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Everything you ever wanted to know about Sliding |
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Ok, so as i sit here, its 9:39 ready to devote the rest of my night to writing this article, i have my glass of full cream milk, and i have three, untouched, custard and apple pies.
This article is going to be somewhat like a home made custard and apple pie, it may taste like a scrummy poorly prepared sack of s-hit, but still, we eat it, and we tell the chef 'Yes mum, its delicious.' Am i going to eat these three, untouched, custard and apple pies?
Your Damn right, and im going to B-loody enjoy them.
Right, so why learn to slide?
It is one of the greates.... no its not, its sliding on a road with your butt skimming the tarmac. Its mean, macho and its agressiiive. I dont ride rollercoasters, haha belive it or not im scared of them, but i get the same adrenaline rush from riding a rollercoaster, as i get from doing a 20 mph slide on vertical incline.
There are several things that, yets say, Help, when your learning to slide.
-Sliding Gloves
-A Board (Wheels included)
-The Know how
Boardwise? What does Holden reccomend?
Everybody needs to start slides on a shortboard, but shortboards are too nippy and responsive to have Good fun on, what you need my son is a longboard.
Deck - Anything around 40", this is the perfect transition from stepping up your slides from a shortboard to a longboard, its only 8" extra, but your longboard will actually arc in to the slides, and holds more into the slide. You'll notice the difference. Trust me. *Also, keep your griptape fresh, or your feet just slide off and your knees get annhialated.
Wheels - Sliding wheels i'd put my name too, is anything above 90 on the durometer scale, most carving wheels (for gripping the road) are around the 80's, but for sliding you should splash out on Hard wheels, the benefits of this is your board will slide twice as further for twice as long, giving you lots of time to do your shit (man)
I personally use Gravity Super G 92A's, these wheels are anything but odd, they grip the road just like a carving wheels, so i really have to Snap in to my slides (which i guess you'll probably pick up on later) but once theyre in the slide, they go forever. Belive it or not, skateboard wheels which are harder than mine, slide half the distance my wheels do (dont ask why)
Trucks - The closer the wheels are, for me, i find the easier it is to slide. When i was learning, i couldnt slide my board on 180's, but when my 150's came in the post i was straight in to it. I dont know why, could just be confidence. 150's are a Hell of alot less stable, so are half as much fun for carving with.
Right, the next part of sliding, once youve got your board sorted 'good n' proper' is the glove, people dont seem to understand that the point in having the sliding gloves is to reduce the friction between your hand and the road, so you can drag all of your weight.
[/url]http://www.eryc.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=23136#23136[/url]
Yets hypothesise for a second. Which would you rather run and jump on to travel the furthest.
A smooth varnished pane of wood
A Brick.
Thus proving the point, that im right, and Dylan and Dave are Wrong. As they found out the hard way, that the glove doesnt grip at all, so when you go to put your hand on the road to slide 180, you dont grip the road and twist around your hands, you put all of your weight on to your hands, so you can throw the board around. How?
Ultra modern technology. Chopping board! None of that retro shit Wigs suggested. Wood. no.
I guess you wouldnt belive it untill you see it, but I bet, that you could get towed behind a car, and be standing on one of these magical chopping board at the same time.
Now ive convinced you, that im right, you'll need to make your own sliding gloves, like everybody has done for the past 50 years, or you can buy a pair. We've already weighed buying against making in the topic link above, but its worth saying that your sliding glove will get battered and town if you dont do a good job, and i'll tell you how!
Here are two examples of Sliding gloves.
This first pair is made by Mr Wiggles himself. Wigs took shortcuts all over the shop, lazy bastard, but hes got the basics down.
Chopping board attatched by velcro to his glove, (The velcro has been ducktaped to the glove) Wigs also bought a chopping board for £1
Finger bits of chop (Ducktaped to the fingers)
An inner glove
*Also note how he has a elastic wrist hugger thing, this saves alot of hassle as i'll explain in a minute.
*A good point brought up by Dave was that Wigs has ducktaped over the sliding pads, so err, his fingers are going to grip the road.
We still dont know if these are going to work and he still hasnt used them!
I spent a while on my gloves,
- The female velcro has been Stitched to the glove, so stands less chance of ripping off.
- I spent £5 on my chopping board, so its nice and thick (Belive me when i say it wears down. Faster than you'd expect)
- Thin bit of thermoplastic (gumshield stuff) moulded, then glued using Araldyte to the fingers.
- Duck tape around the wrist, because if the wrist of the glove scrubbs against the road, it'll get sucked under your sliding pad, and down you go friend.
Putting plastic on the fingers is important, especially when your learning, the first night when i went out with my brand new sliding gloves (top picture) i came back with no fingers left, because its only a natural reaction to put your fingers down to support yourself, so you'll have to get out of the habit of doing this, and lifting up your fingers. Wigs's gloves have the finger bits too fat, so when he wears down the main sliding pad, his fingers will be glued to the road and hes not going to be able to lift them up!
Another alternative to velcroing the sliding pads to your glove is by melting them on, but belive it or not, the pads will wear down (say, go through 5mm in about 6 months) and the good thing about using velcro is that you can change your pads easily without having to sort new gloves.
General rule of thumb with sliding gloves - if anything goes wrong, just use ducktape.
Sliding
(Its worth noting that no slides work going Very slowly, you need atleast three strong pushes to induce a slide or your wheels lockup.)
If you want to see some Real Sliding, see this video by the crewmotion longboard bombsquad Those guys are the Sh*t, and That, is how to do it properly.
Ive taken pretty much most of my inspiration from that video, and as you can see, there are 4 Slides most commonly used by Longboarders.
(Mostly Homemade names, but its all i can do sorry ? I Tried looking the official name up, but they were worse than what I came up with)
Backside Slide
Frontside (double handed) slide
Frontside (drop knee) slide
Coleman slide (Frontside one hander)
Theyre generally worth learning in that order, and i guess theres no point in telling you them, without spending another hour (its 11:04 now) explaining them.
Backside Slide
Right. The first and by Far the easiest slide to learn is the Backside 180 slide. This slide is a great introduction on sliding downhill, as its probably the safest aswell.
I think this was taken the night i learnt to do this slide downhill.
I found the easiest way to learn this slide was on a ramp, by rolling up the ramp, planting the hands on the ramp, and pushing the board into a slide. When learning this slide on the ramp, you want to learn to Sliiide, then keep going in the same direction, this is one step to going downhill.
Sliding off in the directions of the red arrows wont help at all, because downhill, you only want to carry on going on way. Thats down.
Once youve pweened yourself off the ramp (remember to be doing all of this on a short board) whilst your riding down hill (try to find the smoothest carless hill you can find, like a graveyard or something) plant both your hands on the floor, and at the same time push your board off, and swing it around, while having most of your weight on your hands, this will automatically swing you into a short 180 slide.
Once youve got bored of swinging 180, and jumping off, try as you start sliding, to slightly stretch out your front leg, this will hold your board in a long slide, which is usually hard to recover from.
Stepping up the notch once more, its Well worth learning this slide in switch, after the years, it'll be your strongest switch slide and you'll set your heart by it. Learning to 180 this slide back will also help you when your trying to pendulum. A pendulum slide is when you slide your board 165 degrees or whatever, then switch slide back just before your origional slide ends so your back in regular. To do a proper pendulum slide, you have to learn to turn in to your slide slower, so your board drifts the whole way across the road, before switch sliding back.
When you step up to your trusty longboard, you'll go through this phase of trying to turn in to your slide, because the board is so big it doesnt just *snap* into the slide like your shortboard does. This is simply shuving your board out in to a slide, but it takes ALOT more comittment, as your practically falling on your hands. Its important to learn to snap, especially when it comes to coleman sliding later on.
Frontside (double handed) Slide
This picture, I very nearly hit Shorty who was lying in the middle of the road, haha, he was completely oblivious that I almost smacked my hand into his camera.
This slide is The biggest jump you'll have to take in learning to slide, I saw a 8 year old doing it on a video and thought - haha, that cant be hard. By Golly was I wrong.
Firstly, you cant learn this on a ramp (on all of the frontside slides, it is harder to lean backwards, Especially when doing it on a ramp), it has to be straight on to the hill, by now you'll have enough confidence, sliding on your hands will be no problem, but the B-astard about this slide, is you have to rest all of your weight in a very unnatural position and you cant see what the heck your sliding on.
Umm, wait untill its wet before learning this slide, thats what i did, and it still took me a day or so after to get it working in the dry. To do this slide you have to lean back and place both of your hands on the floor, whilst kicking out the back of your board in to a full on powerslide. I think ive made it easier than it sounds, but you'll want to practise getting in to this position, leaning back over your board with your weight on your hands, it hurts my shoulder everytime, so I tend not to use it. This slide isnt too easy to roll out of, you have to swing around with enough momentum to throw you up on to your board, try it, get in that spider position and try getting up without moving your hands or feet. I'd say its worth learning this slide in switch to do pendulums, but I only see this slide as an intermittent introduction to frontside sliding before getting on to the Real stuff. (You wont be able to progress untill you can do it though.)
Frontside (Drop knee) Slide
This is probably my favorite slide, and i think its due to the fact i tried to learn it Before the double handed frontside slide and hopelessly failed, then i came back to this a month ago, and did it perfectly!
I First started this slide on flatland, just doing Very low frontside drop knee turns, then gradually pulling them into full on powerslides.
To do this you need to get alot of practise doing drop knee turns, by straightening out your back foot, grabbing the rails of your deck with your back hand, and planting your front hand on the road. Basically, the more pressure you put on your back foot, the more the back wheels will slide out. You'll get better and better at this, untill eventually, everytime you try to do a drop knee turn, you end up sliding out, which is annoying. Whilst doing this slide downhill, be sure Not to turn in to this slide, because if your at any kind of angle to the road, you'll just end up scraping the wheels a big, and eating pavement.
To allow this slide to go in to a fullon powerslide instead of a simple 180, try putting more pressure on your front foot mid-slide. Ive seen guys do this slide from 50 mph to 0 in one sweet movement. Because of your back hand holding on to the rail, your securely locked in to your board, and next to nothing can go wrong except sit there and powerslide.
As for penduluming this slide, i havent got there yet, everytime i try to bring the board back to regular instead of 180'ing, i just loose speed and drift into the pavement. When i figure it out (i get completely No help. Thanks Friegspiel longboards *hint the sarcasim*) I'll add to this article. *Refer to later on in the article for penduluming this slide.
There is another variation of this slide, drop knee turning the other way (so you slide backside), i learnt this slide but concluded its useless because you cant put your weight onto the road, and just end up getting flung backwards onto the road at high speeds.
The Coleman Slide (frontside one hander)
Cliff Coleman is touring Everywhere teaching people how to do this slide, if you can go, it would be well worth it, it says here that people are learning to pendulum slide in just one day from nothing!
This slide at first looked impossible, but i figured out a way (as i always do!) of getting into the slide.
Remember the double handed frontside slide, remember i said it would come in handy? Well the only difference between the double hander and the colemanslide, is that your back hand is not supporting your weight. This slide is so useful because your free backhand is waving around giving you support and direction of your slide, making it 'easier' to pendulum or 180. In the picture above you can see im throwing my big meaty claw over my head throwing me in to 180.
To do this slide, the way i did it, when your halfway through a double handed frontside slide, lift your back hand off the floor and shift your weight on your front hand. Keep doing this untill you get confident to go iinto the slide with only one hand, but keeping the other hand nearer the floor just incase.. Watch out with this slide, there are two ways of approaching it. You can:
a) Stretch out over the road and layback as far as posible, making yourself alot less likely to get thrown over the top (It happens) This throws you automatically in to a 180 and you barely need your other hand.
b) Shuffle your weight over onto your board, so your more likely to get thrown over, but you have more control over your board, and are more able to pendulum. Be sure your wagging that little arm of yours to give you enough momentum to break the ?stick point? More on that.
Also here, remember i said that switch 180 backside slide would come in handy, when you come out of the 180 coleman slide in switch, you can immediately backside slide back in to regular, without even taking your back hand off the floor. This is a trusty 360 slide, and I use it alot. Dead impressive. apparently.
Penduluming your frontside slides :
Its taken a while to work this out, but ive put it down to a factor im going to call, the ?Stick point? And as usual, I?ve drawn a pretty picture!
Ok right, the trick to penduluming your board, is by over swinging it, in to near 180. Ive discovered that, if you don?t have enough momentum to make the whole 180, you will get stuck in figure 3, the ?Stick point? This is due to your board becoming perpendicular to the road, and I don?t to why, but as soon as you get stuck there, its Very difficult/Near impossible (For me) to spin out in to 180, or pendulum back to regular. Hence making figures 3.1 and 3.2 impossible. And earlier on in the article I said ?everytime i try to bring the board back to regular instead of 180'ing, i just loose speed and drift into the pavement? This is due to me trying to complete figures 3.1 and 3.2.
What you have to do, is slide right through to figure 4, where your almost completing a 180, then slide back, almost like its two completely separate slides. Learning to slide frontside in switch (Colemanslide in switch, its very disconcerting at first), comes in to great play here, and your switch slide has to be good enough to have enough momentum to slide straight through the 2nd stick point in figure 5.1, then In figures 6.1 and 7.1, its simply just completing the slide as quick as you can, to maintain enough speed to roll away.
Umm, so they?re what are called 'sit down slides' (i think) and there are two 'stand up slide' The common powerslide, and sort of a backwards powerslide.
Ive set around learning these two, but its not as simple learning on a longboard as it is a short board, because it takes so much *snap* to get your longboard into a powerslide, especially with nowhere to distribute your weight.
For the backside powerslide, ive learnt to 180 on the flat, by just getting as far over the front of my board as i can, and jumping while pushing my board around (i figure if i cant distribute my weight on my hands, i'll just become weightless) while fully extending my body to throw me in to a perfect 180 slide. The less you jump, the more effective the slide is and the more noise it makes, the the more chance of the wheels locking up (Just stopping dead on the ground). I found it easier also to lift the front wheels off the floor just as i start the snap.
Powerslide ? Ok Im coming back to the article and updating about this, a few weeks ago, a powerslide was looking near impossible, especially with my wheels, but I set around switching from the tail on the back of my board frontside, so basically your spinning 180, almost like a powerslide. I got good at this, and at balancing myself, while sliding through the 180, and not long later, I found myself doing full blown powerslides.
Switching frontside from the tail, is almost exactly the same method as powersliding backside, you have to lean backwards, as far as you can, lift the front wheels off the floor a bit, hook your heel over the tail of the board, then jump and scoop it around in to 180, this takes more balance, especially because you need a slight bit of speed to do this, once the board has slid 180, you?ll often find yourself overbalancing and getting thrown over the front of your board. This is where you learn to brace against this momentum, Be sure to straighten your front legs, and hang your butt over the back of the board, and soon enough you?ll be holding the powerslides, instead of swinging 180. The powerslide is sketchy, and I don?t think theres enough control to be had over it, but its great fun none the less. And very satisfying.
Well if you managed to read this whole article (its 12:11 now) i salute you! I hope ive answered any questions youve had, And remember to wear a helmet. (I'll wear mine alot on serious hills, Theyre also great for scaring girls with)
www.rklongboards.eryc.co.uk |
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| Posted: Mon May 17, 2004 12:26 pm |
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Awesome article Dave (yes, I did read it all!). I gave it 10/10 - great stuff. You've covered everything in sufficient (useful but not boring) detail. Congratulations.
After reading that, I feel like trying it myself...pity im lazy and broke  |
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| Posted: Mon May 17, 2004 8:45 pm |
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| Although I was completely baffled by half of that I understand the complexity, devotion of time take towards it nad on i am not a schizophrenic. Well done |
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| Posted: Mon May 17, 2004 10:04 pm |
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Excellently done Miss Donna,
I read the whole thing in work, a little confusing to the non-longboarder, but an awesome insight none the less. |
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| Posted: Mon May 17, 2004 11:00 pm |
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| Thanks guys, I thought about writing this a while ago, but it seemed that just an article on making the gloves or how to do it would be completely useless, so im hoping this'll help any needy longboarders out there, and all questions answered. Yah, sorry about the confusingness, but i guess if your reallign looking for questions answered it'll make sense! |
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| Posted: Mon May 17, 2004 11:12 pm |
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It makes sense. Got me thinking about getting a longboard as it seems I have better spots for longboarding then for skating around here. But where to get trucks and wheels is a question still to be answered?
Rated it 10/10 |
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| Posted: Tue May 18, 2004 10:27 pm |
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Nice article, 10/10.
Sounds fecking hard!
(read it all, took awhile,  ) |
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| Posted: Thu May 20, 2004 5:16 pm |
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| Shame no longboarders have read it, doesn't it seem a little pointless then? |
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| Posted: Thu May 20, 2004 5:35 pm |
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| Optimisim as usual, thanks Joe. |
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| Posted: Thu May 20, 2004 5:41 pm |
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Well if you think that makes it pointless, why don't you read it then?
Im sure Dave was trying to appeal to multiple levels - he has adressed people who may (after reading the article) want to take up longboarding, it is also appropriate for people - like you Joe, who already longboard and might want to learn something or perhaps offer their opinions, maybe even alternate methods?
I suggest you read it, if you don't learn something i'll eat my hat (no, not literally).
See ya  |
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| Posted: Thu May 20, 2004 5:53 pm |
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very awesome dave, i read it all, and maybe you can show me how to do it one day.
10/10 |
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