Skateboarding is quite a fantastic sport and hobby. Once you start riding your board, you will experience some significant changes in your life. It will help you get fit both physically and mentally. Apart from that, skateboarding will teach you how to overcome your fears and live a fear-free life.
However, if you are a newbie, then you might be looking for ways to figure out how to ride a skateboard. Well if that is the case, then you are precisely in the right place. It is because we are going to teach you exactly how to ride a skateboard the easiest possible way.
How Do You Ride a Skateboard for Beginners?
Skateboarding is like walking, and you shouldn’t expect to learn and master this art in one day. Do you remember how long did it took you to take your first step? Well probably not but ask your parents and you may hear a long story.
Anyways being a beginner doesn’t mean that you can’t ride a skateboard at all. The first and the most important thing to do is to choose the right board for your needs. If you haven’t selected your skateboard until now, you might want to check out the best skateboard for commuting.
However, if you already have a skateboard to ride, you can skip this step and move on to the next ones. These next steps involve some basic techniques that will help you ride the skateboard.
How can I teach myself to skateboard?
You can start teaching yourself to skateboard by following the right technique. Here is the most basic method that will make it easy to learn skateboarding and that too in a fun way.
Gear up
Before you start learning to ride the skateboard, you need to gear up properly. By gearing up, we mean to wear proper clothing required for skateboarding along with some protective gears. If you are a complete beginner, you should start with a decent helmet and some knee and elbow pads.
These are quite necessary because for the next couple of days you are going to experience many falls. However, with every single fall, you will raise even stronger, and you’ll learn how not to do that again.
Start Low
The next thing to do is to start low and then progress gradually. Don’t expect to start pushing your skateboard right away. It may feel a bit unnatural at first when a plank suddenly start rolling while you are standing on it.
Therefore, at first, try to familiarize yourself with the board as much as possible. Try standing on a stationary board for a while and experience it. You can close your eyes and try to balance your body on the stationary board. This will help to build the mind-body coordination.
Push with One Leg and follow-through
Once your mind accepts the reality that standing on the skateboard isn’t a bad thing, then you can start pushing it a little. It would be best if you didn’t start by taking more giant strides in the beginning. Make sure to push it a little and learn to do it with a proper flow with no sudden movement.
Try to connect all of your moves to make the process as smooth as possible. You can do this for a couple of weeks until you feel comfortable with riding the board. After that, try to switch your legs like start pushing with right Leg and then switch to left one. There shouldn’t be a dominant-side but a decent balance of both.
Progress Gradually
Once you start riding the skateboard without any issue and feel confident about it, you should progress further. It might be the right time to start learning some new tricks. Start with some basic tricks like switching legs and then make your way to the ollie.
Ollie might be the oddest move of all because you will learn how to jump with a skateboard. Therefore, you should make your mind before trying that move. Try not to overwhelm yourself because Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Start figuring out different moves and use your creativity. You connect different moves to make your riding even more fun.
Final thoughts
Learning to skateboard might seem a difficult task in the beginning. It is indeed a difficult task, but you can figure it out pretty quickly with a little bit of interest and practice. We have mentioned the best and the easiest way when it comes to riding a skateboard.
We hope after reading this article, you will be able to know how to ride a skateboard. With that being said, there will be many failures. You may sometimes injury yourself but try not to take significant risks in the beginning. It will take a lot of practice and time if you are starting from the zero levels. However, once you figure it out, it will be worth it.