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W eighting for Slides pg 2
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Compression unweighting
Compresssion unweighting is a more subtle form of down unweighting. Instead of dropping your weight, you simply tuck your legs a bit and keep your upper body still. The subtle lightening you get is enough to get a slide going.
Actually this is the technique I see used the most by the most skateboarders when I see them do a quick slide, especially shortboarders doing a 180 slide. When they do this, they use a kind of counter rotation, holding their shoulders steady while they push the board around. This is what I do in this next slide.
Compression unweighting frontside counter rotation slide
I start in my usual starting stance, no higher or lower.
I hold my arms out square, using a slight windup to the left. It shouldn't take much countering to get the board around if I compression unweight correctly. My goal will be to do a slide with the minimum of upper body movement. I want to do it mostly with my legs and stay square with my arms and shoulders.
All I've done to unweight is to compress by tucking my legs up a little. I also compress by bending at the waist, and keeping my back straight. My feet still have traction on the board, but it's pretty light. This slide at this point looks just like the down unweight. But you can see that my upper body stayed at about the same level. There will be some dropping, because compression of the legs and upper body is still used. But it's hardly noticable.
I ride the slide in the square position.
I end it in a low crouch.
Compression unweighting is a method that is pretty low energy. It will look more effortless than up unweighting or down unweighting. It won't work as well if there's any difficulty about the terrain, such as if it's uphill or rough, or if you're going slow. In that case use an up unweight or down unweight.
You will find that unweighting techniques make the rotation techniques easier, and complement them. Sometimes I forget all about unweighting-- it's pretty easy to neglect it. And then I may realize that's why I'm having trouble doing a slide, that my weighting is too heavy. It may be mentally harder to have to think of unweighting as well as rotation. Practice them separately, then put them together. In some situations you will want to use unweighting consciously and other times you will just forget about it and do it by second nature.
Front to back weighting
Using counter rotation to transfer weight off the nose
After unweighting, the next most important weighting issue in skateboarding slides is front to back weighting. Normally when sliding, you place your weight where it is comfortable for you to pivot the rear wheels around. In most of these slides shown, I have placed my front foot behind the front truck. When most of my weight is on the front foot, the rear wheels will slide.
Sometimes you want to actually transfer weight front to back while in the middle of the slide. One reason you might want to transfer is if you want the back wheels to get more friction to end a slide half way through it. Then you can kickturn or slide in the other direction.
It starts getting to be a lot of things to do at once when you do this. Rotating, weighting, transferring weight. These weight transfer slides are to be worked on only when you've gotten pretty handy with five or six basic slides.
A situation where it is crucial to transfer front to back is when you're doing a stand up four wheel slide.
Frontside four wheel slide
I almost always use a counter rotation for a four wheel. In my opinion it is the way to initiate a stand up four wheel slide. In the counter rotation movement, there is a natural tendency to transfer your weight front to back, and that's why it works so well for four wheel slides. In the four wheel slide, you can't have too much weight on the front, because then it will be impossible to keep the rear wheels from swinging around and impossible to get the front wheels sliding.
I come in on a heelside arc, in the full twist I use for a counter rotation preparation. My right arm presses forward and left. My weight is postioned forward, toward the front truck.
Using compression, I unweight the board and start relaxing my twist, to the right. The board breaks into a slide, rear wheels first.
You can see in this frame and the next that there is a distinct transfer of my weight from front to back on the board. Since my shoulders rotate to the right while the board goes around to the left, this is natural.
Once my weight is off the front wheels, they break into a slide as well.
The board will turn a bit to the right or clockwise as the front wheels slide and catch up to the rear wheels. I ride the slide, facing squarely across the board and keeping my weight centered evenly over the two trucks.
I mentioned before saving energy during a crucial move in case of trouble. This illustrates that pretty well. I look pretty relaxed here, but it's for a reason. I'm keeping calm during the four wheel slide, because I know I'm going to have to drop or do something to milk it, to keep it going and not hang up on the brick surface.
I try to get more compression to keep the board unweighted so I can milk the slide. As the board scrapes to a full stop, I go into a layback. I reach my back hand down for balance.
Four wheel slides are very subject to hangups. You can try to use compression to keep the wheels from grabbing. In this slide I double compress, because I know hangups are a problem, especially on the tile surface at Brooklyn Banks. I compress once to start the slide, then rise up a little while sliding, and compress again near the end into the layback to try to milk the four wheel skid. I could also have compressed forward as much as possible, until my knees hit my chest. You have to experiment with ways of milking four wheels. Try different surfaces. Many skate parks have a smooth surface where four wheel slides can last almost as long as two wheel slides.
