How To Ride A Skateboard For Beginners: Step By Step

No matter if you’re a beginner, old, young, or overweight, you can master skateboarding with fun if you know the right path.

Therefore in this article, I’ll guide you on how to ride a skateboard for beginners step by step. So by the time you’re done reading, you’ll learn every crucial thing that a beginner should know to master skateboarding as fast as possible. Along with that will also cover the safety guidelines that beginners should know.

How To Ride A Skateboard For Beginners

Before you jump into how to ride skateboard for beginners, try to be confident. I know it’s not that easy as a beginner, though here some tips from our side.

By practicing the basics of skateboarding daily and learning from others by watching them live or on youtube videos, you can gradually build your confidence.

Besides, skateboard quality also plays a significant role in building your confidence, don’t ever try to learn skateboarding with a cheap plastic skateboard. It won’t make you a pro rider. For quality skateboards, no need to spend more as a beginner. You can check out the list of our experts recommended skateboards according to your budget: Best skateboard under 100, or best skateboards under 50 dollars.

Once you become an advanced rider, you can assemble a skateboard yourself or replace the existing skateboard parts according to your riding style.

All right now, let’s learn how to skateboard for beginners.

Wear Protective Gear

Whenever you ask any skater for guidance as a beginner, most of them will ignore to suggest you protective gears. But it’s essential to wear protective gear as a learner.

Safety gear like a helmet, knee pads, elbow pads, and wrist guards are mandatory for beginners. While for the helmet, you’ll find many cheap ones, but don’t go with that, buy a reliable quality helmet that won’t break easily to save your head while falling, because falling while learning skateboard is very common.

If other skaters joke on you, don’t think much about them; once you become a pro rider, you can also skate without safety gears. Still, nowadays, considering the trend, protective gear comes with a cool and attractive look.

Learn to stand on a skateboard

Once you’re ready with a quality skateboard by wearing protective gear, you’ve to learn how to stand on a skateboard.

To get a proper balance and comfort while riding a board, you need to position your feet on a deck. Practice this on grass or a stable ground like on a carpet until you get confidence.

Put your foot on the deck where the truck’s screw is attached, and stand a for a while. Then get down, stand again, and practice this until you feel confident.

In skateboard language, the person riding with the right foot in front on the deck and push the board with the left foot, known as a Goofy foot. While the vise versa of goofy foot rider known as a regular foot.

Learn to push

Further, put a right foot in front of the board on the truck’s screws, while other feet on the backside on the ground to push the board. And remember the foot by which you push the board, to use the same foot every time. Otherwise, in the beginning, people get confused, which results in breaking their balance.

In the beginning, don’t push so hard; go easy and practice these few times. Once you’re confident and able to make a stable ride, you can push multiple times to increase the speed.

To learn to push the board, practice on the ground, where you don’t need to turn more. Because once you are done with moving, try to stand on a board to make it a stable ride.

Get Yourself In The Riding Position

Once you’re done pushing your board to get regular speed, get your pushing foot on the deck’s backside on the truck screws. After that bend, your knees for better balance and control on board decrease the center of gravity.

Learn To Turn

Before you turn, bend your knees to get your body lower and decide the way you want to turn, either left or right. Lead the way with your shoulder and shift the pressure in the direction you want to turn using toes or heels.

Now the question that may arise is what pressure we should put into turning? Well, it depends on your skateboard trucks tightness and the turning speed you want.

Note that loose trucks provide you a better-turning experience, but it has less stability, while the tight trucks provide better stability but limit your turning. Though as a beginner, keep medium tightness trucks. Besides not worry much about turning, once you try, it will come naturally.

After completing the turning, get back to the normal stance and roll away. For details guide about turning skateboard click here.

Learn to stop

Once you are done with the basics, you’ve to learn how to stop skateboard before you jump on streets or public places for the ride.

The easiest way for beginners to stop skateboard is foot braking or dragging foot on the ground. Apply this balancing on your front foot and get the back foot to the ground. After this, you can pressure on the ground to stop or slow down your skateboard.

The advanced rider uses different ways to stop skateboard, such as pinching the board tail to the ground because it stops quickly due to friction.

Learn to fall

Falling from a skateboard is a sign of your growth. Therefore learning how to fall is essential for every beginner skater to be safe while falling from the board.

The best thing you can do is wear a helmet and pads. So that while falling, you can slide yourself on elbow pads, knee pads, and wrist guards to reduce the impact. Also, you can try to roll freely while falling if you can.

If you’re a parent, don’t know skateboarding, still, you can teach your kids to skateboard, visit here on how to skateboard for kids.

Basic Skateboard Tricks

Now that you know how to ride a skateboard, it’s time to have some fun and learn some tricks! As you become more comfortable with skateboarding, you’ll be able to try out more advanced tricks. Here are a few to get you started:

Ollie: This is a basic trick that every skateboarder should learn. To do an ollie, jump up while simultaneously pulling your front foot off the board and snap it back down. As you jump, use your back foot to push the board’s tail down, so it pops up into the air.

Kickflip: A kickflip is a variation of the ollie. To do a kickflip, follow the same steps as an ollie, but instead of snapping your front foot back down, flick it off the side of the board. As you jump, use your back foot to quickly spin the board around, so it lands back under your feet.

180: A 180 is when you do a complete spin in the air and land, going in the opposite direction. To do a 180, jump up and spin the board around 180 degrees so it lands opposite.

Kick turn: A kick turn is when you turn the board in mid-air without jumping. To do a kick turn, jump up and spin the board around 180 degrees, so it’s upside down. Then, land on the board, quickly jump up again, and spin the board back around, so it’s right-side up.

Manual: A manual is when you ride on the back two wheels of the board. Jump up and place your back foot on the board’s tail to do a manual. As you land, bend your knees and lean forward, so your weight is evenly distributed on the board.

Nose manual: A nose manual is like a regular manual, but you ride on the front two wheels of the board. To do a nose manual, jump up and place your front foot on the nose of the board. As you land, bend your knees and lean forward, so your weight is evenly distributed on the board.

These are just basic tricks you can do on a skateboard being a beginner. As you become more comfortable with skateboarding, you’ll be able to try out more advanced tricks.

If you have a fear of skateboarding, you can also learn how to get over the fear of skateboarding from our blogs.

Once you learn all these basics of skateboarding, no one can stop you from becoming a good skateboarder. If you’re a student looking forward to commuting to school on a skateboard, you should also read an article on whether can you bring a skateboard to school or not.

Last Words

Finally, I hope our article on how to ride a skateboard for beginners helps you enter skateboarding with proper safety guidelines.

By practicing for a week, don’t be overconfident that you become a pro. Many beginners make these mistakes. It takes months to master a skateboarding skill, so be patient and keep practicing daily.  

Happy Skateboarding!