Useful Skateboard Tips For Beginners

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The most important is to learn as a beginner skateboarders is how to ride properly first and feeling comfortable riding a skateboard. So learn how to carve, push, riding fakie, ride up transitions, etc.

Once you feel confident on a skateboard it’s time to move on. It will speed up your process and in the end getting learning skateboarding basics will make you progress faster.

1. Skate Often

The best way to get better at anything is to do it a lot. Ride your skateboard everywhere every chance you can get. Ride over to your friends house, ride to the store to get a drink, ride to school (if your school permits.

Some schools have rules against skateboards), ride to the skatepark. I think you see where we are going here. Ride everywhere and as often as possible, riding a skateboard doesn’t take a long time to learn.

2. Start slow and speed up

You have to walk before you can run. Same with skateboarding. You need to gradually build up your speed comfort level.

You can try to bomb a hill when you can barely push down the street but you are going to have a bad time. High speeds come with their own challenges and you need to be comfortable at moderate speeds before getting to high speeds.

3. Learn to push

This may seem like a no-brainer but you may be surprised by the number of people that have a bad push. Pushing is how you propel yourself on your skateboard.

If you have only ever skated skateparks with ramps you can get away without pushing, but you will never be able to generate much speed when you end up on flat ground.

4. Do Kick-turns

Kick turns are essential to learn for skating transition, ramps, pools, ollies, grinds, manuals, spinning tricks and pretty much anything.

Getting comfortable with having one set of wheels in the air helps you learn balance and how your skateboard reacts when turning. Start small with tick tacks and build up to full on 180 kick turns on ramps. Before you know it, you will be doing slash grinds.

5. Learn manuals

Once you are able to kick turn, try manuals. Manuals help you learn balance points and further build comfort. Your first manuals don’t need to go further than a couple of feet.

Gradually increase the length of your manual and you will surprise yourself at how far you can go in little time. Manuals are critical to learn for riding off of curbs and ledges and many stalls you might want to learn on transition.

6. Ride off curbs

Learning how to ride off curbs is a great step to get you used to being in the air and rolling with some speed.

While you are really just dropping, you will get more and more comfortable with the feeling of not being on the ground.

You will also learn how important that little manual is and why you needed to build your speed gradually. To roll off a curb with out hanging up, you need to be moving pretty quickly and manual slightly.

7. Learn easy tricks

When you are comfortable riding around, rolling off curbs, doing tick tacks and little manuals you are invariably going to want to learn some tricks. Don’t go right for the kickflip. Start small.

Little tricks like an upside-down board flip to get on, caveman’s, starting in rail stand then getting on the board, and stationary shuvits will do a lot to help you understand how your board behaves when it flips.

While they may seem dumb, it is more rewarding to pull of something during your session than leave frustrated from landing nothing.

8. Skate with other people

Skating with other people is one of the best aspects of skateboarding. Seeing how other people skate, trying to learn things that they are learning, and feeding off each other’s successes is one of the most fun parts of skateboarding.

You will get really stoked when your homie finally lands the trick he has been working on for 3 days, and you will get even more stoked off the cheers you receive when you land your tricks.

9. Skate with people that are better than you

Doing things with people that are better than you is a surefire way to get better at something. Skateboarding is not the exception. If you skate with people that are better than you, your skateboarding skills will improve faster as well.

It seems to make someone subconsciously push themselves harder to reach a higher level. Also, most skaters are cool about sharing tips because they understand the frustration of trying to learn when you have no idea what you are doing.

10. Adjust your setup

Skateboarding is an individual pursuit and your skateboard should be setup to feel the best for you. Just because all your friends ride tight trucks doesn’t mean you have too.

Maybe loose trucks is better for you. Maybe you are more comfortable with your front truck a bit tighter than the back. Maybe you like small wheels. Play with your setup and figure out what works best for you.

11. Loosen your trucks

I know I said to do what is the most comfortable for you, but you should ride with your trucks as loose as you can handle.

Loose trucks let you turn sharply, carve bowls, lock into grinds, steer and balance manuals, etc. Get used to riding your trucks loose but not so loose you wheel bite all the time.

Find your sweet spot, but looser is better. Trust me.

12. Learn roll on grinds

Roll on grinds are super fun and the way to grind with out having to ollie or lock in on transition. Roll on grinds are easiest done by rolling up a curb cut and locking in a 50-50 grind, then turning out.

You will learn all the techniques that are needed to grind with out very much risk of injury.

13. Learn ollies first

The first “real” trick to learn is the Ollie. It is the foundation of any flip and rotational trick and ollies are also used to air in transition. The first actual trick (aside from the simple quasi-freestyle tricks previously mentioned) you should learn is how to Ollie. Ollies will change your life.

Not only will you be able to ollie up curbs when cruising, but you will be able to learn rotation and flip tricks, and slides and grinds. To get a bit of a feeling first, try jumping up and down on your skateboard without kicking your tail.

14. Use support to learn tricks

Holding on to something like a bench or railing can be helpful to learn the techniques of certain tricks. You can learn how a trick works with out the fear of wiping out.

But once you land the first few attempts, let go of the support. You don’t want to get in the habit of relying on “Hand holding” to land something.

15. stationary or Moving?

When you are learning new tricks it is easiest to practice the first few attempts stationary. Get the mechanics of the trick down with your wheels in a crack so you don’t slip out and gain some comfort with the technique. Once you have the technique, try it rolling slow and gradually increase your speed.

Be aware that doing tricks while moving feels completely different. Stationary tricks are also more risky (see our last tip).

16. Land with one foot

Learning flip tricks can be very intimidating and seem impossible. One way to help is to land them with one foot on the ground and one on the board.

For example, if you are learning Kickflips, do the kick flip but catch it with the back foot and land with the front foot on the ground.

Do that a few times then switch the foot that lands on the ground for a few attempts. Now land it with both feet on the board.

Do not get too used to landing with one foot on the ground. It can create bad habits and technique. You eventually need to commit fully with both feet on the board or you will never learn the trick.

17. Go fast

Since you have been gradually increasing your speed and are now learning tricks, you will see that rolling at a moderate to faster speed makes learning a lot of tricks much easier than stationary.

Ollies are actually easier when rolling faster. So are 180’s, roll on grinds, kickflips, rolling off curbs and ledges, manuals, etc.

Most tricks are much easier to do faster than slower. Try it when you are comfortable with a bit of speed and you will see I’m not crazy.

18. Repetition is key

The best way to get better at something is to do it over and over again. Skateboarding is the same. Repeating the same trick over and over and over and over will lock that technique into your brain and enable to you to pull it off well more often than not.

Don’t follow the philosophy of “One and Done”. Repeat your tricks ever session to keep them up.

19. Work on tricks

Don’t just do the tricks you can do easily. That is boring. Work on also nailing the ones you have trouble with.

You may be a natural frontside 180 person and can land it every try. Work on backside 180s also. Because they are more challenging for you, the reward is that much higher when you land it.

Work on your weaknesses just as much as your strengths to keep from being a literal “one trick pony”.

20. Skate all Terrain

It will be very valuable to your skating to learn to skate all the terrain you have available. Learning multiple disciplines will make you a much better overall skater.

If you mostly cruise, take it to the park. Most parks have street obstacles, ramps, and transition. Skate it all. While you might like skating pools the best, learning some tricks on the manual pad and flat bar will only make you a better pool skater.

21. Watch skate videos

There was a time when we had to wait for the next skate video to come out on VHS or DVD. Now days there is a crazy amount of skateboarding content on social media and streaming services.

You don’t need to go far to find inspiration. They are also fun to watch on days that the weather won’t let you get outside.

Professional skate videos demonstrate the limits that skaters can achieve and are very inspiring.

Instructional videos on Youtube are very helpful in learning new tricks and techniques or maybe tweaking something in tricks you already to to make them better. Take advantage of the media available to you.

22. Play SKATE

Playing SKATE is extremely fun and valuable for all skaters, not just beginners. Trying to match someone else’s trick and have them match yours is a fun back and forth that can help you learn new tricks that you might not have ever thought of.

You can often impress your opponent with something that they haven’t seen or tried before too. Most people you play against will give you tips if you ask.

SKATE doesn’t have to be limited to doing flat ground flip tricks. You can play SKATE on a ramp or quarter pipe, on a rail, on a manual pad, in a pool, or even have a Full Park game of SKATE where you skate a variety of everything. How you play SKATE is only limited by your imagination.

23. Have fun

Sorry to sound corny, but the most important thing to do in skateboarding is have fun. You don’t want to get frustrated to the point where you are no longer having a good time.

Instead of trying the same trick over and over and over again and failing each time, take a break from it and do something else that you know you can do.

24. Avoid Kickflips For Now

If you are trying to learn kickflips and just can’t get them, don’t beat yourself up. Do the pop shuvits that you have on lock in fun ways like over a hip or work on bigspins.

There are so many things to do in skateboarding that you shouldn’t limit yourself to just doing one thing that isn’t working. Odds are when you come back to kickflips the next day, you will nail them.

25. Stationary Tricks Are More Risky

Many beginner skateboarders start doing tricks stationary because moving while doing tricks seems much harder.

The problem is that stationary tricks are more risky because you have more chance to land primo (both feet on the side of a deck). My advice would be to hold on something like a rail if you go this route (as mentioned earlier).

If you have momentum, it’s much easier to get away from your deck. Try to perform the trick befire you slow down, doping a trick when your skateboard is slowing down makes it harder to land a trick.

Anyway, if you feel like you’re ready for tricks, check our easy beginner skateboard tricks!

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