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Reference of tricks and skating elementsProject Date: January 2007
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Layer 1 PartsLinesStancesRegular stc Middle stc Tail stc Narrow stc Nose stc Fakey stc Switch stc Cross stc Switch cross stc Drop knee stc Reverse stc Back cross stc
Nose riding
Pushes
Braking and drags
Steps: basic
Steps: advanced
Steps: details
ArcsBig board turns
Tail carve turns
Kick carve turns
Drop knee turn
Speed control turns
Slides: rotation
Slides: weighting
Leaning technique
LeversWheelie or manualLongboard ollie Cross ollie Back cross ollie Reverse ollie Lifts Cross boneless Backpedal boneless Non Google Sponsors
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Skate ReefLayered Reef of skate elementsThe Skate Reef page is a pyramid of longboard skate moves. Use it as a starting page and reference guide to put together a repertoire of longboard moves and tricks. These elements can be combined into routines and entire longboard styles can be built. For skateboarders who absorb most of the reef material, building Tribute styles and Hybrid styles should be the goal. Reef Layer 1: ShapesOrdering longboard tricks by shapeIn the left sidebar on the Reef page the tricks are grouped by the shape and simple physics of the action performed on the board. This seems to be the most neutral way to address longboard tricks. The important factors of style, influence, and length of the board can then be dealt with separately. The actions in my longboard styles are pretty well covered by three shapes; lines, arcs and levers. LinesLines are the types of moves that might be made on the board going straight, or perhaps in very shallow turns. Walking the board, pushing, braking, and stances are examples of lines. ArcsArcs are turning and rotational moves. Turns, pumping, kick turns (and the more drawn out longboard kick carve turn), rotating slides, board flips, and rotation of board and body through the air are examples of arcs. LeversLevers are skating movements where height changes are involved. Skateboarding involves climbing up on objects and dropping off them and a number of techniques are used to do that. There are other ways you could name this group, but Lever applies really well. In a sense a skateboard is a lever, a board on wheels. I mean to encompass in the lever category all hoists, lifts, levitations, and pogos used by the skateboarder to climb and descend objects, as well as levering. Reef Layer 2: ChainsConnecting two or more tricks in a sequenceReef Chains are examples of grouping of Layer 1 material, stringing tricks together. Chains are the sort of thing I would do in a session, in an informal or improvised way. They are an intermediate step on the way to mastering the more involved projects. These routines are not heavily planned out and don't necessarily have a start to finish structure. Walk ChainsWalking out of a drop kneeWalk to tip ride with stalls Prison walk Grapevine Walking with kicks Backwards cross push walk Slide ChainsFlowing Slide Arcs together360 no. 1: twist in, counter out 360 slide no. 2: twist in switch, torque out Pendulum slide Fishtail slide Walk and foot drag slide Reef Layer 3: ProjectsPlanned projects using Layer 1 and 2 materialProjects are more involved efforts than Chains, involving much longer routines than just a connection of two tricks. Planning and diagramming of certain maneuvers is necessary, and although there may be improvising in the course of skating, there's a ordered framework of several moves that I'm trying to get through. Projects fall into basically three categories: Standard stylesFollowing a standard and widespread style of skateboarding, such as new school, old school, downhill, pool riding, park, or street longboarding like you'd see in board company skate videos. A standard style is a worthwhile goal, as there may be many challenging tricks to learn to master that style. There are many resources to learn a standard skate style that list and explain tricks; videos, magazines, web sites, and several books.
Tribute stylesResearching a very specific style of skateboarding or surfing and trying to imitate it. If it's a surfing style it has to be adapted to skateboard. Tribute styles involve research such as watching films or videos, going through magazines, interviewing the masters, or travelling to see them surf or skate in person.
Hybrid stylesA mixture or crossover of styles, in an effort to create something that is not widespread, and is possibly original. Figuring out a hybrid style would be impossible without a mastery of lot of Reef Layer 1 material, and you should work on as much of the Layer 2 Chains as you can. You may want to master a couple of standard or tribute styles first. Hybrid styles can be extremely laborious to learn, because the combining of two styles usually means learning tricks all over again, adapting them to different equipment, or working them out from scratch. If you can perform the material from my hybrid style projects, you're well on the way to creating one of your own.
About Skate ReefSurface Motion Skate was built slowly as I went from skate project to project while absorbing different styles. Originally I was cross training for surfing and worked only on tribute styles. Then I got into learning more standard skateboard styles and downplayed the surfing, while still being influenced by it. The styles that interested me were, in order that I worked on them, traditional surf longboarding, performance surf longboarding, park skating, old school skating, shortboard surfing, and new school skate tricks. From these styles the projects in Skate accumulated one at a time. Eventually I had a lot of tricks and routines, grouped by longboard skate style. The type of board I skated on also was a factor in grouping tricks, as some were done on street boards while the majority were developed on large flat wooden longboards. That grouping worked until I started mixing my styles in hybrid style projects. At that point, imitating and isolating the root surf or skate style was no longer a goal. Board type and length no longer had to refer to a root style. Tricks from two styles were mixed together and finally, any trick was fair game. Eventually I knew I'd have to revise the site, since I knew most of the tricks I needed to build hybrid styles were already in Surface Motion Skate somewhere, but they were buried so deep even I couldn't find them. Some tricks were duplicated and some had never been explained in the basics sections. For other skaters to follow what I've done, to understand how my hybrid projects work, and to build their own styles there had to be a better way of listing the tricks other than by style or board type. The list would still show those elements useful for standard and tribute styles, but it would be more comprehensive to allow easy searching for hybrid projects. Using Reef Material Reference PageLongboard skaters may want to go through the same process I did, starting with standard and tribute styles and working toward hybrid styles. You could look at some of the same surf videos I did to get more into the tribute style. You may want to go right to working on one of my hybrid styles and this should give you the map. Most ambitiously, you may want to create your own hybrid style. There should be plenty of elements here for you to mix and match a style, and throw in your own elements from other types of skating or other sports. It may make sense to start by going down the list by shape, as that is somewhat in order of difficulty. Absorb some of that shape material, then work on the chains, then take on a project to follow. Not every trick or element is listed in the shapes list. Within projects and even chains there will be extras given, and variations are given in the shapes pages. Projects will fill in details on style and technique that should round out and smooth the process of linking the basic shape material. Reef Impressions
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Copyright ©2007 Keith Johnson
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