My name is Justin Lauria, and today I'm going to show you the basics of riding a skateboard
in bowls and pools.
So, before we get started, first take a moment to check your trucks and make sure that they're
loose enough to be skating in a bowl.
You can do this by standing on the board and leaning on your heels and then on your toes.
If you're able to lean a little bit to both sides without the wheels coming off of the
ground, you're probably in good shape, but if not you may want to go ahead and loosen
up these bolts before you get started in the bowl.
Now, when you're ready to get started, you can drop in if you know how, or roll in if
your bowl has a feature like this one, but if not, you can simply go down to the bottom
of the ramp and start your run from down there.
Once you've got enough speed to go around the first corner, you can set up your feet
in a normal riding position, with your front foot over the front wheels and your back foot
over the tail, and then you can pretty much leave your feet that way for the rest of the
run.
Alright so the first technique that we're going to learn is how to carve around a tight
corner like this one.
If you do this move properly, you should be able to roll away with much more speed than
you had when you started the carve.
Now, if you already understand how to pump when you're riding back and forth on a half
pipe, you know that you can bend your knees and push off of the ramp at certain, particular
points along the way that will allow you to increase the amount of speed you gain when
you transition from going downhill to flat, and decrease the amount of speed you lose
when you go from flat to uphill.
Now when you go to carve the corner of a bowl, there are actually three places where you
can pump: transitioning from flat to the side of the ramp, again as you go around each corner,
and then once more as you transition back to flat ground.
Since I've already gone over the first and the third one in a previous video, today we're
just going to be looking at the second one, but if you still want to review the other
two, I'll make sure and leave a link to that tutorial right at the end of the video.
Alright, so now as you approach the corner of the bowl, ride up the side of the quarter
pipe right before it and just as your front wheels are about to make contact with the
corner, bend your knees and push off with your legs so that as the board continues around
the corner, you'll add momentum in that direction and come out the other side with more speed
than you started.
Now, some tips I have for you as you learn this technique is to start out carving these
corners slowly and just hitting the bottom part of them at first, then slowly increasing
your speed and height as you get more comfortable with it.
The faster you're riding, the higher up you'll end up going in each of the corners of the
ramp.
Also, a lot of people find that the backside carve is easier to learn than the frontside
carve, since you're able to look down at the bottom of the ramp the entire time, so you
may want to start with that one first.
Alright, so now, that technique will work great for quick 90 degree turns, but it doesn't
quite hold for big flowy circular ramps like this one.
The best technique for this case is to treat it like somewhat of a hybrid between a straight
quarter pipe and the corner of a bowl.
Approach the ramp diagonally this time, so that you have some upward momentum and some
sideways momentum as you perform the carve, as opposed to pure sideways momentum like
you had when you went around the corner and keep your eyes focused on where you want to
go.
Wherever your head is pointing, you and your board are naturally going to follow in that
direction.
As you enter the uphill part of the ramp, bend your knees and push off of the ground,
and then allow the board to follow the shape of the ramp, keeping your body perpendicular
to your board for the duration of the carve.
Now unlike before, during this carve you won't feel like you're getting that big of a boost
as you go around the corner, but rather, just maintain your posture as you ride around it,
and then on the way back down you can add in another pump to help increase your momentum
again as you transition to the flat part at the bottom of the bowl.
Once you have these two techniques down, you can experiment with different lines through
the bowl to find out which ones will give you the most speed.
Alright guys so I hope you learned something from this video, and if you did, go ahead
and hit the like button and the subscribe button before you go, and as always, never
stop improving.