There are literally tons of things I could go on about with this topic. I enjoy making these posts more than all others because hopefully it can help someone with their skating, and in a miniscule way I can give back to skating through that.
Let's go over a few big ones:
1. Learn tricks properly.
2. Learn tricks in the proper sequence.
3. Learn tricks that fit your physique, or how a trick should be dealt with given your physique.
4. Skate with better people than yourself.
1. When it comes to learning tricks properly, I'm referring to not cheating them just so that you can have a new trick in your bag. A great example of this is manuals, lot's of people use the board instead of their slow twitch muscles to create the equilibrium point. This ends up taking you away from what you are trying to use manuals too develop skills wise, which is developing those slow twitch muscles to enhance your other areas of skating. If I have not skated for a few months, and all my muscles have deteriorated(which has happened for numerous reasons, injury, work, life, etc.), I will purposefully just do manual tricks for a week long period before even attempting anything else to build those muscles back up. I will hold regular manual, nose manual, one foot manual on both feet, one foot nose manual for both feet, and hangten tail and nose manuals. I will generally find a city block, and just go back and forth for hours just doing flatground manuals, until I have enough strength to consistently do all 8 of those manuals across a city block. Then and only then will I proceed to trying "Actual" tricks, regardless if it takes me one to two weeks to get back to this point again.
2. This part is fairly coupled to the first part because if you don't learn tricks properly, odds are you are trying to learn tricks out of sequence. usually what ends up happening is say ok, I just learned how to kickflip(improperly), so then I immediately go try 360 flips. Either one of 2 things happens, one you try to use your improper technique on a trick variation since it's based off your improper trick, and you cannot learn that trick, or you learn the next trick with compounded bad habits. eventually what happens is as your trick tree branches out and out and out(think of like a skill tree in an RPG), and at some level you get to a point where you cannot learn more tricks on that branch since your foundation is so shaky, and it becomes a house of cards. Then you gotta go back and actually study all those tricks in that branch like you are trying to get a damn PHD in skateboarding physics because the only way to progress is to resolve your understanding of the basics to that branch you missed.
3. I think skaters tend to skate, or at least pick tricks in their younger years based off their favorite pros, and a lot of the time those pros bodies do not fit the body of the imitator. If you want to pick someone to imitate in your early years, then pick someone whos physique match's your own to watch film on.
4. The easiest way to become a great skateboarder is to hangout and skate with great skateboarders who are far better than you. This is true of any skill you want to master in your life, hanging around with people who are better than you will always make you better. Humble yourself and not be a cool guy, and you can figure out some wildly astounding things about skateboarding that you would prolly never think of on your own unless you are on of these guys.
Topic: What is one thing that you wish you learned sooner in your skate life? (Read 28038 times)