Do You Make These Novice Skateboarding Mistakes?

Skateboarding is great fun! Skateboarding used to be some off-beat thing only young people did. But now it’s a legitimate, recognized sport complete with endorsements and business participation. If you’re good enough, you can make good money at it - just ask Tony Hawk. And skateboarding is a sport almost any person can learn. But - it takes years of practice if you want to be a pro skater, so that’s some bad news. Make no mistake, being a pro takes a lot of work and dedication. But there’s nothing stopping you, so here are some pointers to get you going.

You can get yourself into better physical condition. There is more physical activity in skateboarding than you might think. There’s more to it than just strong legs. As you skate more, you’ll notice that you’re making use of all muscles. Then when you start advancing you’ll really notice this. You’ll see definite improvement with your control as you get in better physical shape. You really can see faster improvement in your skating with a regular workout schedule. You can wear a pair of black contact lenses to seem sweet when skating. Buy your first skateboard at a skate shop instead of a sports store or a department store. The guys or girls at a skater’s shop are knowledgable, and they’ll be able to select the best board for you. Many newer skaters use an ABEC skateboard when they start. But the best approach is to use different ones with different weights and styles until you find one that suits you pretty good. A skating shop will have people better qualified to help than people who work in a department store. Their suggestions will be meant to help you, and they know better, so be sure to pay attention to them. They really do know what’s going on!

Regular and Goofy are the two skateboarding basic stances you need. Here’s the Regular: Left foot front, right foot back. Easy. And the Goofy will be the reverse. You can push-off in four different ways. Goofy (use your left foot), and Mongo Goofy: push with your front (left) foot, Regular (use your right foot to push), Mongo Regular: push with your front (right) foot. It’ll take a bit of time to decide what’s best for you. But you will see differences in stances and their strengths from one person to the next. It takes time to learn what will work for you and what will not. As long as you work to stay in shape and take your time learning the basics, you should be on your way to pro skating before you know it! One day you’ll realize you’re more comfortable skateboarding than you are walking!