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The Ultimate list of Skateboard tricks
Skateboarding has grown to be more than just a leisure game in the world of sports. The excitement of the adrenaline that comes with the swivel and turning of the board on heels and the skills required to navigate through such a process have made skateboarding, a popular sport amongst youths. Skateboarding is a form of recreational sport that is performed when individuals make skillful rides on a board that is balanced on wheels.
Skateboarding is popular with youths and is tagged one of the most extreme sports and has continued to garner big audiences, especially through its many tricky skills and maneuvers. The style of execution involved in this sport often appeals to the street-style and urban audience where tricks can be done on stairs, railings, sidewalks and other obstacles that have been design for that purpose.
Skateboards started being a thing in 1959 and since then, has captured an improved global audience. Nowadays it’s been viewed as an alternative leisure sport with more flexibility than the mainstream sports that are largely controlled by adults. Becoming a professional in skateboarding comes with having a good grasp of the tricks that come with it. Most of these skills are not learnt overnight but through years of practice and mastery.
We will take a look at some of the most proficient tricks that are being used by professional skateboarders.
The List of Useful Skateboard tricks
The Beginner Tricks
In order to start a career in skateboarding, getting the basic tricks is the best place to start from. These are the tricks that will guide you from the very first time you get on that board to the point in which you can be called a professional. The tricks that are involved in this list include:
- Falling Trick: Taking a fall on a skateboard is not a funny experience. For most, the pains from the falls will speak everything that an individual cannot say. It is therefore imperative that a skateboarder learns how to fall without getting seriously injured. For starters, it’s better off to abandon the skateboard when a fall is inevitable. This will save you from getting seriously injured or even a threat to life. Another important skill you learn with falling is called bailing. This enables you to bail out when a fall is inevitable.
Slamming is also good to learn so as to cushion or absorb the impact of a fall when it eventually happens.
- Stepping Trick: Getting proper balance when stepping on a skateboard is an underrated skill that most skateboarders will have to learn. It’s one of the surest ways to avoid falling off from a skateboard. Learning one’s center of mass and how one can balance will do the trick. When stepping on the skateboard for the first time, a level ground will be advantageous so that it can roll without impediment.
When you discover how you balance, stepping comes very easy. For amateur skateboarders, a slightly bent knee will give you proper balance whether you are a jittery skater or not. This will put you in a partial crouching position. It is very ok even if you have to stand sideways to find a fitting balance. Holding onto something while stepping on a skateboard will help one to get proper balance which will improve with time.
When balance has been achieved, a skateboarder can now roll back and forth slightly in order to gauge their readiness to move on to the next stage which is rolling.
- Pushing Tricks: A skateboarder does not just roll effortlessly without having the necessary push on the ground that sets the motion towards it. For most skateboarders, this process gravitates their weight towards the ground as they push, and for this to happen successfully, they will need to balance their weight on the skateboard.
To make this happen, slightly bent knees will be a very good stance. This places a foot at the back at an angle distance with the foot on the skateboard. The back foot is then lifted and rotated over the front foot in a way that pushes it against the ground enabling the proper push to start rolling the skateboard.
After rolling the back foot for a few meters in the opposite direction, the skateboard should be able to develop enough motion for you to balance the back foot on it. The first few movements with the push may be rough but it is advisable to hold on to something while perfecting the balance to prevent one from falling.
- Rolling Tricks: Learning how to roll is the ultimate reason for skateboarding. It is basically what the skateboard was designed for. What skateboarders will need to perfect is the ability to keep rolling while stepping the leg on and off the skateboard. While rolling on the skateboard, a slightly bent knee is the best stance to maintain the balance of your weight while on it.
The crouching is all about maintaining the center of gravity and neutralizing any shifting effect that your weight will have on the skateboarding motion. This is a very good stance that will adjust the balance of the weight of the skateboarder and ensure that he maintains motion without falling.
- Stopping Tricks: Setting the skateboard in motion is one thing but being able to stop is a very good skill that must be perfected in order to avoid risky falls. Sometimes some stopping tricks will have to involve a crash that cannot be avoided. It may seem improper or out of place but it’s necessary to avoid severe risk to life. Unfortunately, the crash is only to be done in extreme cases.
For beginners, you can start with a foot brake. This will involve pushing your feet down on the surface and slowly bringing the skateboard to an abrupt stop. Another option that one can try is the heel brake and this involves skillfully lifting the front wheels of the skateboard and then dragging the wheels on the floor while maintaining balance.
Another option for stopping a moving skateboard is to find a rough surface such as grass or level field that will provide enough friction to stop the motion. Care must be taken to anticipate the impact of the rough terrain on the skateboard movement. This will prevent the skateboarder from falling off.
Other techniques include carving, power slide, and board pop. The movement of the skateboard will determine the suitable stop to be used at any point in time.
- Turning Trick: Perfecting skateboarding will only be complete when you learn to make perfect turns. Typically, this can be done when one leans from side to side directing the motion of the skateboard towards that direction. The tipping of the skateboard to a particular direction by body movement will force the board to pivot, turning its hanger to glide to the required direction.
A good turn angle will keep your balance on the skateboard as you turn. Shifting your weight with your heels when tipping to a particular side will give you good control of how much you wish to turn from time to time. Constant practice of turning by leaning will make every amateur skateboarder become good.
- Kickturn trick: This trick is the type that can be perfected in the same manner as a turn but can only be done successfully when the skateboarder has perfected a turn. To make a kick turn happen, the front wheels are lifted a bit and turned perfectly with the back heel. To execute this, the back wheel is turned into a pivot that will induce the turn as fast as possible.
For beginners, a kickturn should be learned on a flat surface in order to get the balance to become perfect at it. Practice is one constant thing that will make any skateboarder navigate this skill.
Basic Tricks
These are skills that every skateboarder must be able to learn before they can become professionals in the game. They are skills that involve rolling and turning but are done in different ways that will give every skateboarder variety of options. But it is imperative to mention that one can only be able to perfect these basic tricks without learning the easiest of them all, which is rolling. Many struggle to improve due to this glaring fact.
- Tic Tac: Tic tac tricks are executed when several kick turns are done repeatedly in a back and forth manner. This is more like an improved kickturn done in a faster way, adding more spin to it with several repetitions. The skill that is involved in this is to propel the skateboard forward with little side-by-side turns. The process is named mostly because of the tic-tac sound done by the skateboard while executing it.
- Manual: This is a trick that propagates balance for the skateboarder. It’s a trick that involves rolling with only the back wheels of the skateboard. Holding this trick for a long time will lead to the possibility of the skateboarder landing more skillful tricks. Balance is the ultimate requirement to successfully land this. This means rolling and maintaining the front wheel of the skateboard off the ground pushing a little weight to the tail for equilibrium.
- Rolling Backwards: This is a trick that has been dubbed a whole lot of other names due to its ability to effect rolling in the opposite direction. It’s basically called a fakie because reverse movements with either the right or left foot are done, pushing the motion backward.
It’s also known as a switch when a skateboarder can make consecutive forward and backward motions at the same time. This is a very difficult procedure to land and is often attributed to skaters that are very advanced in their game.
- Fakie Kickturn: This is a skill that is done successfully when a backward trick is pulled off intermittently with a kickturn. This changes the direction of the skateboard movement but is able to land a skillful turn while on it. The stance that will be taken for this will face forward while rolling backward. The kickturn is then executed in the middle of the movement prompting a swift switch in style and skill.
- Roll of a Drop: This is a skateboarding trick that will test the ability of the rider to be able to suspend his weight from the skateboard while delivering a perfect landing back on the skateboard. Rolling off can only be executed neatly when the skateboarder has learned to roll and kickturn very well at a reasonable speed.
Another vital factor is how the individual can shift their weight on the board to negate the little off-balance caused by the roll-off on the skateboard.
- Roll Down a Ramp: The skills involved in this have a lot to do with rolling and kickturn at a very good speed. Skating down ramps comes with a lot of speed and that implies the rider knowing how to balance his weight and crouch low enough to manage the rapid movement that comes with it. It’s also good to shift one’s weight to cover the skateboard. Rolling down the ramp and getting into kickturn positions will ensure good control.
- Drop-in: This is the trick where rolling down the ramp will be done by dropping the front wheels at a reasonable speed. The process may seem scary for beginners due to the amount of speed it can accelerate at. It’s best done when a skateboarder has very good knowledge of rolling and fakies as well the pumping of the ramp. This will give you the control that is necessary for you to avoid falling and bumping your head on the floor due to lack of control. It’s also advisable for skaters to learn and perfect falling before attempting this. This will save them a lot of body pain which can happen when a crash is not controlled properly.
This is probably not the best trick to learn as a beginner but it’s important that skaters take their time to practice the landing of this trick which looks exquisite.
Conclusion
Becoming a professional skateboarder comes with its own demands that often tell on the body. But it is necessary for one to take enough time and master the basics of this process before making a decision on which style they may be able to perfect.
In all, skateboarding will continue to be a popular youth sport globally.