If you can, learn how to fall. People tend to go straight onto their knees or put arms out (broken wrist time). You need to go with the fall and roll out of it, no matter how over the top it looks. This will help with your confidence (by the way sounds like you might have a bone bruise on your knee).
I’d recommend ju jitsu,
For falling backwards and not cracking back of your head:
For falling forwards to save wrists and knees:
If you practice this it will become second nature. It’s been 30 years since doing it and haven’t cracked back of head or hurt wrists since
The “parks” near us are probably a lot smaller than the ones near you. Ours are literally deep bowls dug into the ground with near vertical slopes, with space for maybe 3 skateboards at a time.
As a beginner, those slopes are way too much for me!
Thats exactly why I got it, we live in an area with a lot of long downward paths (which are a lot of fun to go down) If my daughter decides she wants to learn some tricks, of her board isnt doing what she wants anymore I’ll have no issues upgrading her board for her.
All I need mine to do is to lark about on the street and down a few hills.
Thanks for the advice, I really appreciate it. Funnily enough I did do a lot of practicing and reading up on falling off (we both wear protective gear but it was worth her knowing).
I think/hope its more likely I bruised the bone, there’s been no swelling or anyrhing that I would have expected from a fracture.
Thanks for all the words of encouragement and advice. It’s good to hear from the friendlier side of the skateboarding community.
For now, the cruiser is the sort of thing she needs and she’s really getting along well with it - if she wants to take it further then we’ll look at ‘proper’ skateboards.
For me, I just need to get better at ignoring the negative thoughts in my head, gear up and get on my skateboard more (we’ve a lot of good hills around us so maybe if I just set off at the top of one It’ll give me the confidence boost I need)
As people have already said, most of us learnt at an early age through years of trial and error and lots of falls and injuries before figuring out how to ride and how to fall safely. That’s probably not going to work for you. You can shortcut a lot of what we went through by taking a couple of lessons with someone who will show you what to do. It may mean driving to a skatepark that does lessons for adults.
For example:
Thanks, I’ll see how I feel after the summer holidays (I can get out occasionally after dark to practice). Once the kids are back at school it’s a lot easier for me to try to find lessons or time.
My oldest isnt interested at all, so wouldn’t want to hang out at a skatepark or anything.
Such good advice, I’ve got such an engrained knowledge of how to fall without wrecking myself from years of body abuse. Stacked it like an absolute piece of shit last night on my bike running into a tiny almost invisible curb by a bike lane and got up like nothing happened.
I have been on my board in so long that I think the cat-like instincts have gone…
A traditional skateboard should give you better maneuverability and help with learning tricks, but by all means a 27 inch cruiser is fine for a first board.
I remember a friend of mine who gave skate lessons made sure one of the first things he taught students was to use their rear foot to slow down, run out and roll over if necessary- in other words slam. I’d advise you do this too. Learn to brake with your pushing foot. I don’t think cruisers are designed for tail scrapes but you could give it a go to get used to feeling a controlled shift of your weight on the back leg in movement. Be careful to make contact with your heel (heel drag) and not the side of your foot to avoid a bad accident.
Also, remember to use your stance so bend those knees. If you’re really going to fast to foot drag or run out, there are usually two options: crouch and roll forwards on impact or crouch and fall back and slide. Whatever you do don’t stand bolt upright. Always anticipate a fall.
Thanks for the slowing down tip! My board doesnt have much of a tail, probsbly for the best because my daughter’s one does and I keep putting my foot on it and chuckig myself off her board. Mine is very much a “roll down a hill or on a path in a mostly straight line” kind of board.
A random post coffee thought this morning was maybe knowledge about falling safely should be taught to everyone regardless of sporting choices so it becomes instinct…imagine how many injuries it could prevent in older folk when then take a fall down stairs or something if they tucked their arms in properly.
That’s the thing though. These boards with little tail are more dangerous because your instinct when you get into trouble is to press the brake, lean back and push the tail down. That tail won’t touch the floor for you to brake, you’ve flown off already by then, head over heels backwards onto an elbow or whatever. A larger tail will hit the floor before you fly off and you can manipulate it to stop or minimise the fall.
I’m not trying to sell you anything, i’m just trying to say that these boards are fine if you are already fine with cruising along, maybe from already having skated as a kid or coming from another similar discipline, but coming from no experience, these cruiser boards are more dangerous to learn on because you don’t have control of all the parameters of movement you need to get your body to learn the core skills to be able to skate, regardless of how far you want to take it. The core skill of skating is balance and using your body’s core to easily influence the equipment to respond how you want it to.
The problem isnt taking my foot off to push, or turning my feet to alter my stance. I can do all that.
What I have problems with is putting my foot back on (it makes me wobble), which is practice. I understand that one.
What I dont seem to be able to get past is when I’m stopping, my front foot always makes an attempt to come off and the more I try to keep it still, the more determined it is and I end up falling off. Its weird.
Haha, my front doesnt come off when I push, its when I’ve slowed down to stop before I step off. Despite my back foot already being on its way off. Its like they dont talk to each other
I always liken learning something new to driving a car. How alien did that first ever lesson feel? Having to think about everything all at once. Finding the bitting point. Looking at the gear stick while driving, forgetting to indicate, feeling that you were the worst driver on the road and everyone knew it! Fast forward to where everything is second nature and it all comes so naturally that it feels like you’re not even thinking about the act of driving most of the time.
It all takes time but you’ll get there with enough practice, even if it feels impossible at the start.
I’ll just add this to the pile: If possible ditch the longboard, get a ‘regular’ skateboard! So much easier to control.
One thing I see beginners doing sometimes is standing up tall on the board with arms out wide. Instead try to hug the ground a bit more, (not literally) your arms can be at your side in a kind of squaring up to a fight stance, with some bounce in the knees.
Apart from that it will be tough learning in your 40s, can’t avoid that fact really. But I know a guy who started in his late 50s, now in his 60s and skates regularly
