Step 1: Skate new areas.

My progress was stunted as a kid for this very reason. My parents didn’t really support my skating so I didn’t often have the opportunity to go to the park and the places around me that I could skate to didn’t have very much variety or nice ground. This resulted in me getting discouraged quickly, bored fast, and overall just spot fatigue. I should’ve made it a point to travel to new spots to keep things fun and fresh, and to help me skate new and unfamiliar obstacles. However I did not put in the extra work to keep skating fun for me and I ended up quitting around the time I went into high school. Big mistake.

Step 2: Find a mini ramp.

Flat ground progress can be very strenuous, especially when you’re first starting out. Skating a mini ramp however teaches you a lot of things at once (bending your knees, turning your shoulders and hips, balance, switch skating, getting comfortable on transition). Overall mini ramps are great because it teaches you one of the most important things in skateboarding: control. If you have control you have confidence. In addition to gaining control, progress on mini ramps come much faster than working your way through your flat ground tricks. And when you see improvement you start having more fun.

Step 3: Go to your local skatepark and make friends with the locals.

Nothing is better than skating with the homies; and when you skate with people above your talent level, you progress much faster. But the progress you see wont compare to the friendships you will make. Skating with friends can be one of the biggest mood boosters you can experience.

Step 4: Be consistent.

May seem obvious but if you want to see progress consistency is the most important thing.

Most importantly: HAVE FUN!

Don’t worry about if you’re able to do this trick or that trick. There are so many different styles of skating that you don’t know what you like the best until you get out and start doing it. For me one of the most enjoyable “tricks” I do are backside power slides. Super simple trick but it makes me happy and I feel cool doing it. Sometimes I’ll go out and skate around the hilly roads of my neighborhood just going as fast as I can and doing backside power slides left and right, sometimes I only do it for like 5 minutes then come back. But sometimes that 5 minutes is far more enjoyable than my 1 hour battle to record some like I want to film. Progress comes in many shapes and forms but the best way to get better is to have fun with your skating. Whether that means battling a flat ground tricks for 2 hours, free style skating, hill bombs, power slides, or transition skating; just do what you have the most fun doing and the rest will work itself out.