Learning to Skate
Out of context: Reply #7
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- nocomply0
Wow, man! Congrats.
I spent pretty much all of my teens and early twenties obsessed with skating and look where it got me... a career as a web developer.
Funny enough, I just bought myself a new setup last week in hopes to do some shredding on the side. But I'm getting into my mid thirties now, so I plan on only skating old-school, Mike V. style. Like this:
As for the size of the board... There's so much variety now. It's not like it was back in my day. It's more like surfing in that there's a shape and size for all different styles of skating and terrain.
I'm moving into more of the old-man shredder category so I bought a 8.375x32" board with 149mm trucks.
In layman's terms that's wider and slightly longer than I used to ride. It's bigger, heavier, and not as good for crazy, flippity stuff. But I don't care about that anymore. This board was built for carving up concrete transitions at the skatepark with the occasional kickflip when I'm feeling limber.
I got 58mm wheels. I like my wheels on the larger side. It's heaver, but a smoother and faster ride. Better for riding transition too.
And as mentioned above, there's no better way to look like a kook than pushing "mongo," or "penis-pushing" as we used to call it. This is coming from a reformed penis-pusher here. I literally pushed dick for the first 3-4 years that I skated. I didn't know any better and no one really called me out on it. Then one day I was called a "penis pusher" and you can bet your ass that the very next day I became quite adept at pushing with the proper leg.
I think the absolute, #1 most important thing about skating is to have fun. Don't stress about learning crazy, technical tricks. A lot of pros only land that stuff one out of every couple tries at best. It's frustrating.
Get comfortable cruising at speed. Learn how to ollie. Learn how to carve. Learn how to stop without looking like a kook. Learn how to powerslide. Powerslides are probably my favorite "trick" of all time. That's about all I would focus on.
Skateboarding is like surfing, and not to get too meta about it, but kind of like yoga too. It's about style and flow. You need to pioneer your own style based on what feels natural for you.
Have fun. Post questions. If I'm able I'll come back and answer them.
- < Yup!
Have fun, don't overthink it.duckseason - Weirdly enough, I think a solid no comply was always my favorite - and the seemingly infinite amount of variations.duckseason
- And weirdly enough, I can't even do a straight no comply.nocomply
- Great advice! Thank you for so much good info!kona
- < Yup!