BECOMING A COOL LONGBOARDING RIDER: COMMON MISTAKES

More and more people are taking up longboarding nowadays as this style of skating is suitable for newbies without any complex techniques. Sometimes, people buy a longboard just to ride around since they want to follow their idols.

However, have you ever thought about whether you look like a true skateboarder or not? Skaters who have many years of experience in skateboarding can easily distinguish between a real skater and a poser since people who truly love skating show their passion in their rides.

SkateAdvisors has discussed the common mistakes if you want to become a cool longboarder and that post points out several mistakes a poser can easily make. I do not want to stop you from enjoying a ride on your longboard; however, you had better realize the common mistakes to avoid as follows.

The first mistake is to buy a bad-looking skateboard. No skater would skate on a terribly decorated skateboard; therefore, you should find a board with proper decoration. For a real skateboarder, a bad-looking skateboard is insulting just like you buy it from a grocery store. If you are not sure about which graphics are appropriate, you should stick to the fundamental colors such as black, white, etc.

Secondly, you should not skate under the rain at all costs since water is the number one enemy of skateboard decks. Although riding during the rain a couple of times won’t affect the performance of your skateboard, the deck can become weak as water enters the internal structure and gradually breaks down the layers of wood. Otherwise, there are several guides showing how to make your board waterproof from SkateAdvisors on tapas.

The third mistake that non-skaters usually make is to hold the board in the position called “mall grip” which is not preferred by pro skaters. Since there are many ways to hold a skateboard, you should avoid the style that I mentioned. Instead of doing the “mall grip” (holding the trucks), you can grab the tail, the head, or even put the board in your arms.

Similar to skateboarding, no pro skaters would use their hands while skating so you had better avoid it at all cost unless you want to be spotted as a poser right away. If your skateboard needs to be operated by hands, you should throw it away.

Finally, skaters should avoid dragging their board at all costs since it will cause either the tail or the nose to become super sharp. As long as you don’t want to have nasty cuts on your feet while performing, I strongly recommend you give up this bad habit. Besides those nasty cuts, you can explore other negative effects on your performance with these boards via SkateAdivsors on sketchfab.

When writing this article, I didn't mean to encourage you to give up skateboarding just because you are not a true skater. However, if you show interest in this sport, there should be some respect for it and its players. Hence, all riders should know to avoid common mistakes in longboarding.