Learn How To Fall Before Learning How To Skateboard
Learning how to skateboard is a rewarding and humbling experience. That is because skateboarding is all about failing; learning from and overcoming your failures as you achieve greatness! Therefore, the most important thing to do before learning how to skateboard is to plan out how you will fall. That is because skateboarding is 90% about falling and really only 10% about actually landing. That is because in order to learn how to skateboard or how to do anything on you skateboard, you must fall! In skateboarding, you need to fail to learn and get better, and in most cases you will fail before you are anywhere near successful. And when it comes to failing in skateboarding you are likely going to have to fall whether you like it or not. Falling doesn't have to be a bad thing if you are prepared for it and know how to fall on a skateboard safely. The entire purpose of this passage is for you to learn how to skateboard safely, which requires learning how to safely fall. When people step on a skateboard without learning how to fall, it usually leads to injury. By learning how to fall before it happens accidentally, you will get ahead of this and hopefully prevent any injury when skateboarding. Remember, though not to get discouraged as learning how to skateboard requires more patience than most things in life. It is being persistent, and consistent in your approach that will get you better at skateboarding without even realizing it. So regardless of how many times you fall on your skateboard, keep getting back up and never give up!
How To Safely Fall On A Skateboard
There are a couple popular techniques for falling or bailing on your skateboard. The key thing to avoid is bringing your momentum to a sudden stop. Rather, you will want to follow a falling technique where you gradually slow down to a stop after ditching your skateboard. Half the time when people are injured from skateboarding, it is because they fell and their body hit the pavement or an obstacle, coming to a hard stop. Many people will injure their wrists because they fell off their skateboard and put all their momentum to a stop, falling with the majority of the impact being on their hands. While you can still certainly use your hands to support your fall, you don't want 100% of the impact to go there. Rather you want to distribute the impact to multiple parts of your body as you gradually slow down to a stop. The best way to achieve this, if you completely lose control, is to roll. This is similar to how any parkour runner falls or jumps off a large obstacle to land. You need to tuck and roll! If you are not wearing a helmet, tuck your head down to prevent impact, tuck your arms to your torso, and use your elbows to roll. This is also similar to how a character in a movie might roll out of a moving car. You can use your hands as well to push your momentum off of if elbows are not an option, but this can get risky so be careful when you decide to use your hands versus your elbows to fall! Hands are usually best to use for slower falls to push off the ground or an obstacle to prevent other parts of your body from taking impact, however it is always best to roll off of your elbows as the first option to avoid a wrist or finger injury. Watch this video on how to safely fall on a skateboard for a visual look at what your roll should look like:
@howtoskateboards How to skateboard safely performed by a professional #howtoskateboard #howtoskateboards #skate #skateboard #skateboarding #skatelife ♬ Same Cycle Different Day - xJ-Will
If you have enough control of your body during your skateboard fall, whereas you do not need to fall to the ground, but rather you have lost control of your skateboard, simply jump off your skateboard and run! This will allow you to gradually come to a stop upon ditching your skateboard, and is the preferred bailing method for most skateboarders. Unless you are an extreme downhill skateboarder, it is likely you will always be able to jump off your board and run it out! This is what skaters do when they fail to land a flip trick or miss the ledge or rail for a grind. Running it out is always the preferred method for falling off your skateboard.
We hope you found this how to skateboard article helpful and wish you a safe ride on your skateboarding journey!