got back into skating wanting to learn tricks right away that I bought these rubber things that go around your wheels, so your board doesn't roll. Then I realized it doesn't make any sense if I can do a kickflip but can't ride 20 feet without losing my balance. Those little ollie pops you showed are some of my favorite things to do. I like doing them over cracks in the sidewalk just to practice landing while rolling.
"Then I realized it doesn't make any sense if I can do a kickflip but can't ride 20 feet without losing my balance." 👈 this 🙌 I've thought about this a lot myself
Thank you for this dude! Im having a hard time skateboarding and feel like Im stuck in a wall but with this, Im enlightened. Thank you for this and Ill practice this more now
I've been skateboarding on and off for a year now, and only got more consistent in hitting the streets this past month... I'm almost 30 and I get so insecure just riding and trying to get comfy on the board while others are doing tricks after tricks, but you're one of the few yt skateboarders here who advocate for these kinds of chill riding. I'm so happy with my progress, no matter how small it seems. The most I can do are sketchy tic tacs, but I couldn't do them consistently before. So thanks so much for the inspiration, I always look into your videos for tips and they've helped a lot. Ride safe my friend!
Yeah, there's a strong skate narrative that pushes "tricks above all else," making it easy to feel insecure--I've been there myself. There's so much more though 💪 So, I'm stoked to hear you've been having fun and are happy with your progress! It's impossible to skate and not get better, so keep pushing and having fun. You ride safe too 🙌
I learned how to kickturn and 180 pivot bs on the carpet i tought it would be of no help once i got it to the street but was i wrong... i had wayy more confidence and precision once the weather got better and i tackled the street again... i was super happy to see those stationary hours paying off. Tldr: jump on your board everyday even if only 5 min and ull thank urself later 😊
I guess I'm lucky in this regard. I'm a person that does not care about what others think what so ever, so that pressure that others "put" on you (who cares what they think) has never affected me. Skating, more so skaters, can be relay toxic and I've seen some new comers get really pressured into "getting gud" really quickly, ultimately failing, blaming themselves for not being as good as others, and stop skating all together. Just ride my friends, dress how you want to dress, skate how you want to skate, have fun how YOU want to have fun. And if you're one of those that are doing the pressuring to newcomers, stop it. Don't be a dick. You were a beginner too.
