the
skater's
edge
Ever heard that old saying "You have to learn
how to crawl before you can walk?" Well this old
and dustry phrase pertains to a lot of things in
life. The other day, for example, I visually witnes-
sed what this phrase is all about. There was this
skater at a ramp, sort of a big, beefy guy who
was trying to pull of your basic frontside air. He'd
start out on the bottom of the ramp, work himself
up to the lip with some very sketchy fakies, fol-
lowed by a few hair-raising kickturns and then he
would throw this all into an extremely out of con-
trol frontside that he would land with a bone jar-
ring, ramp shaking body slam. He kept it up for
most of an hour, this fakie, kickturns, air, slam
scenario. It was sort of amusing at first, but after
I watched him for a while from a safe distance, I
couldn't take it any longer. I called him over to the
side of the ramp and suggested he stop killing
himself and gave him a few tips, mainly that he
needed to "Learn how to crawl before he could
walk." Here he was trying to pull off an air before
he even had a grasp on basic ramp gyrating. I'm
not stopping you from trying to pull off that 360"
nose-flick-backside-toe-nail plant, but I know for
a fact that you'll never come close if you don't
nail down the basics of vertical ramp riding. I
guarantee if you learn how to gyrate on a ramp
first, all the other stuff will come that much easier.
Our first goal is learning to do fakies. Fakies,
quite simply, are when you roll back and forth,
frontward and backward, while slowly increasing
your height on a ramp. Easy enough you say?
Well, to get a grip on just how hard it is to skate
backwards, for you beginners, step up onto the
ramp and try a few runs. Place yourself with your
board facing one of the walls, take a few steps
backward up the opposing transition (as high as
you can) and take a good push forward. Quickly
move into a comfortable stance and roll up the
wall; gravity will do the rest. Now after you watch
your board sail up in the air and over the fence,
sit down and I'll explain what you need to know.
First of all, as you just experienced, you have
to come to a point where you feel comfortable
skating backwards. This can be easily learned
by skating down the street, rolling up a driveway,
coming to a stop and without kickturning or
changing your stance, roll back down the drive-
way going backwards. If you can learn this and
do it successfully over and over, the rest is down-
hill (yukyuk).
Next, you'll have to get it stuck in your mind
that you need your weight to stay centered over
your board at all times. Most beginners will roll
up the transition just fine, but as they begin to roll
downward, the board rolls and the body stays
and whoosh! the board becomes a missile
headed toward the moon. Well then the next
question is just how do you stay centered over
your board? The easiest way is to come to a
comfortable position on your board that will
bend, flex, and shift according to your location on
the ramp. I'll attempt to describe what I'm talking
about. Stand on your skateboard, one foot on the
tail, the other slightly over the front truck. Start by
standing straight up, then drop your hips about 4
or 5 inches by bending at the knees. Lift your
arms up and towards the front, slightly bending
your elbows and you've got it. Now from this pos
Continued on page 18
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