Picking up skateboarding ...

[WuZie]

Have fun, dude. To this day all I can do is hillbomb and ollie very short heights, so I'm not much of any help, but I'm glad to see you're picking it up.
Now somebody build a pool in my town so I can learn to ride them.

Haven't started ollieing yet, am trying to get comfortable on the board first
I do have a pool in my town, but it's so goddamn intimidating xD

When I first started I did everything stationary man
Setup in a comfortable spot where you're less likely to fall. Grass, Carpet.
It seems silly, helped when I was starting out though..
It was a combination of stationary tricks and just learning to ride the board comfortably that helped me along.
When you feel like you've got stuff going forward, start trying what you've learned moving.
Good you're having fun, That's the most important thing.
The order I learned stuff in went something like
Pushing, Riding, Turning, Stationary Ollies, Moving Ollies, Moving Shuv-Its, Moving Pop-Shuv Its
It wasn't till many years later that I approached bigger fliptricks
the guys at the skateparks will inspire you, even if they aren't always that nice
Just keep having fun! Every Trick has a little nook that you can expand on in any way you want to That's why I love skateboarding.

Hmmm thanks for the advice! Will certainly help me with doing tricks, especially the tip of doing things stationary (on grass) will help me I think

As far as how long it takes to get comfortable it's hard to say. I've been skating like 12 years and its just been the last 2 ish where I've made this huge leap in comfort, style, consistency. A feeling of being one with the board.

Just keep at it, have fun, don't worry about how quickly you're progressing. If you are consistently skating and pushing yourself pretty hard every sesh you should be looking pretty good by the time winter hits I would think. But everyone's different man.

Having a lot of fun as of now. But damn 12 years :0 That's insane! Hope I 'll be good by winter like you said Unfortunately I will be going on vacation for 4 weeks this summer, so I cant skate then.. #firstworldproblems xD

that's the board that started it all for me..lol
people seem to progress so much faster now than back when I started in '86
lots of factors to that I won't get into here.
I can't even begin to image my life if I hadn't skated,had tons of great memories
welcome aboard man,hope skateboarding is as good to you as it has been to me

Thanks for the kind words seven

There's no shame in watching like beginner Tony Hawk's Trick Tip videos, they'll definitely help.

Basic tricks I learned 15 years ago when I started skating were ollie, pop shuvit, fs shuvit, kickflip, sex change (for some reason easier than kickflipping, but can cause bad habits), varial flip, 180s fs and backside. Once you get comfortable on flat ground, try some of these tricks up and down a curb. Start learning 50-50s on like painted curbs and boardslides on small flat bars if you have a local park.

Learn to drop in.

Generally just skate everywhere and get comfortable doing everything on a skateboard.

You want to learn some stuff like foot braking, speed checking, and things like that eventually which will give you more control over your speed and let you ride anywhere.

It takes a while to learn tricks, but then you land them once and you've got them. Just skate every day, have fun, find some friends to skate with.

YES, SKATEBOARDING!

Snowboarding and Surfing are infinitely different, by the way. Learn to skate, don't bother comparing it to other board sports. One of the bigger differences between surfing and snowboard vs. skateboarding is that there are no wheels on snow or water and a lot less friction. You turn with the front of your board on a surf board and you turn with the back of your board on a snowboard, on a skateboard you do not turn with either of those, unless you're kick turning. I started skating about four years before I tried snowboarding or surfing and I sucked at both, despite what I knew on a skateboard.

I've watched the first Tony Hawk Trick Tip episode, it does help but he's going very fast imo :P
Great tips btw. Not sure on the sex change though hahaha
And yeah, I have snowboarded, but I find skateboarding to be completely different. The only thing which is kinda similar is the leaning to turn bit :P

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To everyone who replied:
Never expected such great feedback
Thank you so much!