Today the sport has over 6.5 million participants just in the US alone, and has evolved into three main categories of skateboarding. The first two are the most popular being transition skateboarding involving half pipes and bowls. This is usually seen as skateboarding for older people as it was more prevalent in the early years of skateboarding. Street skateboarding on the other hand involves many different things. Ledges, rails, stairs, hips, banks, drops and many other things. Even a garbage can left on the ground horizontally can be considered a street obstacle. The last and least popular of the three is freestyle skateboarding. This form usually consists of just flat and smooth ground but can sometimes be mixed in with street skateboarding if you’re Jonny Giger.
You may ask yourself, “Is skateboarding for me?”. Before you can answer that, consider that skateboarding is not for everyone. Physical condition can play a role in how you skateboard. Being fit and active like playing a sport before you start skateboarding is good because your body would already be used to being physically active and it wouldn’t be hard to go out every day and skate. Your mindset can also play a huge role in deciding if skateboarding is for you, if you’re unmotivated and just generally lazy you’ll find it hard to progress in the sport because it takes many years to even get to an acceptable level. Things like having a really long job that gives you no time to do anything is also something that can hurt your skateboarding career. Even your geographical location can make it hard for you to go out and skate. For example if you live in a very remote area it might be hard and expensive to get a skateboard and find a place to skate.
Now that you’ve chosen to partake in the sport, here are a few skateboarding tips. First of all you need to make sure that you’re at least trying to get out and practice at least every couple days, the more you go outside and practice the better you will get. This is true with anything, try and make it part of your routine. Even if you’re out practicing 10-15 minutes it’ll always be better then not going out at all.
A second skateboarding tip that I could give you is just to watch skateboarding and familiarize yourself with the different aspects and tricks of it. Watching skate parts, tutorials and even playing skateboarding games can really help you in the long run. Even going to the skatepark to watch other skateboarders can help because you’ll not only see them land their tricks but you’ll see the whole process of landing a trick.
My third skateboarding tip is to skate with your friends. Skating with people you know can make you progress faster then if you were doing it by yourself. Even friends that are way better than you can help a ton. They can make you try something you’ve never even thought of doing before and they can give you pointers about certain tricks to help you land them.