Projects: Hybrid
Cruise Power
Wide Slide
F rontside Wide Slide
Wide stance slide on an oversize board
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Caution is advised
Wide sliding is really fun, but make sure you're prepared. Even though this is flatground riding and not bombing and so there's not an impact danger, there is definitely the danger of body strain. The 54 inch classic style board is made to cruise and not slide. The board will slide smoothly only with good technique and really good range of motion in your body. Twist back and forth as a warm up. Watch out for your mid section and groin. It's really easy to strain yourself if you aren't used to this. And don't just force your board into a slide and hope. Learn how to do it right by going through the process of working up to big board slides.
Another thing to think about is that powerful stand up slides put a lot of strain on a board. If it is laminated lengthwise, splitting may result. I put cloth reinforced tape across the rear where my back foot rests, to reinforce it. Here's a link to the gear notes for this project.
Make sure you have hard wheels (85 to 97) on your board. Dont bother with soft wheels (72 to 78). Although it can be done, speed control will be poor and you will hang up. You'll get flat spots on your wheels. You will also surely strain yourself breaking into slides, and stopping them.
You must, must practice this on a 46 inch or less board before you try this. Go through the basics in Arcs: Slides section of the Reef. Get as much Slide Arc-itecture as you can. Then try it.
If you don't own a small board, at least put the hardest and smallest wheels that will work with your board. 62mm 97 duro street wheels will be easy to slide. You wont really get the right feel, because you want more resistance. It's supposed to be harder, because wide sliding is a serious power move. If you're an experienced slider, use my set up, which is 68mm 92 duro, and a 54 inch, 11 lb board.
Stance and outline of technique
Sliding a big board requires a modification of my usual longboard stance. It has to be a wide stance, more than shoulder width, as opposed to on my 46 inch boards, where the stance is about shoulder width. As a goal, I don't want to be too far forward on the board making it more of a 180 nose kick turn. I want to feel some scraping of the wheels. A grinding wheel sound is more fun of course, but also there will be much more speed control if the surface of the back wheels stays firmly on the ground.
Notice that in the routines for Slide Walking, another part of this project, a narrow stance is used for slides. This is different. Slide Walking narrow stance slides are tricks, Wide Slides are for power and speed control. Learn both stances. You may want to try a few Wide Slides to warm up for a longer set of Slide Walks. That's usually what I do in a session.
It's so simple when you can do it. All you do is take good slide rotation technique and make a bigger shape with your body, reaching your arms out, getting a wider stance, and twisting deeper into it. There's more force put on the board, but it's evenly distributed through the body. I don't feel any more strain in my legs than on my shoulders and middle. A little more speed helps. Put it all together and it's effortless. Well not quite, but pretty easy. With bad technique, it's effortfull. The board won't budge, but your eyes may bulge.
Take a look at the pump section again, as that is the best way to get into a slide with a huge board. I set up the slide with a pump, to build up speed and get the board moving in arcs. I plan to take one of the pump arcs and add force to the rotation. I will exaggerate the frontside turn that you see in the pump sequence. I will twist very strongly into the turn and the back wheels will break free. I will not torque or throw my weight into it, I will use increasing pressure and not sudden pressure on the back wheels to break into the slide.
My next big problem will be stopping the big board from over rotating. I will use a check, or counter rotation to stop the board and straighten off.
Frontside wide slide sequence
After the backside arc of a pump, my front arm is still placed across my chest. This is the perfect windup for a strong frontside twist.
I begin to press my front hand to the left, making slow and smooth upper body rotation. I hold my arms firm and move my shoulders along with them. It's not a rubbery or whippy motion. Meanwhile, with my feet I'm just starting to change rails.
The rail deepens and the twist to the left increases. I press my front palm outwards, with thumb down.
In this frame the speed of the twist increases. My back hand has moved more than 90 deg forward. My front hand is now well back, past the sideways point. The twist in my shoulders is transferring torque to my legs, putting pressure on the back wheels. It feels like I'm twisting smoothly until something gives. That something will be the back wheels. They break loose and the slide starts, in full control.
The twist is about as extreme as it's going to get. Plus my back leg is fully straightened. I've used up all my range of motion and I'm holding steady in one position. Now my attention is on follow through, and riding the slide in control.
Here I'm riding out the slide, and preparing for the check, or finish to the 180.
In these two frames, you can see that while my right leg moves frontside, or counterclockwise, over the back trucks, my arms and shoulders rotate clockwise. The feeling is that my legs move underneath me, but the technique is that I actually rotate my shoulders slightly against the slide. In a moment I'll use that counter rotation to stop the board easily.
Here I make more effort to slow the board rotation down. I do this by pressing back with my front hand. Once again my thumb is down and palm leads backwards. Now there is quite a bit of twist at my waist again, in the opposite direction to the twist that initiated the slide. Make sure you get good and stretched at the waist and sides (lats) if you're going to do this. The board gets moving fast during the slide and there is a lot of force put on your body, and straining will result.
I ended up straightened off at a perfect 180, relaxed. Notice that the effort I made to slow the board was well before this. You will see skaters struggle for control of 180s because they stop them too late. The relaxation is evident in my fingers and arms, which are no longer tensed. The slow initiation into the slide made the whole thing easier to control and not overshoot. The check of the counter twist makes the ending all the more solid.
After this 180 slide I will end with a 180 kick turn or by simply foot braking. In the Slide Walking section, I will show some finish moves for when the board is backwards.
A note on the arm styling. Go back and look at the frames in the middle of the slide. I like to stretch my fingers out when styling for power. It's not relaxed, it's tense. I also spread my fingers. I think it makes the whole move look bigger. When I talked to Wingnut, he told me of a mentor he had who put rubber bands on his hands to keep him from spreading his fingers. Wingnut has about as good an arm styling as any surfer, so keep that in mind, he goes for less spread finger work when expressing power. Also, if you look at Gravity rider Brad Edwards, he sometimes curls his fingers under in power moves. It's different, and it looks cool. I present those ideas for contrast to the way I do things.
