What is one thing that you wish you learned sooner in your skate life?

[Clock3rs]

...that wearing your correct shoesize and paying attention to what kind of shoe you skate in (protection, as well as the silhouette of the shoe), does pay off when you're in your 30s.

My feet hurt from wearing too small vans shoes all my puberty

[Chatbot]

Dude go for fucking broke. Skate your heart out. Keep your head up. Don't tweak. Skate with people. Talk less and listen more. Don't be afraid to butt heads. Tell people off. If the dude you don't like is at the spot. Make it your spot. Shred the world. Buy the shoes you want. Buy the boards like. You don't gotta prove nothing to nobody. Eat good. Relax. Be a skater. It's embarrassing when the posers show you up. Every minute your not doing something for yourself. Somebody is doing something for themselves. Shine on

That's a good one

[EAT PUSSY!]

i wish i did more kickflips.

[Willie]

If you want to try something hard, try it between ages 18-28.


Move somewhere that has better stuff to skate. Skating difficult terrain doesn’t magically make you better, it just makes skateboarding harder.

[squintharder]

It's okay to stop if you're not feelin it.

[Cash bandicoot]

Not getting addicted to heroin at 19 would have been a great choice.

[munchbox]

Not getting addicted to heroin at 19 would have been a great choice.

i dont know man. i really get down with their shapes

[thisisnotepic]

The first post reminded me that I've been meaning to search the forum for posts about breathing while skating. Might as well try to open up a dialogue about it now. What's the best way to breathe while doings tricks? Like OP, I always held my breath but eventually realized I should probably exhale as I pop. This is just going off of how they say to exhale while lifting during an exercise. I wish I'd thought about it when I was younger, now I'm trying to rework years of what's essentially respiratory muscle memory.

[KoRnholio8]

Expand Quote

Dude go for fucking broke. Skate your heart out. Keep your head up. Don't tweak. Skate with people. Talk less and listen more. Don't be afraid to butt heads. Tell people off. If the dude you don't like is at the spot. Make it your spot. Shred the world. Buy the shoes you want. Buy the boards like. You don't gotta prove nothing to nobody. Eat good. Relax. Be a skater. It's embarrassing when the posers show you up. Every minute your not doing something for yourself. Somebody is doing something for themselves. Shine on

[close]

That's a good one

Life is not a competition, learn to take a breather.

[jerrygurneyscream]

back tails

[Uncle Flea]

I wish I learned switch push like 20 years earlier.

[Frank]

bs 50-50s

[VHS ERA]

I always regretted not really learning all the flip tricks / having flat ground game. Later it made filming stuff so difficult.

I can’t remember who, but someone really respectable recently said something about a great skater has great flat ground. I think it’s kinda true, and it kinda made me depressed. I’m too old now to really figure out a proper nollie heelflip. Or how to do frontside flips on flat. For example.

When I was young it was just too frustrating and time consuming. I just wanted to go fast and do grinds.

I’m very much the opposite. Figuring out flatground and flip tricks has always been the most fun part for me and an aspect of skating that I feel like if I just put in the time I can learn. Not that I have the deepest bag of tricks at all (switch game basically nonexistent) and now as an adult I don’t have enough skate time to keep everything consistent, but  generally I feel like, give me an empty basketball court and some hours and I’ll figure the trick out at least once to start.

Learning new grinds on the other hand is scary and awkward and I often dont know where to begin. I would love to have more than 50s, noseslide variations and bs crooks. Unlocking grind tricks doesn’t work like flatground for me. It’s probably because I’m being a pussy.

[mattchew]

Wish I started skating transition earlier. Oh well. Enjoying learning it now.

[Frank]

Learning new grinds on the other hand is scary and awkward and I often dont know where to begin. I would love to have more than 50s, noseslide variations and bs crooks. Unlocking grind tricks doesn’t work like flatground for me. It’s probably because I’m being a pussy.

same here. i can bust out most flips without regards to form after forcing myself to attempt them for a while, but i constantly have to relearn how to do grinds and slides. it's like every year i lose two i have on lock and get two new ones that i can only do very shitty.

i just want to keep the bs 50 plz.

[Bristol_Palin]

Expand Quote

I always regretted not really learning all the flip tricks / having flat ground game. Later it made filming stuff so difficult.

I can’t remember who, but someone really respectable recently said something about a great skater has great flat ground. I think it’s kinda true, and it kinda made me depressed. I’m too old now to really figure out a proper nollie heelflip. Or how to do frontside flips on flat. For example.

When I was young it was just too frustrating and time consuming. I just wanted to go fast and do grinds.

[close]

I’m very much the opposite. Figuring out flatground and flip tricks has always been the most fun part for me and an aspect of skating that I feel like if I just put in the time I can learn. Not that I have the deepest bag of tricks at all (switch game basically nonexistent) and now as an adult I don’t have enough skate time to keep everything consistent, but  generally I feel like, give me an empty basketball court and some hours and I’ll figure the trick out at least once to start.

Learning new grinds on the other hand is scary and awkward and I often dont know where to begin. I would love to have more than 50s, noseslide variations and bs crooks. Unlocking grind tricks doesn’t work like flatground for me. It’s probably because I’m being a pussy.

Can relate to this. Flat ground has always been fun and I felt I could sort of figure out any flip trick with enough practice. I wish I devoted more times to grinds and stuff. I have some but wish I had more. My back tails are like backside ollie to firecracker lots of the time.

[MarmaladeCoyote]

I always got self conscious at sessions with the older dudes who were WAY better than me.  It gave me anxiety and I eventually stopped meeting up with them to skate.  I figured they thought I was lame because I couldn't do as many tricks as them and hadn't been skating as long.  In reality they probably didn't give a fuck at all and would have helped me progress faster.  At the time I was too caught up in the fact that I wasn't good and didn't realize that didn't matter.  It's just about having fun. 

[Squidbeeksmuth]

Correcting mob and downward push on switch and nollie flips. I was always consistent at them but it has always been a problem. It wasn't until I was 35 last year I went out on a solo flat sesh and decided I was gonna force myself to get the timing right and kick straight out with the flick. It felt like shit at first because of the awkwardness but no matter what I was gonna imitate the exact motion as my reg kickflips. I got it within a half hour.

Crazy like 50% of pro's in the late 90's early 00's had some sort of deficiency with it.

[50mm]

Skating difficult terrain doesn’t magically make you better, it just makes skateboarding harder.

[Agnarnomous]

That only a few wheel/truck brands are worth buying at all.

[Agnarnomous]

Wish I started skating transition earlier. Oh well. Enjoying learning it now.

I second this times a fucking thousand. I grew up skating shitty driveway flatbars, so that naturally progressed into street skating. The crew of dudes I'm with now all rip transition, and it made me realize that I hardly ever gave it a chance before. A couple years ago I wasn't grinding anything over 4ft. I'm standing on f/s 5-0s on like 5 and 6 ft now. Feels so good, makes me feel better about getting older too, since I know I'll be able to do that shit way longer than all my ledge tricks.

[HyenaChaser]

Expand Quote

Skating difficult terrain doesn’t magically make you better, it just makes skateboarding harder.

[close]

Ay for real though, otherwise there'd be way more dudes coming out of the Northwest or similarly oppositional environments.

Not to say there aren't some dudes up there that don't rip, but they're good in spite of their climate not because of it.

[Sedition]

to stretch out properly before and after the session.

Good one.

[Sedition]

"If you wear pads, you'll have way more fun on transition."

[Sedition]

Wish I started skating transition earlier. Oh well. Enjoying learning it now.

Yup.

[TheBoognish]

Stretching before and after.

I was the guy that never stretched at all, and now my ankles, hips, back, wrists and neck are all fucked up at 31 years old.


I also regret learning varial flips and 360 flips before pop shove-its. I've been skating 21 years and can't pop shove-it. Even if I try really hard, it'll end up being half a varial flip.  I can do almost waist-high front shoves, but can't pop shove-it to save my life. I MIGHT get one in a game of skate if I'm going really slow, and it'll be one of those low ones that barely get off the ground and then again I might not even get it. My back foot is conditioned to go for a varial/360 flip. Kind of embarrassing.

Wish I had learned a few flatbar tricks, but rails scare me. I can do exactly four flatbar tricks : bs/fs boardslide (much more balance going backside, though),  frontside noseslide and backside nose bonk. I can't do anything else, even backside feebles. I scorpion'd really hard last time I tried a few years ago.

Also kind of wished I learned to push switch, but I wanted to be like Rob Welsh and Josh Kalis and go switch mongo.

[somedudefromnj]

Wish I knew that if you stop lifting weights it turns to fat. Havent felt right on a board since...










fuck heavy lifting

[moneen]

how to push switch without it looking like you don't know how to skate.

[Uncle Flea]

Stretching before and after.

I was the guy that never stretched at all, and now my ankles, hips, back, wrists and neck are all fucked up at 31 years old.


I also regret learning varial flips and 360 flips before pop shove-its. I've been skating 21 years and can't pop shove-it. Even if I try really hard, it'll end up being half a varial flip.  I can do almost waist-high front shoves, but can't pop shove-it to save my life. I MIGHT get one in a game of skate if I'm going really slow, and it'll be one of those low ones that barely get off the ground and then again I might not even get it. My back foot is conditioned to go for a varial/360 flip. Kind of embarrassing.

Wish I had learned a few flatbar tricks, but rails scare me. I can do exactly four flatbar tricks : bs/fs boardslide (much more balance going backside, though),  frontside noseslide and backside nose bonk. I can't do anything else, even backside feebles. I scorpion'd really hard last time I tried a few years ago.

Also kind of wished I learned to push switch, but I wanted to be like Rob Welsh and Josh Kalis and go switch mongo.

learn switch nose slides? Crooks are easier that front nose slides on flat bar i feel.

I can front feeble sometimes but not back feeble. Idky..

I believe anyone who can get over the rail can do these tricks if they want. Flat bar is all about going straight at it and going fast.

[ibuproficient]

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