Skateboard lessons at Folkestone gardens skatepark

This weekend I ran a private skateboard lesson for Isaac, aged 8, at Folkestone gardens skatepark in Deptford. Folkestone gardens skatepark has a lot of transition, and is bowled out at one end. There are more street features at the other with a rail down some stairs. It’s a great park for learning to skateboard. We are hoping to offer group lessons at the skatepark in early 2020.

Isaac hadn’t really skated before so we covered the basics of standing, and pushing, and moved quickly on to steering. Once we’d learnt this I set up a slalom for Isaac (pictured). Slalom is a good way of learning:

• the importance of pointing your board in the right direction before you start to get the right ‘line’
• familiarity with switching from toe to heel edge
• to push and steer in close order

Once Isaac was comfortable steering we then learnt how to ride down a mellow incline. He was quickly doing this without assistance and we moved onto going up the slope forwards and coming down backwards (riding fakie). We finished off with some pumping in the bowled out area which is always a lot of fun with little effort or skill required when you’ve got someone to help out!

We hope to announce shortly that we will run some weekend group classes at the park. Please sign up to our newsletter if you’d like to know more.

Folkestone gardens skatepark is a recent public concrete skatepark built by Lewisham council in Deptford. There’s a cafe next to the skatepark.