1. Advanced slalom carve
Carving is a fundamental skill. The slalom is the single best drill for improving your carving.
What is a slalom?
A slalom course is line of cones that have been laid out with regular spaces between them. Usually a slalom is a race, to see who can carve around the cones the fastest.
Why learn to carve a slalom course?
The ability to carve, is fundamental to many, if not all, skateboarding tricks. Without the ability to change direction, quickly and with control, you will find more advanced skills difficult.
Increase the difficulty of your carve
We can make our slalom course more challenging by:
- Putting the cones closer together – progressively decrease the space as you improve
- Placing the cones at irregular intervals or out of line
- Laying out your slalom course across the obstacles in a skatepark, i.e. up or across banks, or quarterpipes
Touch the cones
Touch the cones as you go past, in front and behind.
This skill will allow you use your hands to stabilise, and to experiment safely; to roll away from tricks and figure out what went wrong. It will allow you to make controlled falls without sustaining injury.
Adjust your trucks and/or setup
Even at this stage you may need to adjust your trucks if you are struggling with carving:
- tighten or loosen the trucks by a quarter turn each time
- you may need to change bushings if adjusting the trucks isn’t having the desired effect