Tricks that increase board control?

[overwaxed]

A little backstory: I’m 38 and have been back on the board for about 2 years after being off and on for most of my 20’s/30’s. I’ve been working a lot on my mental and physical health and have gotten really into some of the folks leading what I call ‘masculinity 2.0’ from a health/existential/creative perspective (Andrew huberman, David Goggins, Tim Ferris to name a few). I got really motivated since the beginning of the year and decided to start training for an Iron Man. About 2 weeks in I was blown away by how fit I already was and how it wouldn’t be that challenging to get to iron man shape in about a year. Then I realized I had no interest in doing that because I could put that time and energy into skating and really push myself to film a dope 40 for 40 part in the next 18 months - that same level of dedication it would take to bike/swim/run my body to the bring of collapse could easily be channeled into actually progressing and filming some great tricks.

So my question is what are some flatground tricks (regular and switch) that you’ve found to increase your sense of board control - I’ve been breaking down what’s held me back as a skater and I think this has always been it. I never really pushed myself to have articulation with my board. Anyways, weird setup but could make for a fun convo?

[frontsideNECKTIE]

Cool topic

I'm pretty bad at flat, but a handled sw pop-shuv makes me feel like I actually know how to control a board

for me, learning cabs was pretty helpful in figuring out some control

solid ollie control is underrated

[ImmanuelCunt]

All 180s in different forms: The late turned, the fluently turned, a bit sideways, straight in one line. All require at least different timings of upper and lower body movements. Helps a lot for getting into some grinds and slides imo.

[goodatmeth]

Adding 180s/reverts to any trick. Like instead of doing a halfcab flip, do a fakie flip, land on the back truck and spin.

Or do a bigspin, land on your back foot and add a 180 for a gazelle spin.

[Ok]

interested to read your progress.

for me, age 32 i was in the best shape
of my life.
i was a bag of dusty bones the day after my 35th b-day.
10 years later and im not skating in a way that is rewarding, other than the simple joy of rolling

[rocklobster]

Cabs are a good one, so much of that trick is landing at the right spot of your board and scraping your wheels to varying degrees. Other ones are just mixing your staple grinds and slides with a 180 in / out both ways, popping out or a delayed revert out of trick.

A solid ollie and 180s you take up and over different obstacles.

[Sila]

interested to read your progress.

for me, age 32 i was in the best shape
of my life.
i was a bag of dusty bones the day after my 35th b-day.
10 years later and im not skating in a way that is rewarding, other than the simple joy of rolling

I'm curious if this was the consequence of injuries or not?

Did you have a workout routine etc.?

I felt my physical best at 32 aswell. I've had lots of ups and downs since but I'm not far off now (36yo) once I sorted out my lower back issues and have had a solid workout routine again for the last year. I do have to do more cardio now to maintain stamina and it takes an extra day of rest to recover if I'm slack with nutrition.

[Skatebeard]

Backside flips IMO...especially if you work on getting them fully rotated popped.

Kickflip or heelflip manuals on flat.

[mfweeno]

I personally find light "freestyle" moves (tic tacs, kickturn variations, manuals, and little shuvs on flatground) help with my board control and balance specifically, especially if I'm doing them without putting feet on the ground at all. Good warm up ritual before moving on to any kind of explosive popping.

[Bristol_Palin]

Not 100% sure I fully understand the question but to get my legs ready to do tricks I do all the shoves on flat. Regular, frontside, switch, fakie, nollie, etc. Pop isn’t necessary although certain shoves I prefer to pop. I do a lot of regular no pop shoves. After my control feels better that I’m ready to pop and do real tricks. Usually right after I’m set to do a kickflip, 360 flip then nollie flip. Sometimes I do all the Ollie’s on flat and all the 180s but usually I’m ready to skate after this. I’m 33 and don’t get to skate anywhere near as much as I’d like or previously needed to feel comfortable on my board so my sessions I get that I don’t do this are bit more miserable than most other sessions. Still fun just harder.


Edit: when I was younger I would do nollie bigspin then fakie front bigspin to get my legs moving. Nollie backside bigspin is a pretty illegal trick but they are wicked easy and feel good to get your legs set.

[backside_frontside]

Straight 8

Front shuv

Nollie frontside 180

Switch backside 180

3-flip

Basically, just skate flat lol

[marcusbutler]

I can't give a list of tricks to practice. just keep on rolling and everything will come in time.

[Ok]

Expand Quote

interested to read your progress.

for me, age 32 i was in the best shape
of my life.
i was a bag of dusty bones the day after my 35th b-day.
10 years later and im not skating in a way that is rewarding, other than the simple joy of rolling

[close]

I'm curious if this was the consequence of injuries or not?

Did you have a workout routine etc.?

I felt my physical best at 32 aswell. I've had lots of ups and downs since but I'm not far off now (36yo) once I sorted out my lower back issues and have had a solid workout routine again for the last year. I do have to do more cardio now to maintain stamina and it takes an extra day of rest to recover if I'm slack with nutrition.

no workout routine, work in physical jobs, always have. the physicality of the jobs helps with baseline fitness, but increases wear and tear. commuted by bike for years. i did have some injuries, tore ligaments in my ‘front’ foot/ankle/lower leg. and a few years later had some soccer related injuries.
i have never had a stretching program, and it shows. i think this bothers me the most, in that i know i look bad, on board.

tricks that help with board control: (i don’t have, nor ever have had, most of these)
switch flatground shuvs
variable flips/switch varial flips, felt like if i had those, the bigspin flips would be super close
any 180 flip trick, there is some crossover in where they flip/catch.

on the days when i have nothing, i should really try and just do switch flatground shuvs tho, and increase the speed.

[Mn_Mike]

It's not really a "trick" but go bomb some hills.

[snackman233]

learning no comply 180 regular and switch. also doing little quick shuv its both stance

[jums]

There isn’t a singular trick that will give you control over your skateboard. Spend a lot of time skating flat ground. Like a lot of time. Once you can do tricks you can do them down things, across things, and up things. That and skating with speed just takes confidence but once you actually learn to control the board skating flat you’re 50% there. Good luck.

[Fartknocker415]

Skate around town spot to spot switching stances and shit ollieing cracks and up curbs

[bartlaser]

Fully popped shifties, without pivoting back to forward.  Actually, I guess there is skill (touch) to learn if you pivot back so that's cool too.

Learning to steer manuals instead of just going in a straight line.

[newguy]

FS pop shove it. But not the kind where you just kick your board behind you and it barely takes off, im talking massive popped fs shuvs. Learning to pop them made me go insane but I gained so much confidence and control from grinding them.

[Crust]

Being able to ollie up curbs at varying angles, both fs and bs.

[Eh]

Stall variations on curbs.

[JohnDi]

Honestly watching all these younger kids with the long slide or pinch crook variations and maybe you can credit it to the Brazilians mainly Tiago of skating the ledge from the beginning or middle instead of just hitting the end of the ledge has made me realize I can actually go slower and just put more pressure on tail or pinch whatever obviously more wax but everything works actually a bit easier.

[TheLurper]

Learning how to navigate the park w/speed. I think this is the most important thing when it comes gaining board control and the confidence on the board to do flip-tricks with the right amount of speed, instead of going so slow that it actually makes the trick harder. 

[IUTSM]

What is board control? Being able to ride regular and switch through a city without eating too much shit? Gonz skating thru a city is pure board control. Or are you talking about trying to land every “trick”? Cuz that to me is more like foot/ankle/shoulder control.

[mattchew]

It’s been mentioned in here already but I’ll throw in my two cents and say that I think speed is one of the most underrated aspects of skating. While it’s certainly scarier to skate fast, I do find it both easier and more satisfying the faster I’m going, which in turns builds greater confidence and control.

[Crust]

Was just thinking about this today, I feel developing a comfortable powerslide is a good one for increasing board control.

[Sila]

Really just pushing around town doing small Ollie's, nose bonking cracks, doing shiftys, reverts, pushing switch etc. is enough.

[dunc]

Didn't someone famous in skating mention that you can tell if someone has spent time on board just carving and cruising, rather than trying to learn tricks straight away? Time on board is the key and with focus on the basic mechanics of movement. 

[Sila]

^ Yeah pretty sure it was Gonz actually

[radcunt]

I wanna figure out a workout routine that works towards better board control so when I can't skate for a few months I can come back not feeling like i'm balancing on bags of spaghetti.