This is it, you're in! You just got your first skateboard and you can finally start learning.
But what to start with?
Here are some tips for beginners to start riding a skateboard, to do your first tricks and to evolve at skatepark in order not to skip steps and especially to have fun. To make it easier for you to understand, you can also consult our lexicon.
Riding a skateboard
It's the first step and while it may seem logical, many young skateboarders rush through it before they master the basics. However, if we all tried to do ollies the first time, the most important thing is to learn to ride. And for that, there is no secret, you have to ride, ride and ride again!
The main objective is to feel comfortable on your board. The only way to achieve this is to ride as much as possible in various conditions.
So start by riding: go to the bakery to buy bread, go to school on your skateboard, ride on the deck or walk around skatepark to get used to riding your board. This is step number one, and it should not be underestimated.
Everything that follows depends on it. It's much easier to learn the basic tricks once you're comfortable on your skateboard. Once your board has replaced your feet as the most natural way to move, you'll be confident enough to move on.
Remember, your skateboard is a means of travel first and foremost, a skateboard that gets you where you want to go, much faster than walking. So enjoy it, and Go Skating!
The feeling of sliding
Once you're comfortable on your skateboard, you might be tempted to start learning how to jump. Why not!
But in our opinion, the most important thing is to keep riding and learn a few things that will help you progress.
Keep in mind that your Skate Heroes started by riding in all situations with one simple goal in mind: to have fun while sliding. This is the essence of our sport: sliding. So to begin with, just skate with the goal of having fun sliding on the pavement, like surfers slide on the wave. As soon as you feel good on your skateboard, it becomes much easier to take pleasure in riding everywhere you go, by taking speed and carving, that is to say by linking small fast turns.
If you want to go further, this is essential: have fun at skater!
The basics of street skating
Now that you're riding smoothly and getting around a bit, you can spice things up by adding a few basic tricks.
street skating is basically taking advantage of what the street has to offer for skateboarding fun. If the street is flat and you can't jump, there are still ways to have fun, and there are a lot of things to learn.
The first is to master your directional changes by using the kicktail on your board, the raised part at the back of the deck. Simply put, if you turn only by leaning to one side, your turns will require a lot of space to complete. That's part of what the kicktail on your board is for, to change direction very quickly and greatly increase your maneuverability on your skateboard.
To master this new feature, there is a technique that allows you to have fun right away, the Tic Tac.
The Tic Tac is an old method of moving forward by changing direction very quickly with your kicktail. By doing this, you will zigzag on your back wheels and this movement will generate speed. This ultra fun technique allows you to move forward without pushing with your foot and to get used to moving in an ultra incisive way on your skateboard.
The second thing you can learn to have fun and improve your technique is the powerslide.
The powerslide is a basic trick that was part of the repertoire of the first street skaters. To summarize, the powerslide is a way of skidding that allows both to generate a big sliding sensation, but also to brake in a very effective way.
To send your first powerslides, you have to give a powerfull loinshock to send your back foot forward and make your board skid. To make the maneuver easier, you have to put some of your weight on the front of the board to relieve the back truck. A bit like snowboarding and exactly like longboarding, the powerslide is much easier if you take a little speed. To go even further and make it even easier to skid, you can put a hand on the ground to move your center of gravity, which allows you to unhook your wheels even easier. Of course, the quality of the floor can change everything, and the smooth concrete of skatepark is the perfect surface to practice on. And if you need an example, just look at the big slides that Stacy Peralta and his fellow skateboarding pioneers were sending down in the 70s.
To complete the picture, we offer you a little bonus that will be very useful throughout your skating career. It is a technique that you will still see in almost all the runs of the skateboarding pros during competitions: the wheeling.
Wheeling in skateboarding, also called manual, is the fact of rolling on two wheels by lifting the front of your board. The challenge is to work on your balance to hold on as long as possible. If you watch the pros, you'll see that they often use this technique to spice up the landing of certain tricks by falling back on two wheels only!
Wheelies are quite easy to do, the real difficulty is to stay balanced on two wheels for more than three seconds :)
Once you've passed this stage, you can add a little trick to your repertoire by trying the Nose Wheeling, the wheeling on the two front wheels.
Have a good skate !
The first skateboard tricks : the Ollie
OK, you've had a good ride, you go to school every morning on your skateboard. On the way, you pick up some speed and love to zigzag and wheelie to make the ride a little more exciting. At every corner you use your kicktail to turn easily and to avoid the pigeons, you swing huge powerslides whose squeaks echo all over the street!
It's great! You've taken a huge step forward and made it easy for yourself to move on.
Now you can get down to business!
But what is it exactly? Well, that depends on what you want to do. You already have all the keys in hand to have a lot of fun, during your daily commute, but also at skatepark or pumptrack. To continue, and whatever the discipline, you can finally learn to master the most useful trick in skateboarding: the Ollie.
The Ollie is the skateboard jump. And if it's an essential prerequisite to learn the other tricks, the Ollie remains a difficult step to pass if you really want to master it at 100%.
Jumping with your skateboard opens up immense possibilities. What may seem like a basic trick that you would like to learn quickly is in fact an essential for all skateboarders, no matter what they do. Once you master Ollie, the whole world changes! And most importantly, you can jump a curb to get on it, without getting off your skateboard: magic!
With the Ollie, you can also unlock a large majority of tricks, from flip tricks (based on rotation) to grinds and slides.
In short, the Ollie is a major step in your progression and, as such, it deserves to be examined in detail on the best way to learn.