Longboarding is a fun sport. To learn how to longboard, you have to learn some skills first. These skills will help you in learning how to ride a longboard!
While learning how to ride a longboard make sure that you are wearing all the necessary safety equipment such as a helmet, gloves, shoes, and proper skate clothes to keep you safe from any injury.
With time, you will become a master of longboarding, and therefore, it will be an interesting experience for you!
This article is especially for how to ride a longboard for beginners. So if you are just a beginner, I have designed a step-by-step guide of how to ride a longboard skateboard for beginners.
How to ride a longboard/Skateboard
If you follow the right steps in the right order, then nothing could stop you. Many beginners do not follow the right steps and therefore get problems later on.
I see many beginners who start longboarding on the hills without even knowing the basics. Along with learning to longboard, you will also learn different tips for longboarding later in this post.
We will learn all the steps in three Major Steps
- Initial preparation and training of longboarding
- Learning basic riding skills
- Intermediate riding skills
Difference between longboarding and skateboarding
Before heading toward the main topic, many people are unaware of the difference between longboarding and skateboarding.
- In longboarding, you require only some equipment such as pads, a helmet, and shoes.
- Longboards have a deck made up of high-quality wood or composite material. At the bottom, the wheels are attached using trucks.
- One of the differences between longboards and skateboards is the difference in the length of the board.
- The other difference is the type of use; for example, we can use longboards for carving hills and cruising streets, whereas shortboards for kicks, jumps, and tricks.
- Most surprisingly, the longboards usually are 42 inches long. However, the kid’s longboard has a length of 34 inches, and for the tall rider, the longboard can be 50 inches long.
- The width of the longboard is different depending on the shoe size of the rider. However, the typical width is 8.5 inches.
In the market, different types of longboards are present. You will be surprised by the stunning and beautiful shapes. The shapes of the longboard also vary according to the riding style.
Shoes also matter a lot, so you must wear skating shoes for stability. The flat shoes will help you a lot in giving you a stable ride.
Step-by-step guide on how to ride a longboard for beginners
Part 1-Initial preparation and training of longboarding
- STEP 1-CHOOSING THE RIGHT LONGBOARD:
To start longboarding, choosing the right longboard is very important. The right longboard will give you a stable and smoother ride.
Moreover, the longboards made up of quality components will be long-lasting and durable. If you live in a mostly rainy area then it’s recommended to buy a waterproof skateboard/Longboard.
Choosing the low-riding longboard with a good wheelbase will help you a lot in learning the longboard. A Low-riding board also aids in the stability and safety of the rider.
Consequently, the distance between the trucks must be appropriate. So you can choose drop-through decks or double drop – drop-through decks.
- STEP 2-PUTTING ON THE SAFETY GEARS:
Putting on the safety gear is necessary. There is always the fear of falling off from the longboard for beginners, which might discourage you from learning the longboard/skateboard.
Usually, beginners face some injuries while longboarding, such as wrists, knees, and elbow injuries. So make sure that you are longboarding by wearing all the safety gear.
So when you put your foot on the longboard, you must put on some high-quality elbow pads and knee pads as well as wrist guards.
Consequently, along with all the things, you must wear a helmet and shoes before going for your first ride around the park or neighborhood. You can keep all your safety gear in your skateboard backpack when no in use.
- STEP 3-FINDING YOUR NATURAL STANCE:
Natural stance means whether you are left foot forward (aka “regular” footer) or right foot forward (aka “goofy”).
- Now the question arises of how to find your natural stance.
All you have to do is just stand on the ground with your feet close to each other. Now ask your friend or a brother to stand behind you and give you a slight push forward.
After getting a push, you will lose your balance. Therefore, you will be forced to catch yourself with one foot. The foot which goes forward to maintain the balance will be your natural stance, whether it will be your left foot or right foot.
Keep in mind that most people have the same natural stance for all sports such as skateboarding, longboarding, surfing, snowboarding, kiteboarding, and wakeboarding. If you learn how to ride with your natural stance, it is the key to know how to longboard.
- STEP 4-PRACTICING HOW TO DO STATIC BALANCE:
As you are a beginner, so it is also essential to know how to do static balance.
- Static balance means you are standing on the longboard comfortably when it is still.
It is essential before you start getting your longboard moving. You can do it by placing your longboard on grass or a thick carpet so wheels would not roll.
After putting the longboard on the ground, step on it and adjust your stance. To maintain the proper and best balance, you must look for the most comfortable stance. Keep in mind that your feet have a strong grip.
For beginners, to ride a longboard skateboard, it is tough to stay on the board even when the wheels are not moving. The reason is that the deck leans from side to side whenever you move it.
Consequently, you must bend your knees while standing on the longboard to lower the center of gravity.
Along with the knees, you can use your arms for balancing as you get comfortable moving your arms and legs on the static longboard.
Part 2: Basic Longboard Riding Skills
- STEP 1: LEARNING TO STEP ON THE LONGBOARD:
After learning different skills of standing on the longboard, the next step is to start riding the longboard.
First, you must place the board on a smooth surface such as on a parking lot such as good pavement or a sidewalk. So the first thing is to learn how to step on a longboard.
First of all, put your one foot on the deck and then the other. As we have discussed the natural stance, many people start by placing their first foot on the board, whereas the rear foot is on the ground.
Some people put their back foot on the board, but you must focus on your natural stance for stepping on the longboard.
When you start with your front foot, place it close to the longboard’s front trucks. Keep in mind that when you put the front foot, then your leg is at 45°angle. After that, lift your back foot and balance the front foot at 45° to 90° angle with the deck.
- STEP 2- LEARNING TO ROLL DOWN A SOFT INCLINE:
After stepping onto the longboard, it’s time to start rolling.
As you are a beginner and learning how to longboard, you must look for a short incline such as smooth pavement.
Moreover, you can also hold something before rolling, for example, a person or a wall.
When you have stepped onto the longboard, as explained in step 1, first of all, you must hold a wall or rail next to you.
If you feel fear at the start, then you can go with the wall and start longboarding. After that, you can leave the wall and start rolling by yourself. At this time, your primary focus should be on balancing when wheels are just rolling.
- At the start of riding the skateboard longboard, it’s not good to push it with your feet’ balls or heels. The reason is that when you push it with your heels, then ultimately the longboard turns, and you will lose the balance.
So you have to go straight and maintain balance while longboarding.
- STEP 3 –LEARN TO PUSH ON THE LONGBOARD:
After learning the basics of riding a longboard, your next step is to push it on the ground while rolling. So you must look for a flat area where you can easily practice pushing the longboard.
So the surface must be smooth for how to ride a longboard for beginners. First of all, step on a longboard and then take your rear foot on the deck.
After that, lower it down and push the ground by bending your front knee and lowering your hips.
Consequently, at this moment, you are balancing the longboard with the help of your front foot only. Then it’s time to turn your front foot to the point forward at 45 degrees on the deck.
When you are turning your front foot, you are also lowering your rear foot to the ground. It is crucial to learn how to longboard in detail before practicing it.
So in the previous paragraph, I told you about lowering your rear foot. After lowering, you have to touch the pavement through the rear foot. You must push the ground backward with the help of that foot. When you push the ground with your rear foot, then you can get your wheels rolling.
Furthermore, you can kick the longboard only once or twice while learning the longboard skateboard. While pushing on the road with your rear foot, maintaining balance with the front foot on the deck is essential. When you think that the longboard’s speed again increases, then again bring your rear foot back off the ground.
- STEP 4- THE SIMPLE WAY TO STOP A LONGBOARD:
If you were better at pushing, then ultimately, you can start rolling the longboard fastly. After learning to push the longboard, you need to stop it when you want to stop.
The easiest way is to jump off from the longboard and run it out for beginners. This trick will work when you are running longboards slowly.
However, the best way to stop your longboard is to step with your rear foot onto the ground in front of your longboard. When you step off from the rear foot, your front foot pushes the board backward before hitting the ground.
Therefore at the end, the longboard stops or slows down. However, on the other side, if you jump from the side of your board, then it will keep on rolling for some time.
From my perspective, the easiest way to stop the longboard is to roll it on grass or rough surface. Ensure that there are no rocks on the uneven surface as it may stop your longboard immediately and may cause an accident.
- STEP 5-LEARNING HOW TO DO SIMPLE TURNS:
After learning how to stop the longboard, you have a wish of how to turn it.
In the first step, when you learned to maintain the balance on a static longboard, you will learn to experiment with pressing on the rails with your heels and toes.
Now, you can easily do these things while rolling. So when you are running longboard on smooth flat ground, you can give it a slight kick push. While rolling, you must press your toes onto the front edge of your deck to turn your wheels aside.
Usually, we call this turning a toeside turn. If your natural stance is regular, then your board will turn to the right, and if you are goofy, then the board will turn to the left.
Keep in mind that when you are pressing your toes, you are shifting your body slightly towards the turn’s direction.
Consequently, at this time, you are putting more weight on the rail. It is recommended not to shift too hard because if you do that, your longboard will turn fastly.
So you must practice yourself by putting the right amount of pressure on the longboard with your toes.
After that shift, the weight slowly from your toes onto your heels. By doing that, you make the wheels turn in the opposite direction.
By learning how to ride a longboard skateboard, you will control body weight and pressure. Keep in mind that you are putting the right amount of pressure on the rail to get the smooth and controlled turns.
Part 3-Learning intermediate riding skills
- STEP 1-PRACTICE GOING FASTER ON THE LONGBOARD:
Now you have experienced a lot and are comfortable at beginner speeds. At this time, you know many things about how to longboard.
Taking the longboard faster after experiencing different aspects of longboarding is the wish of many people. So with a little practice, you will be able to go at faster speeds.
For this purpose, you can choose a soft and quiet hill. Make sure that the hill ends in a flat or inclined area.
Keep on increasing the longboard’s speed while riding and make small hillside and toe side turns when you go down. While riding, if you experience small uncontrolled turns, you can cover it by putting more weight on your front foot.
You must try to increase the speed by practicing pushing with your natural foot, whether it is your front or rear foot. It will be more good to try balancing on your steering foot for more extended periods to achieve more powerful pushes.
A more advanced technique that is very useful is to push the longboard with your alternate foot. This technique will work a lot for distance skating.
- STEP 2-HOW TO FOOT BRAKE ON YOUR LONGBOARD:
In the last section, you learn how to stop the longboard by running it on the grass. The next challenge is to stop the longboard with a foot brake.
When you watch the experienced riders do foot braking, it may look easy for you, but it is not as much easy. So you have to do little practice to learn foot braking.
Just as when you learn kick pushing, the first challenge is to achieve comfortable balancing on your front leg.
It is to note that you must learn balance on your back leg if you are a mongo pusher.
Whether you are gaining balance with your front leg or back leg, you must lower your opposite foot to the ground.
This will increase friction and slow down the longboard. So foot braking technique is the same as kick pushing.
Brushing the ground with your brake foot is the basic technique, and you can do it by keeping closer your foot close to the ground.
Along with this, you must lower down your body and keep your knees close to each other while longboarding. Keeping the knees closer will increase the stability while your foot touches the ground.
Foot braking works very well and an effective technique at a moderate speed, but it will be dangerous at very high speeds. At this moment, you must learn to slide when going fast on the longboard.
- STEP 3-HOW TO LEARN THE SPEED THROUGH CARVING:
The next most crucial technique for how to ride a longboard for beginners is carving. Most surprisingly, you can control the speed through carving.
To get a 180-degree turn, you must look for a slightly steeper slope with no traffic.
Now stand on the longboard and then move slightly downhill. So when you are increasing the longboard’s speed, you must turn slightly uphill to ride perpendicular to the slope.
Ensure that you are doing a hard turn when reaching the edge of the road and ride across again in the opposite direction.
This technique is called carving, i.e., going from one edge of the road to controlling the speed. With the help of carving, you can easily ride down steep hills by making successive tight turns.
While learning how to longboard, you should have the capability of turning your longboard close to 180 degrees. When you become a master of carving, you can quickly master weight shifting and body rotation onto your longboard.
When doing rotation, you can easily look towards your target direction. How to ride a longboard skateboard, you should practice carving on smaller hills before handling steeper ones.
- STEP 4-LEARNING TO FALL OFF FROM THE LONGBOARD:
When you are learning how to fall off the longboard, you follow the natural reaction of falling. The natural reaction of falling is to catch yourself with your hands on the ground.
- Unfortunately, it will result in a broken wrist or a broken arm. So it is very important to do a lot of practice and educate yourself to fall off the longboard in the right way.
It can be possible by controlling your arms not to touch the ground. You can control yourself while falling by landing on your forearm or rolling sideways on your shoulders.
If you are not a master or falling from the longboard, you can practice it by falling on a mattress before attempting it on thick grass.
One of the safest ways of falling from the board is to drop your knees and slide on your knee pads. It is recommended that you have strong kneepads to do that.
How to ride a pintail longboard?
Pintail is a different longboard used for cruising and carving. The design of the longboard is impressive and classic, which allows smooth cruising. First of all, how to ride a pintail longboard is to learn how to stand on it.
Learn the balance by standing on the static pintail longboard and then stepping and running on it by maintaining the balance. You are focusing on your natural stance while longboarding.
Practicing your balance in how to longboard will make you more perfect. Then practice moving forward and, after all, how to stop it. Stopping the pintail longboard is a very important step of how to ride a longboard skateboard.
FAQs
How do you ride a longboard for beginners?
For learning how to ride a longboard for beginners, you have to follow some steps. First of all, learn the balancing on the static longboard. Find out your natural stance and also practice your turning stance.
Then comes the learning of pushing and rolling of the longboard. Finally, it is very important to practice all steps again and again to become an expert in longboarding.
Is a longboard good for beginners?
How to ride a longboard for beginners is the most challenging thing. However, the drop-through longboard is considered to be the best for beginners.
If the longboard is close to the ground, it is very easy to footbrake, slide, and push the longboard. So if you start with the drop-through longboard, then you can quickly learn the basics of longboarding.
What is easier to ride, a penny or longboard?
Different average size riders can easily ride on a longboard than a penny. Riding on the penny would be more difficult for you if you are stepping on it for the first time.
How do you learn to ride a longboard?
You will learn how to longboard by practicing again and again. After practicing simple techniques such as stepping on the longboard, riding on it, foot braking, finding your natural stance, you can easily understand how to ride a longboard skateboard.
Conclusion
Longboarding is somewhat a tricky sport, but you can easily learn how to longboard with a little practice. In this step-by-step guide, you will know how to ride a longboard skateboard for beginners.
I hope this article will help you a lot in understanding the basics of longboarding. So what are you waiting for? Start your journey of longboarding and explore the new chapter of life.
