Arcs
S peed Control with Turns
Stall turns and pump
Skate
Reef
Gear
Non Google Sponsors
Slowing down with turns
Most skateboarders learn to go fast by just jumping on a board and heading down a hill. Too often they crack up at the bottom. They left out an important part of their skills; slowing down.
Ironically, the key to going fast is being able to slow down. Worded differently, speed is just a part of speed control. If you know you can slow down to handle a hill, you can take it fast with confidence. Lack of confidence leads to instability and speed wobbles.
It's worth putting a lot of time into learning different ways to stall and brake a skateboard with turns, slides, and foot dragging. As you get more comfortable, you can always try to add speed.
Stalling with turns
Turning across the hill or even back up the hill is the best way to slow down when the width of the hill allows.
Here is a sequence of linked turns that go down a narrow hill which is fairly steep. The linked kick carves enable me to take this hill at jogging speed.
Heelside and toeside kick carves are linked one right after the other. It's a very controlled, comfortable descent. The same hill taken on a straight ride would be fast and out of control.
Speeding up with turns: Pumping
This is the pump sequence from the Cruise Power project, which involved performing small longboard maneuvers on a big board. You can transfer this technique to a 46 inch board and you should be comfortable. The movements are quite exagerrated to pump a 54 inch heavy board, so it should be easy to see the details broken down.
Pumping is the technique of linking short turns in a continuous way so that side to side pressure is squeezed forward. In this way, forward speed is generated from sideways motion. With a big board, lots of twist to either side is needed to get the board going sideways.
There is kind of a delay of the leg action behind the shoulder turn. This timing seems to be the toughest thing for beginners to get, because you're literally doing two turns out of sync from one another: you're starting a new turn with your upper body while the lower body is still finishing the last turn. The only way to get the hang of it is to practice the frontside and backside arcs separately, spaced apart. Then perform them closer and closer together until finally they are linked. Linked turns actually cannot be totally separated, they are knitted together, because the end of one is the beginning of another.
It really is just turning
If you look at some of the frontside and backside turn and slide sequences in the Arcs: Turns and Arcs: Slides pages, you can see that the turns look exactly the same as these linked frontside and backside turns in the pump sequence. That's part of skating technique and how to learn stuff-- make connections and put it all together. For the purposed of discription, frontside will mean heelside, my turn to the left (FS/HS left). Backside will mean toeside, my turn to the right (BS/TS right).
In this frame I'm coming out of a backside (toeside) turn and I'm ready to make the transition into the frontside (heelside) turn. Note how my arms are fully extended front and back. I reach my front hand 45 degrees or more across my chest to the right. My arms and shoulders stay connected, but I like to think of my hands leading or cueing the turn.
Although my upper body relaxes after untwisting between the turns, it's important to keep the flow linking them. I keep pressure on the board by keeping my knees bent, so I can "cross under", shifting the board from one side to the other. If you scroll the sequence quickly, you can see the board cross under and swing away from me in alternating arcs. Cross under is what makes linked turns different from two separate turns.
Here I've changed rails and am now starting a frontside arc. My arms have switched sides and my shoulders are now firmly swinging to the left.
Power arc
In a pump set of two turns, you can make the two arcs the same or you can have one power side. In this frame you can see how much twist I put into my frontside pump arc. This is my power side of the s sequence. My shoulders have squared off and my arms are reaching almost straight out to either side. With the frame of my upper body and my arms as a "balance beam", I have enough support to crank hard with my legs on the frontside turn. I should get a good burst of speed at this point.
As my legs push frontside my upper body unwinds rightwards from the extreme twist.
At this point I change rails, putting more weight on the right side. I bring my front arm across my chest to cue the backside turn.
It can help to press way back with your back hand. The arm styling I usually use is thumb down. I push my thumb and palm back hard into the new turn. My arm and shoulder angle is about 45 deg to this side. My backside twist is shallower than my frontside. Compare the angle of the two. In a slightly asymetrical way, my shoulders alternate almost a full 180 deg in the pump sequence. Once I have some speed I'll tighten it to a 90 deg swing.
In this frame I've started another arc to frontside. This is a shallower arc and I'm beginning to let the board coast. I can start a walking trick or set up a slide.
