Personal experience: how to start skateboarding as an adult
Miscellaneous / / June 05, 2022
We dispel the myth that this hobby is only for schoolchildren and students.
Igor Semyonov
Chairman of the Board of Directors of ARMZ Mining Machines. Skateboarding professionally for a year
Skateboarding brings together an incredible community of people who are passionate about the same activity, but completely different in age, beliefs, appearance and social status. And it's never too late to start doing this sport - we tell you how to stand on the board as an adult.
1. Learn more about skateboarding
Anyone who plans to get into skateboarding should learn more about how this sport has developed over the past 50-60 years. He has quite an interesting storyI. Borden. Skateboarding And The City: it was invented in the 1950s in California by surfers who, during the absence of waves, could not do their favorite thing.
Skateboarding quickly began to gain popularity, and by the 1960s, the number of boards sold in the United States was in the tens of thousands. In Russia, its popularity began to grow rapidly only by the mid-90s, when the first specialized stores opened and international competitions began to take place.
Today, skateboarding is not only a hobby for many people around the world, but also a real Olympic sport - it was included in the competition program of the Olympic Games - 2020 in Tokyo.
To feel the spirit of skateboarding and become part of the community, it is important to understand the philosophy behind it. And this will help you to study its history.
2. Decide what you plan to do
You can master this sport at any age. The main thing is to find time and choose the appropriate format for classes.
If due to a busy work schedule you are limited in time and determined to make progress in as soon as possible - enroll in a specialized school or hire a personal instructor. Classes with him will give faster results and avoid mistakes.
I recommend contacting a person who really loves skateboarding and will be able to instill this love in you, and not turn the process into coaching and training.
If you find it difficult to adapt to someone else's schedule and you consider skateboarding more as a hobby and a distraction from work, ride with your friends. You will independently try different chips, spy on other riders and exchange experiences with them. After some time, through trial and error, you will be able to find your own style of riding.
3. Make a workout schedule
Making time for workouts isn't always easy, but try setting aside an hour before or after for them. work at least twice a week: physical activity, among other things, helps to relieve the head.
The body of a skateboarder must be flexible and durable, so it is important to pay attention to general physical fitness, especially exercises to strengthen and pump muscles. legs. To do this, alternate classes on the board with regular workouts or combine them.
For example, I work out three times a week in the morning, before the start of the working day. Usually it looks like this: my coach and mentor Egor Kaldikov and I ride for about an hour at agreed place, after which I go to a fitness center near the office and add some more cardio. And then I get to work.
It is also worth adding sports muscle massage and exercise therapy to your schedule so that the body has time to recover between workouts. And for those who are not physically prepared, my trainer recommends that you first work out on balancing platforms in order to pump small stabilizer muscles.
4. Prepare mentally for the fact that you will fall
And many times. Skateboarding is not the most harmless sport. You need to be prepared for this, but you should not fixate on negative thoughts. Try to take failure as calmly as children do, because falling is normal, it is part of progress.
Adults are often afraid to make mistakes and look ridiculous, but there is only one way to fix this: just get on with it.
While riding, discard all unnecessary thoughts and focus only on how you will keep your balance after landing, because this is the main task in any trick.
This is what my mentor says: “I would like a person to understand: we are not training, we are catching fun. Skateboarding is an antidepressant and a cure for any adversity.”
5. Get Protection
Protective equipment will help you avoid serious injury. It is definitely needed for all beginners, regardless of age. A standard equipment set may consist of a helmet, elbow pads, knee pads and gloves.
Specialty stores also offer special longboarding equipment, protective shorts and accessories. But I would not advise putting on everything at once - it will simply make it uncomfortable for you to ride and balance on the board.
Over time, when you learn how to properly group, it will become clear how you fall most often and whether there is a need for additional accessories.
6. Set realistic goals
When you have to combine a hobby like skateboarding with a busy work day and family, then I want to achieve results in the shortest possible time, immediately move on to complex flips - tricks with jumping. After all, from the outside they look incredibly impressive.
But it is better not to take on impossible tasks so as not to provoke injuries.
Mastering complex jumps always happens gradually. First you need to learn to keep a balance, then - to perform allyBasic board jump without the use of hands or aids, and only then, improving the basic tricks, you get close to the complex kickflipamTrick with the rotation of the board around the longitudinal axis, the rotation is given by the toe of the leading foot and grabamA type of trick in which the hand grips the board.
7. Get inspired by other athletes
At some point, it began to seem to me that all the tricks in skateboarding have long been known and mastered, but this is not so. This sport continues to develop, and I watch with great interest modern athletes - Russian and foreign.
And I recommend that you also follow a variety of championships in order to discover new names for yourself, better join the community, and also stay up to date with new trends in sports.
I especially advise doing this to those who still doubt that skateboarding can be started at any age. Look viral video clip with a skateboarder from St. Petersburg, who is 73 years old, or an inspiring history Japanese Yoshio Kinoshita, who decided to get on the board at the age of 79 and still rides with young riders.
I would also recommend subscribing to these YouTube channels:
- channel Egor Kaldikov,
- official channel a series of international skateboarding tournaments Street League Skateboarding,
- account one of the most famous skateparks in the world, The Berrics,
- official channel Thrasher, the premier skateboard magazine.
Among those who have reached great heights in Russia and abroad are Maxim Kruglov, Ksenia Maricheva, Maxim Yezhov, Lilia Sukhankova. On the Internet, you can easily find videos with the performances of the guys, and to see them with your own eyes, track events and tournaments - for example, on the official site Skateboarding Federation of Russia.
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