Balancing is a vital aspect of skateboarding. You can outperform any difficult trick if you learn to balance your skateboard. Every skateboarder has their own quirks, and they can learn to balance their skateboard in a variety of ways.
To learn to balance, you must first decide which side of the deck you can stand securely on. This is known as the stance of a skater. Every skater usually pushes the deck with one foot while standing on the other. The type of stance you use will be determined by the foot that is propelling the skateboard. You can effortlessly balance your skateboard and do sophisticated maneuvers if you can properly determine your stance.
Types of Skateboard Stance
In skateboarding, there are two sorts of natural stances: Regular vs goofy stances. Let’s take a closer look at them and see how you may determine your own stance.
Goofy Stance
A goofy posture entails putting your right foot on the nose of your skateboard ( front of your board ) and your left foot at the tail. Due to this, you’ll be using your left foot to propel the board.
If you wonder what a goofy stance means, Goofy is a Disney cartoon character who rides with his right foot in front and his left foot in the back. Most skaters embraced this style, and it has been named after him ever since.
Regular Stance
Regular stance is the most common stance. It involves placing the right foot at the tail to push the board and the left foot at the nose of your deck. This style is the most popular and easy one as every individual tends to do forceful physical movements from the right side of their body.
Other Popular Stances in Skateboarding
A real skateboarder knows that the very essence of skateboarding is to show your creativity. If there is no creativity in your skating, you can’t taste the true spirit of skateboarding. Therefore, the most innovative skaters have developed some other stances to show their skating passion. Some of the other popular skating stances are as follows.
Switching Stance
You can learn this stance automatically when you start switching your original stance. If you are goofy, you can practice a regular stance or vice versa. Switching your stance will let you explore all of the possible tricks you can perform easily.
Fakie Stance
This stance is named Fakie because we fake switching stances in it. In Fakie, a skater is just riding in the opposite direction, but he is performing switching. To perform Fakie, you need to push with your front foot while your back foot at the tail will stay on the deck.
Mongo Stance
Mongo involves pushing the skateboard through your front foot while the back foot stays in the center or near the tail. When a skater pushes the board with the front foot, he needs to place the front foot on the skateboard, slide the back foot towards the tail, and maintain his normal position.
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As balancing and stability will be difficult with the mongo stance that’s why most skaters avoid this stance. If you think you can hit this stance better than anyone then grab your skateboard now and explore your creativity in skateboarding.
Does Stance Remain Same For Other Board Sports?
People may believe that the stance with which they are most comfortable in skateboarding will also be their stance in other board sports. This, however, is not the case. You may employ different stances for different board sports due to a few anomalies. Let’s have a look at the differences between various board sports.
Skateboarding
In skateboarding, you need stability and balance. This sport involves continuously powering the board with one foot. Therefore, you may adopt a goofy or regular stance depending on your comfortability.
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Snowboarding
In snowboarding, you have to make yourself attach to the board during the whole skating ride. To ride perfectly, you need more balance of your feet on the deck. Therefore, you might be comfortable with a different stance here than the one you use for skateboarding.
Wakeboarding
This extreme sport is performed on water through a boat-shaped board. When you ski on a smooth surface of the water, there is a lot of arm balancing required to balance the board on the water. That’s why you can adopt a different stance here, which you use for skateboarding or snowboarding.
Surfing
Surfing involves standing on the board and moving it through the water. Therefore, you need to lower your center of gravity here to attain more balance. That’s why it’s not a hard and fast rule here that if your stance for skateboarding is regular, then it will be the same here. You may lower your center of gravity more comfortably with your goofy stance.
How To Determine Your Own Skateboarding Stance?
Determining your own natural posture for skateboarding seems easy, but it is not. Most people think that if they are right-handed, they will ride their skateboard with their right foot and stand in a regular stance. Unfortunately, this is not the case for everyone. Most people are right-handed, but they still ride their skateboards in goofy style.
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Therefore, to find out your natural posture for skateboarding, you can use the following techniques.
Hit A Ball
The simplest method to determine your skating posture is hitting a ball. Place a ball in front of you and hit it naturally. The foot that comes ahead and kicks the ball will be your back foot on the skateboard, while the foot which stays on the ground while kicking will be your front foot on the deck.
The logic behind this technique is that the foot that hits the ball naturally proves that it’s the same foot that does all of the force tasks while the other foot balances it.
Sliding On Floor
For this technique, you need to slide on your floor. Wear socks and then run for a while on the floor. Then stop running instantly and end your run with a slide. When you stop, you will notice that one foot is in the front while the other is at the back. This posture is your natural posture which you can use while skateboarding.
Push From Back
This technique requires another person’s help as well. A person will push you from your back gently. A foot will naturally come forward as you are about to fall while the other foot stays back. The foot that comes out and saves you from fall will be your front foot on your skateboard.
You can also do this trick individually by making yourself lean toward the floor. As you are about to fall, your one footsteps out and catches you instantly from the fall. This foot will be your back foot on the skateboard.
Walking at the Staircase
While you walk on stairs, note down which feet you use first. Usually, noting down will make it difficult for you to find out which feet you will choose naturally. Therefore, you can ask a friend to stand by you. When he commands you instantly, you will start running up the stairs. At that time, your friend can notice which foot you have used first. This foot will be your dominant foot on the skateboard, which stays back while the other will stand on the front.
Verifying Your Regular vs Goofy Skateboarding Stance
Once you have found out what your natural posture for skateboarding is, you can confirm it also through the simple techniques listed below.
Roll On Your Skateboard
Once you have determined your perfect skateboarding posture, you can also confirm it. To confirm your posture:
- Stand on your board with a goofy or regular posture that you think is suitable for you.
- Ask your friend to hold your hand and roll you in the direction of the front foot.
- Change the direction and roll again. The posture with which you are more comfortable will be your skating posture.
Test The Performance Of Your Front Foot
You can test both methods on your skateboard for your goofy vs. regular stance verification. Mount your skateboard on a comprehensive and plain surface. Place your feet according to your comfortable stance or the one you think is right. Now move your back foot and carefully lower it on the ground while the front foot is on the deck. Now push the skateboard with the back foot. Make a few attempts and repeat the method with the changed position. Now use the posture you think you are more comfortable with and start learning more challenging tricks.
Use Posture For Other Sports
If practicing different techniques shows that the stance you are comfortable with is the same one you use for other sports like snowboarding, surfing, skiing, etc then this stance is your confirmed posture. Therefore, stick to it and practice different tricks with it.
Which Stance Is Best For Skateboarding Goofy Or Regular?
Stance or body posture is related to balancing only. If you are more comfortable with your posture, you will experience enhanced balance. This increased balance will let you perform intricate skateboarding tricks easily. Therefore, no matter which stance you choose; regular or goofy, make sure you are comfortable with it.
