The Mindset Of A Skateboarder
Getting better at skateboarding is all about your mindset. If you are the type of person who lives for instant gratification, then skateboarding is not for you and you may not have any success learning how to skateboard because of the level of patience required. You need to be totally fine with failing over and over again until you get it right, and you likely will not get it right today, which is why skateboarding is not for everyone. Even if you do get it today, you will not get it perfectly, which is why you can never settle when it comes to skateboarding. Especially because if you stop practicing and stop skating, you will lose the tricks that you worked so hard to learn. That is why when it comes to learning how to skateboard, you need to be consistent in your approach. You need to get out there and skate consistently, practicing the same tricks consistently, that way you will get better each day little by little without even realizing. Then on top of that, you need to be pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone on a regular basis to get better at skateboarding. That way you will learn new things each day and the uncomfortable will slowly become very comfortable and hopefully easy. The most important thing though that supersedes all this when it comes to learning how to skateboard is that you have fun. If you are not having fun then you should try something else or approach skateboarding differently.
Learning New Skateboard Tricks
When learning a new skateboard trick, you need to be able to envision yourself landing it. If you approach a new trick with the mindset that you will not land it today or ever, then you will probably never land it. Learning a new skateboard trick may seem like rocket science at first because you have no idea what it feels like to land that new trick. You may see skaters perform that trick you want to learn and you will think they are some kind of wizard, but in reality they are not. They have just done that trick so many times that they have refined it and truly figured out the optimal way to perform the trick without error. They not only learned that trick the same way you are trying to learn it now, but they kept doing it, likely for years, which got easier over time because they know what it feels like to land it and they have modified their approach to the trick to make it come out better. Once you land it the first time, it just gets easier from there. So if you currently don't envision yourself landing a trick, remember that it is possible and that there is no reason you can't do it when others are doing it all the time. You will always need to be realistic though when learning a new trick in ensuring that you are trying to learn a trick that is within your level of board control. For example, you really should not try to learn how to kickflip or heelflip if you don't have ollies down. But once you do have that prerequisite trick down, you need to not just envision yourself landing the new skateboard trick, but you need to refine your process just as a skater who can already land it optimizes their technique to land tricks more cleanly and consistently. It is always good to consult other skaters to ask what you are doing wrong, but always be mindful of your upper body, amount of pop, weight distribution, timing, and foot setup when learning a new trick. Play around with those and see what works best for you. Over time the more you do the trick, the more comfortable it will become, so once you have landed a trick for the first time, keep trying it regularly until landing it becomes relatively easy. However, once you learn one trick, it is best to continue practicing that trick while trying to learn another new trick as well. The more new tricks you learn in skateboarding, the easier and more fun that skateboarding becomes.
How To Get Better At Skateboard Tricks You Know
Once you learn a new skateboard trick, it can always be done better. That is why you need to keep practicing a trick after you have learned it. You will not only get more comfortable doing this trick as a result, making it easier to land consistently, but you will also start to think about the trick more and how it can be done better. That is because there are really 3 levels to a skateboard trick. The first level is simply landing the trick, the second level is catching the trick, and the third level is doing the trick over an obstacle, at least when it comes to flip tricks. So once you learn how to kickflip, heelflip, or treflip, the next step is learning how to add some style points to it. It is likely when you land a new flip trick that you do not catch the flip mid air and that the board flips, lands on the ground, and then your feet land on the board. Therefore, once you are comfortable doing a skateboard trick through consistent practice but are not catching it, it is time to start analyzing the trick more whether it is your foot setup, the timing of your pop or flick, or the way your weight is distributed on your board. You may simply just need to pop higher, but by playing with different variables, you can optimize your trick over time so that you are not just landing a kickflip every 50 tries, but rather have kickflips down so well that you can kicklfip over a barrier. And to do that you will simply need to go out and skate more often. Just skate more, perform the tricks you know more often, and you will land them more consistently, getting better at skateboarding over time. Just do not expect your progress to come today. Skateboarding a long-term journey and a lot of progression comes naturally over years of practice and fun. Just be patient and enjoy the process of learning how to skateboard!