Obstacles (or features) are the first step in progressing as a skateboarder. Skaters interact with their environment to perform tricks in harmony with the architecture surrounding them. This pursuit creatively engages skateboarders of all skill levels, and each skater has their own unique approach to skating various features.  In order to fully express yourself the...

Skateboarding is one of the hardest athletic things to do, period – if it were easy, they’d call it football! All jokes aside, most new skaters struggle at some point with the sheer amount of practice and blood, sweat, and tears that go into improving. While some of these developmental hurdles are unavoidable, there are...

Trick Terms: Regular: Your “normal” riding stance. This can be tricky for new skaters to grasp, since they’ve probably heard about “regular” vs. “goofy” stances (riding a skateboard with your left foot forward vs. right foot forward, respectively). Skateboarding tricks done in one’s preferred normal stance would be “regular”. Most people don’t use this phrase...

The store smelled like fresh carpet, fabric glue, and a woodshop. I surveyed the wall of boards, eyes widening to weigh the possibilities hanging all the way to the store’s rafters. I was twelve, and I had finally convinced my mom to drive me to Redwood City to buy my first skateboard. Standing alone at...

Cracks, cars, and cops: the unholy trinity of skateboarding since people first rolled down the street on four wheels. While all skaters deal with these elements on an occasional basis, the odds are stacked against new skaters. Thankfully, there are plenty of places to practice skating aside from busy streets — try these locations out...

Words by Michael Chan In my eyes, skate photography is one of the coolest aspects of skateboarding. Many experienced professional photographers believe that skateboarding is the hardest sport to shoot. Really, skate photographers are as talented as the athletes they portray: the skill required to snap the single characterizing instant of a trick matches the...