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  • - Hey friends, Steve here with Surfskate Love,

  • here to tell you five quick

  • and simple ways to get started pumping on your surfskate.

  • This video is for beginners who are really just having

  • a hard time getting your board moving and you feel

  • like your whole body is uncoordinated and you feel

  • like you're kind of just fighting against yourself

  • in the process and nothing's clicking, nothing's flowing.

  • And if you find this little tutorial helpful

  • then I invite you to check

  • out my brand new video course, "Surfskating for Non-Surfers."

  • It's a great crash course for beginners

  • and it covers everything from foot placement to stance

  • and posture, to how to pump out a turn and how to stop.

  • And I go into a lot more depth

  • and detail than what you're going to see here

  • and you can check that out at SurfskatingFornonSurfers.com.

  • So basically how we're gonna go through these five steps

  • is we're gonna start from our feet

  • and go up to our shoulders.

  • So step one is I'm gonna show you what to do

  • with our feet.

  • Step two is we're gonna show you what to do

  • with your ankles.

  • Step three is what we do with our knees.

  • Step four is moving onto our hips

  • and finally step five is what we do with our shoulders.

  • So step one is what do we do with our feet?

  • And this is about our posture and our foot placement.

  • So the first thing we need to know is posture.

  • By posture I mean how we're oriented

  • on our board and how we're facing.

  • So I came from longboarding and my rule to longboard,

  • if I were skating this way, I would be facing this way

  • on my longboard and kind of cruising this way.

  • But on a surfskate,

  • you wanna be facing the way that you're skating

  • and there's a lot of reasons for this

  • but it gives you coordination and balance.

  • But one of the biggest benefits is that it gives

  • you increased flexibility which is one

  • of your biggest friends on a surfskate.

  • So if I were to be skating this way and facing this way

  • and my feet were on the board like so,

  • any knee bends that I did would look like this, okay?

  • But watch what happens to the depth

  • of my knee bend simply by shifting my feet

  • a little bit at an angle to now

  • where I can point my knees, my hips and my shoulders

  • in the direction that I'm skating.

  • Now watch what happens to this flexibility, okay?

  • So it's the difference between

  • this and this.

  • So that adds a lot of range of motion

  • to our knee bends and it adds a lot of balance.

  • The next thing we need to know

  • about our feet is foot placement.

  • Now there's three principles that I want you

  • to remember when it comes to foot placement

  • on a surfskate.

  • Principle number one is you want your front foot

  • to be right behind these front trucks.

  • You will get into trouble on a surfskate

  • if you are too far forward on that truck,

  • if you're too far back

  • what's gonna happen is you might tip your board even

  • but really it means you're just not gonna

  • get as much propulsion out of that truck

  • also not only propulsion but also lean.

  • Second principle is you don't want your toes hanging

  • off the board.

  • You want your toes to be right on the edge of that board

  • both your front foot and your back that like so.

  • The reason that's important

  • is because if my foot is too far back,

  • what happens is when I try to move my board with my ankles

  • I'm gonna be very heavily heel-sided.

  • If my toe is off the front

  • then I'm gonna be very heavily weighted on my toe side.

  • We want that to be equal.

  • So that means, don't put your toes off

  • the edge of the board.

  • The third principle is that you want your feet

  • at an angle because of the reason we just said.

  • We wanna be skating forward.

  • If my feet are like this, I cannot be skating forward.

  • So we wanna turn at an angle.

  • How I look at it is as a goofy-footed rider facing this way.

  • I want to cover that bolt with my foot.

  • Just like so, if you are a regular-footed rider

  • it means you're gonna cover this bolt just like so.

  • Now on your back foot,

  • I've heard a little bit of debate about this

  • and I think that there's a range of personal preference.

  • I've heard some people say you want it clear back

  • as far back as you can get it on the tail like so.

  • I've heard other people like it really clear up here

  • like on these back bolts.

  • Personally for me,

  • it kind of depends on the deck on this Carver Greenroom,

  • we've got this perfect little pocket right here.

  • So I like my back foot to be right here in that pocket.

  • I like it to be at an angle, not like so but at an angle

  • and as I skate, as I do turns, you're gonna see

  • that this toe will get a lot of turns on it like so.

  • If I'm turning this way

  • then I'm gonna turn my knees,

  • my feet, my toes are gonna slide same thing this way.

  • So personally I ride with my back foot about right there.

  • So this is our foot placement on a surfskate just like so.

  • Step two is what we do with our ankles

  • and that's very, very simple.

  • It's the most basic, simple way to get started

  • on the surfskate and really, it just means using

  • your ankles to do a heel-toe wiggles

  • to get your board moving, just like so.

  • You're gonna jump on your board.

  • You're gonna get your proper foot placement and positioning

  • and then we're gonna just do some back

  • and forth using our ankles.

  • That's all I'm doing, I'm isolating in my body

  • nothing else is moving.

  • It's just ankles moving that heel-toe wiggle.

  • And I'm heavily weighted, more heavily weighted

  • on my front foot than my back

  • so that I can really get some propulsion

  • out of that front truck.

  • But now we're moving on a board

  • so instead of up here, like trying to do too much

  • and we're fighting against each other

  • and nothing's working, it's all uncoordinated.

  • Just stop all that

  • and just start at the most basic level.

  • You gotta get board lean with your ankles

  • because no matter what you do with your upper body,

  • if your board doesn't lean

  • you're not gonna get any propulsion.

  • So that just starts with heel-toe wiggles.

  • Heel-toe wiggles, heel-toe wiggles.

  • Heel-toe wiggles.

  • My board's moving.

  • And from there, once our board is moving, we can move up

  • to step three which is knees.

  • And all you're gonna do is once you've got

  • your board wiggling, now just add some flexibility

  • in the knees, that's it, that's it.

  • Now remember the principle that we're skating forward

  • which means we want our feet and our knees our hips

  • and our shoulders facing the way we're skating.

  • So I'm opening up those knees.

  • We're doing our heel-toe wiggles

  • and now just add a knee flexibility.

  • And you can just play with this,

  • al you doing is just kind of going up and down

  • with your knees while I'm still continuing my board lean

  • with my heel-toe wiggling.

  • We're just moving up our body, very simple from feet

  • to ankles to knees and just get loose

  • with your knees and just play around like this.

  • So you can see how simple that is

  • to move from feet to ankles to knees.

  • Step four is to now integrate our hips into the motion.

  • Now, if you're like me where you haven't done a lot

  • of board sports and you haven't done surfing

  • and a lot of these body movements

  • are kind of counter-intuitive and they're uncoordinated

  • and you're not sure how everything works together.

  • What I like to do is isolate parts of my body simply so

  • that I can feel how that part is interacting with the board.

  • So to teach people, hips, the very first thing

  • I teach, instead of it being coordinated

  • with anything else, I teach to basically isolate your hips.

  • And what that means is to just jump

  • on your board and your proper positioning

  • and posture facing forward.

  • First of all, I'm gonna just get my board moving

  • by wiggling, right?

  • So now I've got some propulsion, I've got some momentum.

  • Now what I'm gonna do

  • is basically keep everything else static.

  • It's kind of hard to see this visually,

  • it's easier to feel than it is to see visually

  • but I'm gonna keep everything static on my body,

  • my feet, my knees and I'm just gonna isolate hips

  • and you can even like put your hands up

  • like this just to isolate.

  • Everything I'm doing on this board is moving it through

  • the hips and I'm just twisting my hips.

  • And again, the point is, once you isolate the hips,

  • you can just kind of feel the impact that they have

  • on the board and once you feel that isolation,

  • now we can just work together.

  • We got our feet right

  • with our posture and our foot placement.

  • We got our ankles right with our heel-toe wiggles.

  • We're getting lean on the board.

  • We're adding some flexibility to our knees.

  • Now let's just add some hip twists to it

  • and you can see how it just is naturally starting

  • to coordinate from our feet up into our upper body.

  • Now we're just adding hip twisting to the movements.

  • And just play with this

  • like you wanna just experiment with twisting your hips.

  • Be exaggerated about it, just so you can feel

  • how do hips influence everything that I'm doing here.

  • And our fifth and final step is to add

  • and integrate our shoulders to the motions.

  • Now I'm not going to get very detailed in this process

  • because right now I'm just talking to beginners

  • and what I would say from my experiences,

  • your number one step is really just to experiment

  • and play around with how different body parts

  • and different body motions affect your board.

  • So what I'm gonna tell you to do on your shoulders

  • is just basically get on your board, work your way up.

  • Heel-toe wiggle, heel-toe wiggle, heel-toe wiggle.

  • So I have my momentum, we work our way up,

  • I got my knees and I'm gonna add some hip twist

  • to this whole motion.

  • And now in the shoulders there's a lot to know

  • about the shoulders but really what I want you

  • to do is just to experiment and play.

  • So just kind of add more shoulders.

  • Well, obviously you're not gonna be skating through town

  • doing this kind of crazy stuff with your shoulders.

  • But the point is to just start feeling into

  • what happens when I start playing around

  • with my upper body and my shoulders,

  • what happens to this board?

  • So same thing with the hips.

  • I can isolate my shoulders

  • and move everything with shoulders

  • and you can see how, if I turn with shoulders,

  • hips follow, followed by my feet.

  • So like this.

  • And once you've got all

  • of these integrated motions, feet, ankles,

  • knees, hips, shoulders.

  • What you're gonna find

  • is that you just naturally do what I call "falling

  • into the flow" of the board.

  • There's a way that these boards want to move

  • and if you're not working against yourself

  • it'll just naturally flow that way.

  • So you might not have the greatest form

  • but your board is gonna be moving

  • and you're gonna start feeling the flow

  • of how it should feel.

  • Now you'll notice that I am deliberately not skating

  • with good form right now because again, another principle

  • for you to add to this is when, especially

  • when you're first starting to learn,

  • just over-exaggerate everything.

  • Just play with how everything affects this board

  • because once you start feeling

  • then it becomes just kind of natural to just skate.

  • And there we have it, five simple steps to get moving

  • and pumping on your surfskate

  • and if you found this helpful,

  • go check out my video course

  • at SurfskatingFornonSurfers.com.

- Hey friends, Steve here with Surfskate Love,

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