Sliding

Longboard sliding, difficult, yet essential. Today I will teach you how to do pendulums and slide to a stop, because, quite honestly, that’s all I can do. Doing basic slides and pendys is the bare minimum for DH longboarding. While footbreaking could arguable be more important, it’s not going to stop you quick enough when you realized you took the wrong turn into a dead end wall.

Speed. When sliding, you need to remember one word. Speed. Speed. Speed.  It’s hard to do slides without speed, especially for trick slides. Since I am teaching you basic slides you do not need to worry about trick slides yet. In order to do a pendy slide, you should be going a decent amount of speed. If you find that you are not able to complete the slide, then you’re probably going too slow, and better off just footbreaking or running off if you really need to stop. The first step is to drop down into a squat. For regular riders, lean toward your left side and put your left hand a bit backwards. Then lean back and kick the board out with your right foot until you spin into a 180. After this, quickly kick back again with your left foot so the board returns to it’s original position.

While you are doing this, you have several options to do with you other hand. One common method is to keep it in the air and use it to twist your body more. Then swing it back again to complete the pendy. What I like to do is to put my right hand behind me as well. This will slow me down more though, so trick sliders will probably pick a different method. One thing you should not do is to grab your board as you are sliding. Although this will help you go into the first 180, it restricts your movement and you will not be able to return back, which can be a problem when going 30-40 mph in an awkward position

If you find that you can 180 but cannot come back, then you are probably not getting enough speed. The faster you are, the smoother the slides will become.

To slow down even more, hold out the time it takes to go from 180 and back. This will wear out your wheels faster, but when you have to stop, you do what you have to do.

Here’s a website dedicated to learning the art of sliding. If you are interested in trick skating this is a very valuable resource

http://www.faltownskateboards.com/faltownskateboards_slideskool.asp

Have fun, be safe, and always use protection.