Carving

Carving on a skateboard is about flow. You can carve into and out of the corners hips and dips. Gaining speed and flowing all over the place. We call it a carve because it feels like you are cutting a line in the ground when ripping around with speed.

You can rip around a bowl or ramps as long as you can keep your breath. When you get good at skateboarding you can carve the streets. This is easier with a longboard. With your short board you can weave in and out of street signs and curb cuts, popping tricks and having a good time. Here I will go over how to carve in a bowl or ramp.

Tricks to Know First

You need to be able to roll, turn and pump. Dropping in and kickturns are helpful but not always needed. Kicturns can actually ruin your carve. So watch out for that.

How to Carve

Pick your line first. You need to look at the bowl or ramp and figure out what path of travel you want to take. Watch other skaters to see what their line is. Some paths will give you a lot of speed, send you to the coping for a trick, launch into the air.

Carve a flat Wall

Carving a transitioned wall is fun. You need to pick a nice long arc along the wall. An arc the your can turn on your skateboard to ride through. No kickturns allowed. If you lift your wheels you will ruin your momentum and end the carve. You will slow way down too.

• Once you pick the arc, roll into it with good speed.
• Keep the line and pump into the transition. This will be a little different than riding fakie. try it out a few times to get the feel of pumping into and then out of the wall.
• The speed you take into the carve is what will keep you on the wall long enough to keep the carve.
• Hold it until you are coming out and rolling away from the ramp.

When you roll through a few of these they will get easier. You need to pump through it and gain some speed. This will allow you to get up to the coping for grinds and slides if you want. It will help your ramp skating in a big way.

Carve in a Corner

Carving through a bowl corner is fun. This is where you can generate some speed. Like, a lot of speed. The corner pockets will be the place you roll into and fly out of. It takes a bit of getting used to.

You can approach a corner in a many ways. Picking a line that goes high on the side walls and low in the corner or low on the sidewalls and high in the corner.

The first will give you a lot of speed. Going high on the side wall, pumping down then back up and out will give you a huge speed boost. This is a trick race car drivers use on a banked race tracks. You burst down hill, crouch at the low point and then burst up the wall. Gaining speed at every change on the curve.

Going high in the corner is a technique for pumping through the corner. Like the flat wall carve. You need good speed to do it.

Carving a Long Curve

Get ready for a long carve. The more speed you have the better. To carve a long pocket or big curve in a bowl is tough even if you know how to do it in a tight corner. You need to be patient with long curving walls.

The line you will need to pick will be a long one. It depends on the curve. You may need to enter the corner late or early. Pumping just like in a small corner but in a slow-mo fashion. Each long curve will be different. You will have to gauge each one and its line.

Practice

Once you get carving the your ramp and bowl skating will change. You can have tons of fun ripping around fast, without even doing tricks. Or you can supercharge your lines and weave tricks into your fast carves.

It is super fun.

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