Yes, I said it should be scary. You can get hurt skateboarding. Your fear comes from you being aware of that fact. So, it’s a good thing. It shows that you aren’t stupid! But, it’s only a good thing to a point. Once you understand that you might get hurt, and once you have a healthy respect for what you are doing, continuing being afraid only holds you back.

And so, here are some steps that might help you get past your unhealthy fear of skateboarding:

Skateboard Fear Tips – Take Your Time

A lot of the time, fear in skateboarding comes from pushing yourself too hard. Maybe you just bought your skateboard last week, and today you’re trying to jump off a ramp. If you are scared, well, that might mean that it’s a little too soon for you to try jumps. Take your time with skateboarding – learn at your own speed.

Being relaxed and loose will help your skateboarding in so many ways. Relax, breathe, and learn at your own pace.

Skateboard Fear Tips – Fall a Few Times

That might sound weird, but falling actually helps a lot in building your confidence in skateboarding. Every time you wipe out, you get a little bit better. Your body starts to learn whatnot to do.

You can also practice falling. For example, if you are skating on ramps but you are afraid of dropping in, then practice running up the side of the ramp and dropping to your knees (you’ll want knee pads for this!). Just run up, drop to your knees and slide back down. Then, if you fall while dropping in, you know how to fall. This should help reduce your skateboarding fear.

Skateboard Fear Tips – Ramp Up Slowly

As you learn to skate, there are some things that are just scary to do. For some of these, you can slowly build up to having more confidence. Here are some examples:

• Dropping in – Dropping in is one of the scariest things to do for the first time! Find smaller, shorter ramps and practice there first. Then, build up to higher ramps slowly.
• Ollies – First, practice on grass, or on your living room carpet. My first ollie attempts were in my brother’s driveway, and I jacked up my wrist for several months. I should have started on something softer!
• Hills – Skating down hills can be terrifying. Start with small hills, and work your way up. NEVER just start with the largest hill in town! I know a guy who borrowed a longboard from me to skate for a week, and the first hill he hit he ended up in the hospital. Start with smallslopes and work your way up!
• Jumps – Jumping off of kicker ramps can be fun, but unless you know how to land, the trip can end with some pain! Practice riding off of smaller edges, like curbs, and work your way up.

Skateboard Fear Tips – Practice

Most skaters don’t want to hear this, but practice is very important in skateboarding! Practice will help your body learn to skate, and will help develop your reflexes. If you are scared of doing something, then follow the above tips, and practice a lot. Eventually, you’ll be fine.

Skateboard Fear Tips – Commit

You can’s skateboard half way. You need to commit to it. If you are trying a trick, you have to commit to seeing it through, or it simply won’t work. Understanding that is important!

If you don’t commit to tricks, then you actually have a better chance of hurting yourself. I know, it sounds strange, but it’s true! If you only dive in half way, then you have already decided to fail.

I remember learning to drop in, and I would get all set up, tip my nose in and then immediately take my back foot off the board and catch myself. every time. I wasn’t committed, and if I would have been clear headed enough to think about it, I would have known that I had already decided to fail. I was scared. The only way for me to conquer that was to commit to dropping in. I had to decide that keeping my feet on that board, and getting hurt if I fell, was worth it (by the way, I didn’t get hurt! Dropping in is freaky, but once you do it, it’s not so bad!)

Skateboard Fear Tips – When All Else Fails…

All of these tips and all of this advice should help you on your way to conquering your skateboarding fear. Sometimes, however, you just need to push through it. Just reach deep, grab a hold of your courage and do it. Whatever the trick or maneuver is, if you know it’s at your level, and you are as relaxed as you are going to get, and you’ve practiced and ramped up as much as you can – if, after all of that, you are still scared, then just kick yourself in the butt and just do it. You might fall, you might get hurt, but like I said, that’s OK! Falling and failing is part of learning. You’ll heal (if you wore pads!), and you’ll just do it again later. But that time, you’ll be wiser, and closer to landing the trick.

[By Steve Cave]