From cruising, to commuting, to shredding the streets, park and flatland, skateboarding is one of the most fun and gratifying things you can learn to do in life, and anyone can learn it! It just takes some practice, and knowing what to do, and anyone can learn to skate like a pro.
Skateboarding 101
Before you do tricks you should learn to skate, which means:
Pushing, Cruising, Braking, Bailing
If you’ve never skateboarded before, just get good at pushing and cruising around to start with. If you’ve never even stepped on a board, that’s OK, just start on the carpet or grass so the board moves slowly at first, to get used to standing on your board and leaning your weight around on it, and then practice putting one foot down to push. Get comfortable standing with just 1 foot (front foot) on the board, and slowly dipping your weight down as if to push, touch down, and slowly back on your board. Just practice balancing like that before you hit the pavement, and then take it to a nice empty parking lot or driveway where you have plenty of space and no cars, and jump on! You want to make sure you start by mastering pushing, cruising, braking, and bailing (jumping off) before you move on to the more fun maneuvers!
All-Around Skateboarding – Beginner Tutorial
Here’s a great beginners tutorial on how to skateboard, focusing on core techniques that make an all around good rider- how to push, stop, bail, ollie up curbs, and pick up your skateboard quickly with ease. Master these techniques to shred in public and get respect, and have a good base to start learning tricks on.
Skateboard Tricks
Skateboarding around is awesome in itself, just getting around town, and being able to stand still cruising quickly down the street while everyone is walking around so slowly, are just superior methods of travel. But, when you throw tricks into the mix, it immediately goes to the next level in so many ways that you’ll never want to go back! Tricks are truly the cherry on top of skateboarding and it turns out, there’s about a bazillion ways to do skateboard tricks that anyone can learn, from beginner to advanced, and new tricks are still being invented all the time!
Skateboard Tricks 101 Tutorial
How to Ollie Better (aka jump your board)
Your ollie is the base for getting up curbs, over obstacles, and into a whole new world of tricks.
Aaron Kyro has made some of the best tutorials around for explaining the basics of skateboarding, so here’s his 5 Steps to Better Ollies:
Aaron has another great tutorial on how to ollie while riding.
This is another great tutorial on how an ollie works and how to avoid common ollie mistakes so you get great pop and a nice high, controlled ollie.
Still Can’t Ollie? Try THIS TUTORIAL
High-Speed Skateboarding
Check out our page on how to downhill longboard here