Learn to Surfskate Much Faster with This Simple Tip for Surfskate Beginners
I bought my first surfskate, the Carver Tyler 777 with CX trucks, on October 15, 2020.
I started to learn to surfskate just by trial and error. I had watched a lot of surfskate tutorials on YouTube, but it’s one thing to watch somone else surfskating and quite another to learn how to surfskate yourself. So I just experimented.
After falling in love with surfskating, I was excited to help other surfskate beginners learn to surfskate. It didn’t matter to me that my surfskate pumping wasn’t good surf pumping form. I just loved the feel of surfskate pumping and had fun sharing it with others.
I was also confused by how few people knew about surfskating. So with my newfound passion, I decided to start a surfskating YouTube channel with three goals:
- To promote surfskating and grow the sport.
- To help beginner non-surfers like me learn to surfskate.
- To help beginner surfskaters choose which surfskate to buy.
I launched my YouTube channel on January 1, 2021. I started making and posting videos of me surfskating.
And guess what? I got criticized a lot for my crappy surfskate pumping form. (I’ve been called a “kook” many times, and deservedly so.)
But I didn’t care. I just loved helping other newbies learn to surfskate, no matter how bad we looked to critics.
But over time, the more videos I made and posted, I discovered a little secret that was helping me learn to surfskate much more quickly than I otherwise would have. And that little secret was simply this: I was filming and watching myself surfskate all the time.
When you film yourself surfskating, you quickly discover that surfskate maneuvers feel much different than they look. To put it more bluntly, I know from personal experience that you feel much cooler on a surfskate than you actually look.
Frankly, it was and still is embarrassing to me to watch myself surfskating. But I’ve gotten over that embarrassment by realizing that, aside from just spending time skating, filming and watching myself has precisely been the secret to my surfskating progression.
Learn How to Surfskate Faster by Filming Yourself
As silly as I think I look on a surfskate (and I’m not the only one), I think it’s even sillier to let a little embarrassment hold us back from learning something fun.
That’s why I teach surfskate beginners that the best thing you can do to learn to surfskate is, obviously, to spend a lot of time surfskating. The second best thing you can do is film yourself and analyze that film to improve your surfskate pumping and surfskate maneuvers.
The next time you go out for surfskate practice, take a tripod for your phone and film yourself as you learn to surfskate. Then go home and watch that film to see how you can improve.
It’s particularly helpful to put your surfskating film in slow motion. Oftentimes, it’s the little details that make a big difference. For example, you might find from analyzing your film that your body weight is shifted too far forward, or that you don’t have the proper surfskate foot position.
How I Learn to Surfskate by Filming Myself
By filming myself learn to surfskate over the past year, I’ve gone from very poor form to learning transition riding and surfskate bowl riding.
Here’s my first surfskate pumping tutorial, which I launched on February 6, 2020:
Two months later, after a lot more surfskate practice and filming, I launched this updated surfskate pumping tutorial:
By August 3rd, I had learned how to ride a surfskate in a bowl:
As I said, nothing replaces just spending time on a surfskate, and that has been the number one secret to my progression.
But with that said, the second biggest secret to my surfskate progression has been that I have filmed and watched myself so much.
Yes, it’s embarrassing to watch yourself trying to learn to surfskate. But who cares? The bettter you get, the joy of surfskating outweighs the embarrassment. And the faster you progress, the faster you’ll get over the embarrassment!
So if you want to learn how to surfskate faster, make it a habit to film yourself practicing, then analyze your film for ways to improve your surfskating. Aside from actual surfskating practice, it’s the best thing I’ve found to learn to surfskate.
To learn how to surfskate even faster, get my video course for beginners, “Surfskating for Non-Surfers.”
