Skateboarding: Why Practicing Consistently Is Key To Skating

This week I got to the skatepark 4 consistent days in a row. That’s right, 4 consistent days of 2+ hour sessions! What I learned this week is that if you want to get better, the only way to do so is through consistency. Previously, I discussed how a skateboard trick checklist will enable you to land tricks consistently. That is consistency in practice with a goal to become consistent at tricks you already know well; a slightly different but similar concept. However, today I am going to explain why consistent practice is vital to learning new tricks and progressing at those you are currently uncomfortable with.

Imagine skateboarding just once a week versus 5 days a week. Now imagine how a warm up would look and feel that one day you skate each week versus the third day in a row that you skated. By that third day, on your first run you can likely jump right into the challenging tricks you left off with the prior day. Meanwhile, if you hadn’t skated for a week, you would likely need to spend quite some time (maybe an additional 30 minutes to an hour) warming up and getting a feel for the basics before you can jump right into the more challenging tricks you aren’t quite comfortable with. This is why to me, skating just once a week is almost a waste of time (unless you have been skating for several years). If you are in a learning stage and aren’t skating consistently, then you are going to spend too much time trying to ensure you get in those tricks that you typically practice, leaving no time to progress. Not only that, but it will take a while for you to land the tricks in your warm up routine if done once a week versus daily, relating back to the checklist concept in the sense that any trick can be done first try if practiced consistently.

But to me, that is not the main purpose of skateboarding on a frequent cadence. The main purpose is so you can get that warm up done quickly, leaving plenty of time for learning new tricks and iterating on them each day. For example, if I ran through my warmup checklist of skateboard tricks in 5 minutes versus 45 minutes (thanks to consistent practice), I would have 40 additional minutes in that session to work on learning a new trick versus trying to land some tricks I already know how to do. Not only that, but by skating day after day, you can pick up exactly where you left off the prior day. For example, if yesterday I learned how to throw a lazerflip, today I know where I left off and can jump right into trying to land it. If I had learned how to throw the trick and didn’t practice again until a week later, I would likely have to spend the first 20 minutes relearning how to throw the trick before I can spend time trying to land it. As a result, it would likely take me over a month practicing once a week to get the trick down versus a week if I went at it each day. Therefore, although practicing consistently does take up a lot of time, in some sense it will save you time, making you a better skateboarder in a shorter period of time. With that being said, it is a no brainer that you should try to skateboard each day. I definitely try to and trust me, it pays off!