Persistence in Skateboarding

The other day I was at the skatepark and decided, “Before I leave I am going to do a Kickflip Manual to Tre Flip out.”. After 20 times of trying to land this trick I thought to myself, “Why haven’t I landed it yet?”. I had landed this trick before, matter of fact, I had landed this trick a bunch of times.  why couldn’t I land it now?

This got me thinking about how in skateboarding, persistence is key. If you look up the definition of persistence in the dictionary, you’ll find something along the lines of “firm or obstinate continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition”. What’s obstinate continuance you ask? What does this have to do with skateboarding?! Persistence is stubbornly refusing to change your course of action, even if you are being persuaded to do so.

This directly applies to skateboarding in many different ways. Whether you’re trying over and over again to land a new trick on flat ground with each attempt smashing your shins or making you fall, or you’re coming up short on a gap or manual trick by an inch several times in a row; that desire to continue despite pain and/or undesired results is what persistence in skateboarding is all about.

Persistence means that you are going to keep trying no matter what comes up. It doesn’t matter if you fall, it doesn’t matter if you get tired. It doesn’t matter what happens, you keep at it and don’t give up.

Aaron Kyro

That is a really cool part about skateboarding. It teaches us to keep working at what we set out to do and no matter what happens stick with it until we do it.

There are situations, however, where skateboarders can mistake recklessness for persistence. Persistence does take some recklessness, but you should always know your limits even when trying to push past them. 

When it comes to learning tricks on flat ground, Braille Skateboarding encourages you to be persistent beyond belief! Keep trying until your legs give up! If you haven’t landed your new trick yet but you can still walk, you’re not done trying. Get back on that board and stomp your feet on those bolts!

When learning tricks over a large obstacle, across a gap, or on a handrail, persistence must be used intelligently. Attempt your trick until you start to feel your endurance becoming a factor. Sometimes being persistent means knowing that you’ve put your best attempts forward that day and stopping before you make a mistake due to exhaustion. This way you can avoid injury and be persistent again the next day. Besides, you’ll dream of how close you came to landing your trick then stick it the next day FIRST TRY. Now THAT makes for the perfect skate clip.

The mentality of skateboarding

There is a difficult mental hurdle that can impact all skateboarders and their willingness to persist. This is known as the fear of falling, which can stop a skateboarder dead in their tracks, not allowing them to be persistent and achieve their goal. The “worst case scenario” mindset (imagining things going wrong) will often cause a skateboarder to move on from the trick they are attempting, even if it is within their ability. The best way to reduce the fear of falling is by progressing in steps rather than in leaps or jumps. A new skateboarder who has never ollied down five stairs may feel fear rolling up to a five set then trying to ollie it. Master the ollie down two, three, and then four stairs first so the fear of falling won’t exist when rolling up to ollie five stairs.

  Accepting that you will fall eventually will help you persist when you need to the most. Not every fall is bone breaking and cringe inducing. Most falls end up looking silly, not hurting much, and give you and your friends a good laugh. Realizing this will help you get over any fears you may have. After all, remember what that dumpster did to Carlos? What did Carlos do about it? Smile, laugh, then dust himself off. Persistence (though it took some recovery time) is the thing that got Carlos back on his board. Learning from that fall has made him a better skateboarder.

Carlos Vs Dumpster

Not landing tricks certainly doesn’t make you a bad skateboarder. It just means you have to think, adjust, try again, and persist. So much of skateboarding consists of not landing your trick. It’s up to the skateboarder to figure out why. When you are persistent you can learn from your mistakes, roll with the punches, and end up achieving your goal by landing the trick you spent so much time on. 

If you learn how to persist through anything, it will not only help you with skateboarding but it will also carry over into other aspects of your life.

That is just one of the reasons why skateboarding is such an awesome sport. The lessons we learn from skateboarding and the discipline that skateboarding teaches us become a valuable asset in many different areas of our lives. Skateboarding teaches us to be confident yet humble. It teaches us to focus, be patient and to work hard for the things we want most in life. Skateboarding teaches us the persistence we need to become the best versions of ourselves.

Character building

Persistence builds character and you will soon find that the skateboarding mentality will come in handy for more than just skateboarding. Persistence will help you in athletics, business, and life in general. Tony Hawk would have never landed the 900 without persistence. Steve Jobs would have never found success without persistence. Be like Tony and Steve! Persist through everything that life throws at you and watch how the world begins to reward you. These rewards range from landing your first kickflip, to landing your dream job and everything in between.

Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed this video and moral of the story is- don’t give up!

If you are ready to really progress with your skateboarding, get Skateboarding Made Simple Volumes 1-9. It will give you all the tutorials you need in exact detail so you are always progressing. It will give you the exact order to learn your tricks in with exact practice steps. Once you have the exact practice steps you are always making improvements. This allows you to keep feeling motivated and thus never give up!

Have YOU been persistent lately with your skateboarding and now you’re looking to show off your hard work? We want to see you being persistent and stomping that trick that you’ve been so close to landing! Show us your best example of persistence, film it, and post on Instagram tagging @brailleskate, #persistence and #brailleskate. Let us know how being persistent has helped you so we can highlight those moments and inspire more people to start or return to skateboarding.

Never Give Up!!