Guide to doing Kickturn on your skateboard

Kickturning is one of the basics of skateboarding and is one of the skills you must aquire before you can progress further, but it can be confusing to learn how to do it. Kickturning is basically when you balance on the back wheels for a brief moment, and swing the front of your board into a completly different direction. It takes a fair bit of balance and some consistent practice to achieve.


Learning to balance whilst kickturning

To begin with, you need to start to learn how to balance effectively on two wheels. So to do this, put your skateboard on your living room carpet, or perhaps on the grass outside. Basically anywheree where it will not roll around too much.

When you have done this, then on your skateboard with your back foot stood across the tail and your front foot literally right behind or, if you wish, across the bolts for the front trucks. This is what is known as the basic ollie stance, and is inviolved in performing a large number of skateboarding tricks of all sorts.

What you have to do next is to bend your knees whilst keeping your shoulders level above the skateboard deck. Now start to relax and while you are doing this remember to breathe normally and don't freak out.

The next step is to move your entire weight to your back foot. Perhaps not all of it, but maybe about two thirds or so. As you do this, start to bring your front foot up a bit. The rule is that the more you shift your weight to the tail end of the board, in relation the more the nose end of the board will be forced to pop up into the air.

Now try balancing on just the back wheels of your skateboard, just for a while. It will begin to feel scary, like you are going to fall if you have not done this before. Don't worry about it though, just begin to relax and get back on your board if you are to come off it. Just keep practicing and seeing how long you can balance on those two back wheels for.


Performing the Duckwalk

This next part of the learning to kickturn process is quite a lot of fun, and may seem ridiculous to you. But the point is it most definately does help.

You can do this method of practicing outside on an empty street or a flat concrete carpark or anywhere similar, or perhaps maybe on the carpet in your home. Now to start with begin to stand on your skateboard, whilst placing your back foot right across the tail end of your skateboard. Continue to put your front foot across the nose of your skateboard in the same way as mentioned earlier.

Once you have your feet successfully placed on the nose and tail of your skateboard, begin to try and and do a walk. You can achieve this by shifting your entire weight to one foot, and then swiftly swinging the other foot forwards a little at time, whilst you are still on the skateboard. Continue to do this in a back and forth motion. As mentioned before, this may seem a little strange and stupid, but relax and will start to have a little fun with it in good time. It is extremely good practice for balancing and kickturning as a whole.


Performing the Backside turn

If you have read and carried out all of the necessary steps above then you are now ready to actually start kickturning. You will now begin to stand on your skateboard with your back foot placed across the tail end, and in the meanwhile have your front foot on or directly behind the front trucks. You can either do this on a carpet or perhaps the paving outside your home, anywhere will do. On the other hand if you do start on carpet, then you should perhaps really try it on pavement soon, in order to avoid making any bad habits that may stick with you.


Now just as you did with the balancing exercise, you will attempt to successfully shift your weight a little bit more towards the tail end of your skateboard, and bring the nose up more or less off of the ground. While the your skateboards nose is in the air, you may also want to push the nose of the skateboard a little bit further behind you. You can do this by performing a pushing or scooping motion backwards using just your toes. You do not need to worry about turning very far at all, the important thing is to just try and turn a little bit at a time.

Since you are turning with your front to the outside of the turn, this is called a Frontside Kick.Now you are ready to actually kickturn. Stand on your skateboard with your back foot across the tail, and your front foot on or behind the front trucks. You can do this on carpet or pavement. If you start on carpet, then you should really try it on pavement soon, to avoid making any bad habits.

Just like with the balance exercise, you will want to shift your weight a little to the tail of your skateboard, and bring the nose up off the ground. Also, while the nose is in the air, you want to push the nose of the skateboard a little behind you. Do this by pushing or scooping back with your toes. You don't need to worry about turning very far, just try and turn a little.

Since you are turning with your front to the outside of the turn, this is a Frontside Kickturn. To begin with you will most probably only begin to turn a little, but eventually more with practice. As you keep practicing also notice how the swinging of your arms and hips helps a great deal. Perform small kickturns until you have turned around in a complete circle. Then start to do it again and again, but try and turn all the way around with as few kickturns as you can, as this is what you are aiming for. Once you can successfully do a kickturn on your skateboard roughly at 90 degrees then you can start to perform it in the opposite direction by reversing the method appropriately. Once you have mastered all of the above move on to the next step.


Tic Tac

Once you have mastered to successfully turn in both directions left and right, you can try and combine the two together. To do this you have to do a short kickturn in one direction, and then switch to do a short kickturn in the other direction. Remember you must do them as quickly as possible, while swinging your weight forwards, and you will realise that you can move forwards. Tic Tacing is a one of the real skateboard maneuvers, and comes in handy when you do not feel like stepping off of your board just yet and wish to go a short distance further.

When you start to practice this skateboarding maneuver you will find that first of all you will begin to move at a very slow pace, or even move in a backwards direction. Dont worry just keep at it, successfully pushing your weight more and more forwards. Aslo try and give yourself a goal of trying to go a few extra feet, and then try and tic tac across the whole entire street if you can!

You will find that as you keep on practicing practicing, you must pay attention to what your arms, shoulders and hips are doing also. Feel free to really put some swing into the turns. If you fall off, then just get back up and do it all over again and again. The best thing to do in skateboarding is to not stop for the day after you have had a fall, unless you are really hurt. It's good to get back on your skateboard, if you are well and able to do so as this will get you much more used to it then just going ahead and quitting.

Remember to KEEP ON GOING

With all of the above taking in and practiced you should now know the basics of kickturning, and the only thing left to do is to just keep on practicing, improving your confidence and introducing kickturns into your normal skateboarding routine.

You will find as you gain more and more confidence in your abilities, you can go ahead and try kickturning whilst you are still moving. Try kickturning while you are on a ramp, first of all going up it a little then doing a 180 degree kickturn back round and down. You will see that more you practice, the more comfortable to you kickturning will become.

Many skaters get really confident in turning in one direction, but on the other hand never really practice performing a kickturn the other way round. This is indeed okay to do, but I think it is a bad habit to pick up. In order to be really confident as a skater, you need to be comfortable kickturning in whichever direction you choose. This will mean you can go on to learn more skateboarding tricks.

Now you know what to do keep practicing and have fun!