THE BEGINNER GUIDE ON SKATEBOARDING

Skateboarding is a fascinating sport especially for children and young teenagers who are interested in the cool performances and the thrilling feeling of speed. However, learning how to skate will not be very easy if you don’t have anyone teach you and give you advice. 

Don’t worry, in this article I will give you the most basic techniques on how to get familiar with your board. If you want to receive more advice and tips from other experienced skaters, SkateAdvisors is a popular website that I suggest you should check out. 

DETERMINING YOUR STANCE

Before going any further in this sport, you need to know which stand you belong to since the wrong stance can directly affect your ability to perform hard tricks. Stance can be understood as the choice of your body to put which foot in the front of the board and which foot is used to push. 

A common way that many skaters use in finding their stances is to imagine you’re on a hardwood floor in your socks or on the ice where you desperately want to slide. Now let your instinct decide which foot should be put forward and the other will be used for pushing. 

Read about general skateboarding tricks & tips in this category of the SkateAdvisors Blog: https://skateadvisors.com/blog/tutorials

Since there are still some exceptions, you should take time to try both stances to know which one comforts you the most. The foot on which you feel comfortable when putting ahead and standing should be your front foot.

In skateboarding there are only 2 types of stances: regular and goofy. 

• Goofy means you tend to put your right foot in the front
• Regular is the opposite of goofy in which the left foot is put ahead

FUNDAMENTALS ABOUT SKATEBOARDING

• Ready to fall: falling is inevitable in skateboarding; therefore, learning how to fall is crucial to reduce the risk of damaging your body. Moreover, you should always wear protective equipment whenever having boards under your feet. 
• Confidence: starting from the most basic skills and moving further with difficult tricks, you need to be confident about yourself and show respect to other skaters even if their performances may not be good.
• Being the knees: to keep balance on the board, it is better to relax and bend your knee a little bit to adjust your center of mass while riding. 
• Good apparatuses: don’t waste money on cheap products since they are usually undurable and may cause more damage to your body than standard ones. 
• Determination: skateboarding is not easy especially with newbies; however, the most tricky part is not learning how to skate but to keep yourself determined in practising. 

WHERE CAN YOU SKATE? 

The best place for skating should be in a professional skatepark, but a smooth and less-used ground such as empty streets or parking lots are great places for practising. Some people want to skate on pavements; however, they usually contain a lot of cracks so it’s easy for skaters to lose balance. 

Besides, skateparks are often crowded and chaotic so you need to learn how to do the simple skills such as pushing, stopping, turning beforehand. Also, you should find a good place where you can concentrate and don’t need to pay attention to the incoming vehicles or other skates. 

Below are the basic things you need to master in skateboarding: 

STOPPING

The common technique is foot braking or dragging your foot on the ground. First, you need to get balanced and put your back foot on the ground. Then drag the back foot on the ground and let friction stop the board gradually. Once you have reached your desired speed, take the foot to the initial position. 

PUSHING

You have learned how to stop the board, now you should know how to accelerate it. Pushing is basically using your foot to make a 30-degree angle to the ground then push and move forward. To get best results in pushing, you should spend time learning how to keep balanced on the board first. 

TURNING

Turning is intuitive and you can gain the skill gradually through experience. Basically, there are two types of turns which are carving turns and quick turns. While carving turns are more natural since you turn the board by leaning your body to left or right, kick turns are a better option when you need to perform a sharp turn at low speed. 

Since turing is the basic skill you need to master in order to fully control and steer the board as you want. You should spend time practising it, they may be quite awkward at first but it would be much easier for the next time. 

For more instruction on skateboarding and the interesting index named “Brand”, you should check out the website at https://skateadvisors.com/ for the detailed information about this topic as well as many other related articles about this sport. 

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