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Four Tips for Tighter Surfskate Carving
The tighter you can carve on your surfskate the more fun you’re going to have. So in this tutorial, I’ll give you four quick tips for getting tighter carves on your surfskate.
Watch My Surfskate Carving Tutorial on YouTube
Tip #1: Start with the Proper Foot Placement
Your first tip is very simple. It’s just to make sure that you have the proper foot placement.
This matters because if you don’t have the proper foot placement on a surfskate, carving is not going to go well for you.
On a surfskate, you want to have your front foot behind the inner bolts of your front truck.
If your foot is over those bolts and in front of the truck axle, your truck will jackknife.
Next, you need to make sure your feet are properly balanced in terms of weight distribution on your toes and your heels.
This means having your feet placed in the center of the board width-wise to put equal weight on your toes and heels.
If your feet are placed with your heels hanging off the back side and your toes only partially on the board, you will be able to carve on your heel side well, but not on your toe side.
Likewise, if your feet are placed with your toes hanging off the front side with your heels only partially on the board, you’ll be able to carve on your toe side well, but not your heel side.
Your back foot on a surfskate is also very important because it provides the pivot point for your carving. Make sure your back foot is behind the four rear bolts, and again, properly distributed with your toe and heel weight distribution.
Tip #2: Bend Down in “Triangle Knees”
Your next tip is to use what I’ve heard surfers refer to as “triangle knees.”
As you’re going into a carve, you want to push your back knee into the back of your front leg. You’ll see that makes a triangle shape with your feet and knees.
So as I’m going into a carve you’ll see me sink into that triangle position.
When you’re in the “triangle knees” position, you can use your foot and knee of your back leg to kind of steer where you want to go. You do this by twisting on the ball of your back foot in the direction you’re turning.
As you practice it, you’ll feel how much more control triangle knees gives you through surfskate carving.
Tip #3: Stack and Fold
Your next tip is to stack and fold. By that I mean you want to stack your shoulders, hips, and knees all on top of each other and then fold or compress into your body going down.
If you’re not stacked, it means that maybe your shoulders are tipped forward or backwards and you’re going to be out of balance.
So you want to be all stacked up and then just fold into your body. The lower you can get, the tighter your carves.
So do that in conjunction with your triangle knees and it’s going to look like this:
Tip #4: Look Where You’re Going
Your final tip is to look where you’re going.
This doesn’t matter so much with backside turns because you can see everything in front of you.
But with frontside turns, you’re turning in the direction of your back shoulder where you can’t see. So you want to look over that back shoulder towards where you’re turning.
Surfskate Carving Demonstration
So let’s put all this together and watch all of these elements in action:
