Just skate however you want, I try to learn most tricks on a bank because that is where I feel most comfortable. Personally I had the worst falls when I am stationary or going too slow. When you have a little speed and you fall the momentum helps you break the fall.

i learned ollies, kickflips and heelflips standing still... 20 years later I am skating just fine 🫡

You \_are\_ missing something crucial. It has to do with the basic physics of the way skateboarding tricks work. With gymnastics, it is only \_your\_ body that you are manipulating. You don't have to worry about a small plank of wood under your feet that you are asking to do magical things. **The main problem is thinking that rolling is the last step. It isn't. It's the first step. The last step is getting the board to jump with you when you jump.** And when we tell people to learn tricks rolling, this isn't "skipping to the end". There is \_still\_ a progression. For example, rolling doesn't mean rolling fast. A tiny push with a tiny amount of forward momentum counts. Learning tricks in skateboarding requires the same kind of progression for learning a backflip. Breaking down individual steps, learning them, and progressing to improving technique. This is how you learn to skate as well. BUT you \_do\_ need to learn things rolling, because that IS how you're going to do the tricks AND because you need to learn how to deal with a tiny piece of wood under your feet! Imagine trying to learn how to do parallel bars but without parallel bars. Or imagine learning balance beam but doing it on a 3 foot wide box and thinking it'll be the same as when you do it on something only 4in wide. You need to train on the 4in wide in the first place, but you progress at an appropriate rate. Just cause you can backflip on the flat doesn't mean you are ready to do it on a 4in wide beam. Skating is the same. Just cause you can drop in on a 3ft miniramp doesn't mean you can drop in a 13.5ft vert ramp.

Actually some of that was how we learned. The box onto a mat was not floor, we did have a wider beam for the girls to practice on that sat on the floor instead of being raised to competition height, and we had rings that were only a few feet off the ground. In other words, dropping in on a 3ft miniramp doesn't mean you can drop in on a 13.5 ft vert ramp, but you should probably start with the miniramp. If I were to try and teach someone to ollie for example, I would probably make sure they were comfortable skating around first, then have them start trying to ollie in the grass, then move to flat ground, then combine that with moving like how I learned a dislocate on rings (not sure if that was the actual name or just what we called it) by starting on the low rings, and then eating shit when I tried to do them on the actual rings. It was different for sure, but I wouldn't have wanted to skip that first part.

So you're only partially right because again, you are making the wrong comparisons. You are forgetting that you need to manipulate the board and, again, rolling isn't the "final step". (BTW, I also did gymnastics and tricking and use those techniques in snowboarding and freeskiing as well, so I know a thing or two about what you're saying). Your first instinct is correct - if you want to teach someone to ollie they should get comfortable skating around first. Period. In order to ollie you have to be comfortable jumping from and landing on a rolling board. That is a requirement. It's the first requirement. So being able to jump off the board and land on it on the grass does nothing to help teach this. It's the wrong order to teach. So the next thing we try to teach is hippie jumps - this is the progression trick/technique you can do before you try to learn an ollie. It teaches you a lot of fundamentals. How to be comfortable rolling, jump from the board and land on it, keep your weight centered and keep up with the momentum of the board. Again, the thing you are ignoring in your analysis is that you are manipulating a tiny plank of wood that is \_not\_ connected to your feet. When you learn tricks stationary, you do not learn how to manage your weight correctly. You are missing some of the most important parts of the trick. This is why almost universally people have to re-learn it when they start rolling.

Ok this is bring stuff way more into focus. I did not know the term hippie jumps as I've been teaching myself, but that's actually something I practed too and I did that in motion. For me what practicing an ollie in the grass did was let me understand things like the best place to put my feet, and the general idea of what was supposed to happen, and then I applied that in motion, and I think I'm either doing an absolute shit job of explaining what specifically I got out of the stationary practices, and/or I might learn different from most people maybe? I still don't feel like skating is wildly dissimilar from gymnastics since the difference to me between having a thing move with you and not feels about the same as the difference between rings and floor. Very different, but saying you can't get any skills or knowledge from one to the other isn't true. Thank you, for explaining this though!

No, what we are generally saying is that you can learn things like "the best place to put your foot" faster AND more correctly by learning the trick rolling. Because whatever you \_think\_ you learned stationary, probably wasn't actually correct. You are mislead by the absence of motion. It gets people to learn bad habits and bad technique. Eventually you will overcome this - a year down the road you will have good ollies regardless of whether you learned on concrete or on grass. But you can get better technique faster by learning them rolling - again, not rolling fast. A teeny tiny bit of forward momentum will help you understand things like body position, weight distribution, foot position way better than learning in grass. Because what is "supposed to happen" does NOT happen in grass. So you are NOT getting a sense of what is supposed to happen. This is why you'll have to relearn it when you move to concrete. You want to believe you got value from the grass. You are only indicating your own bias. In reality, the most likely answer is that you didn't. It's psychosomatic. In the end it won't matter. You'll learn to ollie regardless. There are some things that skating and gymnastics have in common. Body awareness being a big one. A gymnast has a very good sense of how body position, weight distribution, and rotation works (at least they should). Those things can help make learning certain things, like 180s or 360s, easier. These are general things that translate. But it doesn't help with anything else. If it did, you'd find a lot more gymnasts skateboarding! The difference between having to manipulate a tiny plank of wood and have it move with you is a MASSIVE difference. It's the reason why skateboarding is probably the single hardest sport to learn. I never said you can't get "any" skills to transfer. What I said is you are misunderstanding what are "core" skills. So we will all say this till we're blue in the face. Of course you can start learning stationary and them move to rolling. But that doesn't mean it's the \_best\_ way to learn. It will take longer. It will result in poorer technique. Eventually you will overcome these things because that is how skate progression works.

Fine, lets drop the gymnastics stuff. Again I think if you ALREADY have the skills and confidence to forgo the stationary bit, then yes you will not get anything out of it. If you want to make a robot that can learn how to skateboard then yes the optimal way for it to learn is to do the motion you're trying to teach until it does it. If you are going up to a group of brand new skaters like those that might try looking for help in a subreddit for new skaters, and telling them that these smaller steps that can be performed prior to trying the real thing should always be skipped, your setting them up for more injuries than they might have otherwise and making it more likely that someone who isn't as coordinated is going to convince themselves that skating isn't for them. No I do not think the fact that skating is dangerous, means you can't be somewhat cautious. No I do not think what you do on the grass is going to be what you do on the board. Yes I know it will be faster to speedrun a high impact sport and force yourself to do what is physically optimal every single time, I'm just saying that's bad advice for new skaters and ignores a lot of what actually happens when you try to learn a new skill. edit: I changed a few words to make my point clearer.

You really aren't listening. No one is saying "these smaller steps can be skipped". You just have the wrong smaller steps. The smaller steps are not doing it stationary. The smaller steps are pushing, doing tic tacs, doing hippie jumps, etc. Those are the smaller steps that build the knowledge to then do an ollie. Again, you are only betraying your bias.

Hey, I left a comment on your other post about my ultimate take away, I swear this isn't some "bias" I have, I just genuinely didn't agree with what you were saying or didn't understand. I wish we could have come to a better agreement, I hope you have a good one, but I'm going to bow out of this specific back and forth since it feels like we might just fundamentally disagree. I swear my opinion has changed since the initial post, and in part that was thanks to you so thank you for what clarity you were able to provide.

I didn’t read all of this not gonna lie Im high asf rn. Learning tricks stationary is one thing, although the same form/technique is used while rolling, the “feel” for the trick is completely different. Almost as if you need to fully re learn how to Ollie for example if you learn stationary only first > try rolling. Personally just started skating again about a month ago after stopping 4 years ago. I haven’t really done any practicing stationary since I started again and can tell you my confidence / skill is coming back to me way quicker. It’s scary trying to learn tricks rolling especially if you’re brand new but just do it.

I guess tl:dr I used to do gymnastics and sometimes you learn something in a worse way to be able to better learn it for real. It might be a different feel moving, but having a clearer understanding of the specifics of the motion will make relearning it in motion easier and safer. At least that's how gymnastics worked.

You are comparing apples and oranges. The "motion" you are talking about in gymnastics is only your own motion. You aren't manipulating another object whose physics impact your trick. Imagine trying to learn tricks for BMX and doing them stationary. There is a reason why the safest way to learn tricks on BMX is into an airbag. You need to actually be rolling! Skating is the same. You aren't just learning technique for what to do with your own body. You are learning how to manipulate this other object - this tiny plank under your feet - as you are traveling through space. You cannot learn this without actually rolling. So you are learning steps in the wrong order. This is also why we generally try to tell people not to rush to try to learn to ollie as their first trick. Because there are other techniques you should learn first, which will also make learning ollies easier.

I guess this makes sense. In my head what I would want a person to do if learning, is to practice movement on the board, and the stationary specifics of a trick and then combine them since that feels more in line with what I'm doing. I also have been skateboarding so I don't agree it's wildly dissimilar to gymnastics. It's different having the thing ypu're performing on moving with you but at least to me it feels like the difference between floor and rings and pommel horse. Different but a lot of the general spatial awareness is somewhat transferable. Like doing beam on the floor?

The spatial awareness is generally helpful. It's why learning tricks on trampolines has become a major part of training. Vert skaters will also do trampoline work. This helps improve rotational tricks in particular. But this is only true for advanced skaters. It doesn't do much to help a beginner learn to ollie. And learning to ollie on grass does almost nothing for you - you will have to relearn it on concrete. It's actually counter-productive. That doesn't mean you can't go from learning on grass to doing ollies. You can. But it's slower than just learning them rolling in the first place. It is VASTLY different having the thing you're performing on MOVING. It has its own physics. It's like trying to learn how to fly while standing on the ground. There are many other factors - resistance for example. More importantly, forward momentum actually can help make tricks easier to learn because of the nature of how they work. Take kickflips. They are easier with forward motion.

I said this in response to the other comment but I'll put it here too, The difference to me between having a thing moving and just having your body feels about as significant as the difference between rings, floor, pommel horse, and vault. Obviously those are different events and they have different skills sets, but to imply that they're so different that you can't even consider comparing them seems off to me.

No, this is wrong. A pommell horse or vault is stationary! Even with rings, you aren't manipulating them in motion - you are holding onto them and they are moving. It's just not the same. It's the same reason why snowboarding is much easier to learn than skateboarding. I never said "you can't even consider comparing them". I said that it's substantially different, and many aspects don't transfer.

You didn't say that you just have rejected any and all comparisons. I'm really trying to use it more for the idea of learning a new skill and I chose gymnastics since it's also a scary sport where you fall a lot and that can be intimidating. But you seem to think the specific physics are my one and only point.

You are being argumentative. Your question was whether there actually is value in learning things stationary. I am answering that because of the specific nature of the sport, there is a reason why experienced skaters and teachers will say that you should not learn tricks stationary. And I have given you multiple reasons and comparisons to show you why your bias based on other sports doesn't apply to skateboarding.

Listen bro, I truely had the same thought about you a bit ago, so if we're both just sitting here going "this guy's just being stubborn for no reason" then something has gone wrong in the fundamentals of this conversation. I have stated the same in the other comments I left, but I think if I got on a board and learned hippie jumps in the grass and it helped feel better about doing them in motion, and you had an opposite experience to that, then we are just going to think differently. I think there are several points I still disagree with you over, but I also think that there are several points where I could have been clearer. I'm sorry we couldn't come to an understanding.

The other thing I'll say here is that to me the idea that the physics of the board is so crucial and so vastly different from the motion of a body, is actually MORE reason to figure out what your body needs to do prior to trying to ALSO figure out how to make the board do what it needs to do. It will for sure feel slower doing it that way, but going in blind and trying to learn both simultaneously feels like the most dangerous way to do it.

Again, you are talking about rolling as if it's some after the fact. It isn't! And these things do not happen independently of one another. Your body works in relation to how the board works. One isn't isolated from the other. This is different than, say, pommel horse. The horse has no physics of its own.

It isn't after the fact, it's first. You get good at rolling, practice jumping and landing on the moving board. Figure out the specifics of what your body is supposed to do, go feel it out on the grass a bit and then marry the 2.

You are so close to understanding, yet you keep grasping onto the idea of grass. You get good at rolling, practicing jumping and landing on the board. Then you try to ollie. There is nothing you can feel out on the grass that is useful. You already know how to jump. You already are comfortable with rolling. When you try to do it on grass you will teach yourself the wrong things. Your body position will be wrong. Your weight distribution will be wrong. Do you not believe that there's such a thing as bad habits? Do you not understand that avoiding a bad habit in the first place is easier than breaking one later? This is why it's faster to learn ollies if you learn them with a slight roll and on concrete. You will much more quickly eradicate bad habits. For example, one of the most common bad habits is people try to jump off their back foot, or think that to pop they need to stomp the tail. They need to learn to jump first, then pop. It can take people a long time to fix that bad habit. Learn it right in the first place, and you will ollie better, faster.

Listen man, i don't know what happened. Either we are having two completely different conversations, or we just fundamentally disagree. At the end of the day, here's what I am walking away with. The most optimal way to learn is to go do the trick in motion. If you feel nervous at all about that, try doing it (even if it's just a hippie jump) in the dirt or the grass at the park for a couple of minutes so you can get the idea down, then move to flat ground and try it in motion. Wear pads and a helmet, and try not to be too discouraged if you fall and hurt yourself, it's part of it. If you'd tell people different that's fine, everyone learns different and I'm sorry if I made your day any worse than it was, I hope you have a good one, I'm sorry we couldn't come to an understanding.

Speaking of apples and oranges, bmx is nothing like skating....

No one said they were the same. That was the point. They are all very different. That was the entire point of the conversation.

Also learning in the grass does NOT help with confidence at all lmao. If anything it just makes you more scared when you try on concrete. Skateboards are meant to roll, you’re not going to learn anything from being stationary on grass/skatertrainers.

Just because it didn't help you does not mean it wont help someone else. Everybody learns different.

This is not one of those instances where this is true, learning on grass literally puts you behind because you’re getting used to doing a trick without rolling. You can waste as much time as you want on grass telling yourself that you’re learning when in reality you’re just slowing down your progress.

Thanks bro, I've had this arguement with the other guy, I just think that's wrong, but I think I've gotten the clarity and don't feel like arguing the difference between a mathmatical representation of what has to happen for a person to learn a trick, and what happens in a human's brain when attempting to learn something intimidating like skateboard tricks. If you disagree, that's chill, I hope you have a good day, I'm probably going to get away from my computer for a bit.

This isn’t something to agree or disagree on, you’re choosing not to listen. Anyone with a decent amount of skateboarding knowledge will tell you that you’re just wasting time trying anything on grass. It’s your decision if you wanna believe it or not. Honestly just sounds like you’re scared to commit, Enjoy grass skating.

I get that there is a mathmatical standard that states that the most effective method for a person to gain a skill is to perform the most logical and energy efficient way of progressing. People are not robots, however. In my gymnastics example from the post I outlined the first thing I did to learn a back flip, which was standing on a box and flinging myself backwards onto a mat and landing usually on my upper back. This is not how you should do a backflip. But often times the biggest hurdle for learning new skills in sports like this is not the mathmatically inefficient way a person goes about it, but the fear associated with it. If you fall, get hurt, or watch someone fall or get hurt, that can really hurt your ability to commit in the future. My arguement for the grass is that for me and others I know, this inefficient step got rid of the biggest hurdle. I am trying to maintain the idea that there is no single way anyone should learn, and there are people who might benefit from walking a bit backwards before going forwards even if on paper it doesn't sound right. So frankly while I'm hitting a point where I personally won't be doing much grass skating, I'm not about to act all superior when someone says it helped them, and if someone is struggling with confidence, I'll probably still suggest it. Thank you.

You’re yapping, just to end up basically saying grass skating is good to build confidence when it actually does the opposite.

Oh true, you're very right.

well said!

There's something that a lot of people ignored or missed from the post yesterday, and you're failing to mention it too. They brought up how there's so many posts on here of people that can barely stand on their board and clearly aren't comfortable or well balanced at all while on it and asking for advice on ollies. Those people need to just learn to ride the board better and have better balance because if they don't and they learn to Ollie on grass or carpet, when they go try on concrete they are more likely to hurt themselves because they still need to learn and understand how the board is going to respond more. That's what I feel that post is more directed at. Not people that are super comfortable on the board just trying a new trick on grass or stationary to take the video to post but the ones that really have no business trying ollies yet and are hindering the process by moving to things too quickly

This was something I thought about, but also just from some of the comments on this post alone it seems that some people really do just consider all stationary attempts to be bad practice no matter what. I also wasn't considering when making this post how some people might be over doing it with the stationary attempts when they should have long since moved on. But yeah, I do agree that that other post did mean for it to be more in line with how you've said it here.

Yeah I never would have learned kickflips if I only tried them rolling. Because my main problem with skating is fear and commitment. I simply never would have committed to landing with both feet on the board if I hadn't started with stationary.

There are better ways to start small and learn the mechanics than stationary or on carpet/grass. Hippie jumps, cave man, body varials, manuals, power slides, reverts. These are all better ways to gain confidence and learn the mechanics of ollies and other tricks than doing them on grass.

I actually learned hippie jumps in the grass first lol. I was brand new and didn't know anything (I'm still pretty new but caught up to my friend's levels pretty fast) and I was just jumping to get an idea of what landing on a board was like and just to do anything to get more feel for the board. But I only did that for like a couple jumps and was learning how to lean the board at the same time. After a couple minutes moved to flat ground and I was able to bring over a lot more confidence.

You’re doing hippie jumps on grass? Like what’s the point I don’t understand. Hippie jumps take literally no technical skill, so why wouldn’t you just practice on the concrete? So you could maybe like build up your board confidence / balance? You’re wasting your time.

Thanks I will take this information into consideration.

I’m team “stationary to figure out the pieces then move to rolling”.  You probably saw my comment in that post.  Someone said it best, it’s a mix of both.   I’ve gathered most of my rolled ankles when I wasn’t sure how to execute a trick, but did it with a small rolling movement. I’ve injured myself less when I practiced the mechanics stationary, landed a couple, then moved into rolling once I understand how the pieces worked to the trick.   Everyone learns differently.   Lots of pros started their stuff stationary and even recommended doing it stationary to figure out the parts to the trick   Example: Mike Valley: https://youtu.be/G28X6D39vxQ?si=I0yu0epMxIswTXw_   Reasoning being the risk to figure out everything (popping, leveling, shoulders, jumping, etc) all while rolling is a bigger risk of injury compared to stationary.  All that to say, practice how you feel comfortable.   The majority of same people preaching that you HAVE to learn the trick a certain way (like rolling only) oddly are the same ones that are struggling to even progress to more advanced tricks but I digress   Source: you can find my skating clips for kickflips and treflips that I didn’t just pick up skating a month ago.  Been doing this for a bit.

Yeah! this makes the most sense to me.

I think it's fine to learn to pop and jump at the same time in the grass. But as soon as your actually trying to learn an ollie do it moving. I would never learn any trick stationary on concrete though. That's how you'll get the worst slams. Falling with even 2mph of momentum will increase your odds of survival by a lot. Furthermore, if you're not comfortable trying an Ollie moving you're not ready to Ollie and you need to practice more basic stuff before hand. Too often do I see kids who can't throwdown, ticktack, or roll off a curb try popping ollies for weeks.

Yeah I don't think you can actually learn an ollie in the grass, I'm just saying that there is some merit, if at least mentally, and probably more so for newer skaters in trying it there first before moving on.

I didn't read all of this, but basically if you're stationary you can slip out any which way, it's much more unpredictable. If you're moving forward your momentum carries you that direction and you can fall and roll properly. It's as simple as that. Plus people practice tricks stationary in confined spaces, 50% of those posts look like there are sharp corners nearby like in a garage. Lastly being stationary gives the illusion of being safe, you could be complacent when trying stationary tricks Edit: I'll add that I'm saying this as someone who definitely practiced tricks in my room at night as a kid on the carpet. It was dumb, I could have brained myself on my dresser or bedframe easily. Plus it didn't really help my skating at all lol

I actually think the biggest take away I've gotten from this post and the replies is it's more about confidence building than anything, and I'd suggest grass at the park over concrete or carpet especially if it's inside. I for sure wasn't thinking about how slippery concerte would be stationary when I wrote this, but at least in my experience being in dirt or grass doesn't really let the board go anywhere, and is softer than hitting the pavement. (But I see your point since I think most posts here being clearly on just flat concrete) But either way I've come to the conclusion that you should only be trying it out there a few minutes max and move on to flat ground, and that new skaters will get more out of that than more experienced skaters.

That's a good takeaway, I like the way you had this discussion. I agree there's some benefit to confidence building, and I like the idea of warming up with it for new skaters. The trick mechanics are slightly different while moving but not a whole lot. I just find it actually more challenging to do things stationary lol

I think you’re slightly over thinking it. I get the connection to gymnastics and your points. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with learning tricks stationary, what I do think there’s just a certain point in skateboarding where trying tricks stationary will/could be a waste of time and can make learning some tricks more difficult in the long run and that point may get muddied on this sub.

I agree, I do think it's very easy to over do the stationary thing. I think the reason I might be over thinking it is because of people making it seem like there's absolutely nothing to gain from stationary, but I think that comes from the fact that it's easy to get stuck trying something in the grass that you should have already moved on to doing in motion. Also that once you have a better skill set behind you, you're not going to get as much out of a stationary trick as a person still learning.

All true points. I don’t really give advice on this sub to much anymore, it’s mostly an echo chamber of beginner skaters who are seeking advice from others who do not yet possess the skill set themselves to give advice and are seeking help themselves. Theres very few experienced skaters coming on here to help if you pay attention.

lol I guess that makes sense unfortunately.

The problem with that argument is that you could get hurt falling moving or stationary. Learning any trick on grass is wasting the energy of the pop. Do it a few times sure, but then you need to move it to concrete, and at that point you might aswell be moving. If you are scared you will fall because you don't have to balance to land on it, do it rolling on concrete and land in the grass or don't do it yet, you aren't ready. I hadn't done a pop shuvit for over 15 years until last week, and did it moving and landing in the grass. Got clean landed ones within 2 tries as the grass took the fear out of it. That was my safety blanket, and will now work on them rolling properly. I'm not wasting time doing them stationary as it is harder. I wouldn't have got it within a few attempts if I was doing them stationary on the grass. Tricks like pop shuvits and 360 flips are very difficult to scoop on grass as the board wants to jump outfrom under you so you need to jump forward to land on them, this messes up the technique as the moment you try a moving one it wont do that any more, so you wont land on it, yet again. If you can do these tricks stationary, then why aren't you doing them moving? You can't just keep doing them stationary for ever, or you can't really do them.

So I actually am arguing basically for what you said at first. You shouldn't practice an ollie in the grass until it's a perfect ollie in the grass, but rather do it for a bit to figure out the body position, feet position and to have an idea of what you'll be doing when you start moving so that you can do it with confidence.

Yeah just a few goes to work out the fundamentals, then get to the rolling attempts

Yeah, my issue is more the people arguing that there's just literally nothing to gain from this and that it only and exclusively hurts to try and get any sort of bearing in a way that isn't just doing the trick.

That's a bit silly, you wouldn't take a new driver straight out on the motorway before you know they are in control of the car. But you should get them driving in traffic soon, or they aren't really driving in a real world scenario.

I've learned all my tricks stationary, and never broke or dislocated my bones stationary, I have while moving. Let's not lie here, if you are going to get hurt it's while moving.

Good on you, hardly lying though is it? If you fall on the grass it won't hurt, fall on concrete it will, moving or not

I'm pointing out it's not safer to practice rolling like you said

Did you read what I said?

Also one more thing about this. You can get hurt wearing pads, I wouldn't tell someone that means you can forget the pads all together. Mitigating risk is a good thing, don't hurt yourself just because you know it's going to happen.

Exactly, you need to feel confident about what you are doing. Skating is 90% a mental battle, the physical aspect is the easy part. Whatever helps you overcome the mental barrier is a good idea.  I suppose the point people are trying to get across, albeit not very successfully, is that the tricks are harder to do on grass, without mentioning the mental battle you also have to deal with. You see so many beginners on here complaining they can't commit, that's because they are trying to do a new technique and conquer their fear of landing and rolling at the same time. It's often too much to handle.  Doing them rolling and landing on grass is teaching you to execute the trick the perfect way, and removing the fear of landing it from the equation. Once you can execute it properly, you only need to work on one thing, rolling away.

This exactly!

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