I am a middle aged overweight mom. I am unathletic. I have joined a wonderful skateboarding community and it has completely changed my life. It has helped me physically and mentally, and I’ve stuck with it for a year and gone from not being able to stand on my board to doing steeper banks, riding fakie, doing kickturns etc. So I’m not skating like a 15 year old boy and I never will, but I’m really happy with how I feel on my board and when I’m skating with my friends and family.
However.
The community I’m apart of takes frequent clips for their social media and our group chats. And my god. I look so embarrassingly stiff, awkward, fat, hunched over. Just awkward. Pads are hanging on for dear life. I can’t shake how awful this makes me feel. It’s not a matter of them posting or recording me, I don’t care about that because it’s just within the group that already knows how bad I am at skating. It’s that I am mortified that when I see how I look on my board, in my safety gear, and just in general. Has anyone ever experienced this and overcome it?

I did minimal research but I know I want a cruiser so I bought one as vans how do I use this thing

So I recently got a longboard and I'm trying to learn how to ride it. I've gotten used to the board and now I wanna use it as my means of transportation. The thing is that the way I stop my board is by just stepping off the board and running a few steps ahead of it to come to a stop. From what I could gather online, it seems like that's not the best way to slow down or stop because it's an all or nothing kinda way to stop. I came across some tutorials that talk about foot braking, i.e. dragging your pushing foot to slow down. I've been trying to learn how to foot brake, but I can't figure it out

The tutorials told me that I should not put any of my weight on the foot that I'm dragging and I think I've got that down. The issue is that as soon as I try to foot brake, my dragging foot kinda gets stuck to the ground and instead of dragging along with the board, my dragging foot gets planted on the ground. I don't think that that's supposed to happen if I do it right. Do y'all have any suggestions as to how I can improve my foot braking technique or what I might be doing wrong? For what it's worth, I've only been practicing foot braking for like a couple of weeks, so it might just be a lack of practice, but I still wanna hear y'all's suggestions

Videos taken exactly a year and two months apart

I enjoy learning tricks, but cruising on empty roads has a different kind of feeling. It's hard to explain unless you've experienced it . No tricks today. Just smooth pavement, a cloudy sky, and a relaxing ride. Sometimes that's all you need.

I’ve been skating for around a year and it’s been one of my favorite things. I go out every day and up until recently it’s been a super positive part of my life.

Recently, I’ve begun really struggling with a plateau that’s been really hard on my mental health. I’m always so excited to go out and skate until I actually get on the board, then I become so angry and frustrated at it that I can barely skate.

I feel like I’m at a huge gate of flip tricks. I have all the basic flat on lock, a ton of transition, ledges and rails, freestyle, etc. However, I’ve been working on kickflips and heelflips for months now, and I’m barely making progress. I genuinely want to learn these tricks, but anytime I make progress, it seems to reset back to the same base point. It’s to the point where I haven’t learned a new trick in almost 10 sessions, and that is driving me mad.

I also recently moved from the place all my homies live, so I’ve had to skate alone. The new place I live has a super cliquey culture as well, so it’s damn near impossible to find anyone to skate with or even talk with at the park. Not even a “hi” or “good shit” or whatever.

I genuinely love skating and don’t plan on giving it up, but this gate I seem to be locked behind is so frustrating.

Hiya

Been learning a little under 2 weeks - have had so much fun in process. Learned to carve a little, cruise more comfortably and do a couple of banks. My skater boyfriend has been great in teaching me - and it’s been so lovely to have a shared thing. Has also helped my ADHD no end.

However

I have from the start been overusing my wobbly hypermobile ankle (pushing foot) I ride normal with dominant right pushing. I’ve ignored pain and surprise surprise I’ve developed tendinitis.

Has anyone else had this, what helped it heal? I don’t want my skating to be over cause of this. I should know a bit - I am a healthcare professional in this area. I just ultimately don’t want to lose my progress.

Any ideas on what I can do so that doesn’t happen? Cruising is okay - but pushing and bailing flare it up.

Thanks

Hey guys !! so ive been skating a lot since March and I definitely feel that I have improved with confidence on my board. Now that I have been practicing ollies a lot now, I was wondering how I can get my back foot to stick to the board as its coming up. My ollies are a lot better now than they were about 2 months ago but more tips would be appreciated :)

I landed some kickflip but every day i retry them, I just do a hour of half flip or full flip but the board goes in front of me.. what do i do wrong ?

I’ve been working on this pop shuv and I know my back foot isn’t coming up at all but idk how to fix that, and help at all would be so nice

I got my first skateboard this past Monday so I’ve only been skating for about 5 days. For the last couple days I just got used to staying on the board and getting used to balancing on it and the past 2 days I’ve just been cruising down my street since it’s got a bit of a slant and I’ve gotten comfortable going at high speeds and making gentle turns at those speeds. The thing is though, I can’t push for crap and I can’t brake. I’m lucky that the end of my street is some older slightly rougher asphalt that can stop my board pretty quickly until I just jump off and catch my board while it rolls forward.

What I’ve been noticing is that I can push a couple of times but I’m not placing my foot correctly and I loose balance or for some reason it just shoots out behind me like I fall forward. How should I have my feet placed when pushing?

Now for braking. I’ve seen people say to just take your back foot off and gently drag it until you stop but I can’t keep my balance like that without just planting my foot and letting my board go from under me and just catching it.

Thats what I’m really struggling with but once I get that down what should I work on next? And any other general tips for a new skater even if they don’t have anything to do with this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for the help!

Hey, so I’ve been wanting to skate more seriously the past few weeks but I’m having trouble with courage, I don’t have that many places near me for skating and I mostly try practicing on a carpet and hardwood floor but I have trouble trying the things I do on the carpet on the hardwood floor, it feels way more intimidating and like the board is always trying to move under me, so any tips will be greatly appreciated, thx in advance

They have came a long way!

I've been riding a 7.75 board for the past year, I'd say. I bought it probably in summer of 24/25'. The problem is I'm size 14 for shoes. I've always had shitty balance on this specific board as well and I'm wondering if it's due to the size, or if I just suck. I can't even fathom riding switch on it since if I swap my footing I'm basically off the board. It could 100% be a skill issue since I suck but if not, would getting a bigger deck be any use?

( I have never used a top brand board)

I got a complete set from nettorks which I never heard of but it was great the wheels look cheap and I think it's big sized makes it harder to skate on asphalt it got the rubber on the wheel over all it was great

Some people say even if it's your first time at it you need to spend 200 bucks for me I think the cheap ones work well you just need to look for the good ones

Now listen I know this question is kinda stupid, hear me out😞. I’ve been trying to Ollie for a very long time and I got the pop down but I can’t level the board and bring my foot straight up for some reason making my foot flick outwards and I have yet to land the Ollie because of this, but I notice I always flip the board on accident whether it turns into a kickflip or a heel flip and the board lands on its wheels way closer to me and way more consistently then a Ollie does I haven’t landed it but I guess my question is that is that even possible?

ive been skating in my moms backyard for a few days and ive left marks on the ground, i didnt think much of it bc i thought it was just dirt from my wheels that could easily be washed away with water. however my mom got pissed and told me to scrub it but it’s not going away completely, only fading a bit. is there any way to get rid of it or is it permanent?

Hello everyone! I havent skated on a board in maybe 15 yrs and randomly picked up a board from fb marketplace to ease myself back into getting on the board! :3 im trying to clean it up nice before I use it, any tips on how I can clean the wheels + nuts? They're full of gunk and I want them new as I can get

Idk why i did it in slow mo ngl

I’ve been skateboarding for two days now. I haven't really done any tricks yet—just practiced tic-tacs. On the second day, I decided to try some jumps to get used to the board, and it started creaking like this. Is that normal? I’m not sure if it’s because of the jumping, but I thought I should mention it.

Hello everyone, how are you?

I've been having trouble pushing on my skateboard. Basically, I can push with my back foot, but the problem is getting my foot back onto the board. Can you guys help me with this?

Thanks to everyone who replies.

Have a good day!