Skimboarding Tricks: Backside (BS) 360 shuvit

How to do a 360 shuvit on a skimboard
A 360 shuvit can be done frontside or backside. This tutorial will focus on the 360 backside shuvit. A 360 shuvit is performed by "shuving" the board around 360 degrees while you are in the air. For a 360 backside shuvit, the board will rotate clockwise for a regular footed rider and counter-clockwise for a goofy footed rider. This is accomplished by sweeping your rear foot backwards as you jump into the air. The board will rotate underneath you. Watch the board and catch it with your feet as you come back down. If you have "shuved" it hard enough it will rotate a full 360 degrees around and you can land and continue riding.



Tips:

Get your knees up.
The higher you lift your knees towards your chest, the longer the board will have to spin underneath you. You will not have to try to spin the board so fast if the board has more time to spin underneath you. This will allow you to put less effort into the spin and it will become a more relaxed fluid motion rather than a quick jerky motion that can throw off your balance and make it difficult to complete the trick.

Be confident
You need to commit fully to the trick. Get your feet off the board and get your knees up. Watch the board spin around underneath you, catch it with your feet, and stick it.

Strengthen your legs.
It takes quite a bit of leg strength to be able to get the board to rotate 360 degrees in the short time that you are in the air. Try this experiment. Hold your skimboard at about chest height over the water. Now spin it in the air. Try to spin it hard enough that it will rotate more than 360 degrees before it lands on the water. Chances are, it didn't make it much more that 360 degrees if that. And it was dropping from a height of around 4 feet and was most likely in the air much longer than the board (or you) would be while doing a 360 shuvit. Granted, your legs are stronger than you arms, but hopefully the demonstration helped show you the kind of strength required to get the board around 360 degrees. If your legs aren't strong enough, you will find it takes a great effort to be able to "shuv" the board around the 360 degrees. This needs to be easy for you, not difficult. If it is not an easy fluid motion, but a "put all your effort into it" jerky motion, it will probably throw you off balance and make it difficult to land the shuvit. By increasing your leg strength and particularly the muscles used to "shuv" the board around, you will find yourself more in control and able to land the shuvit much easier. So how can you increase the strength in your legs for this particular movement? By doing it...a lot! That becomes difficult when your skimboarding because while skimming, each attempt also takes a lot of energy running to get on the skimboard. Here is a way to get a lot of shuvits in, without burning up energy running. Do them on carpet without the running. When I was first trying to get the 360 shuvit down, I would try to do about 100 shuvits a night on the carpet. (Although I didn't start out with 100 my first night, I worked my way up to 100.) It's not exactly the same as in the water, but it will definitely help you build up the strength you need in your legs to get the 360 shuvit down.


Stay over the top of the board.
This is key in most tricks. Lots of times as people begin to try the 360 shuvit they end up "shuving" the board right out from underneath them. This usually happens for a couple of reasons. One, the skimboarder has leaned back to far. Often, particularly when trying to get some "pop", there is a tendency to lean back. This puts your center of gravity too far back. You want to keep your center of gravity between your legs. For more discussion on this see the ollie tutorial. When leaning back, most of the time the board will shoot out from underneath the skimboarder, but even if the skimboarder manages to keep the board in close vicinity, they will find it near impossible to land the trick. The second reason the board ends up flying away from the rider is that they have tried to “shuv” the board too hard with a quick jerky motion as opposed to a more smooth relaxed fluid motion. By gaining leg strength and getting your knees up, you will be able to make the shuving motion much more fluid. Again, it is important to keep the board underneath you.

Try to land "softly" on the board.
Don’t land straight legged. Make sure that your knees are bent when you land. This will do two things. One, it will keep your center of gravity lower which will make it easier for you to stay in control. Second, by landing with your knees bent, you can absorb the impact of the landing and make it much more smooth.

Practice in shallow water
When trying to get down the 360 shuvit, practice in very shallow water; as shallow as you can get it. 360 shuvits are easier in more shallow water. Don’t worry about pop at first. Just get use to getting the board around and landing them every time. Once you get them down, then you can start working on getting some pop.

Getting Pop
To get some pop in your 360 shuvit, you are going to need to push down on the back of the board while simultaneously "shuving" it. Here is the deal though, while learning to get some pop, don't focus much on "popping" the board. Focus on bending your knees and then exploding into the air. What you will find is the board will naturally follow you into the air. As you get a feel for this, you can then begin to focus on getting more pop by "popping" that back foot harder. (See the ollie tutorial for more discussion on "popping" the board.)

Forget everything you have just read
All the things that you have read are good tips but sometimes you can over think things. Now I don’t want you to literally go and forget everything, but my point is, make sure you RELAX. Be smooth. Don't over think it.

Skimboarding Tricks: Ollie

How to ollie a skimboard.

In order to ollie, you need to find some deeper water or dig an ollie pit. It should be at least 4 inches deep. As you approach the deeper water, your feet should be about shoulder width with your back foot as far back as you can put it. Your knees should be bent quite a bit, keeping your center of gravity low. Once you get to the deep water, slam down with your back foot and then explode upwards, with your front leg coming off the board first and most of your force being generated by your back leg. Once your back foot is off the board, pull both legs up towards your chest. Flatten out the board with your front foot while it is in the air. As you come down, make sure the board is as flat as possible. When you land absorb the impact with your legs.

Tips

Squat down and bend your knees!
It is very important to have your knees bent dramatically when approaching your ollie. The reason for this is because you can only ollie as high as you can jump, and if you don’t bend your knees, you can’t jump very high. Let’s try an experiment. Stand up. Lock your knees straight. Now jump as high as you can, keeping your knees locked…or at least try to jump. If you used some momentum from your arms and have strong calves, you may have gotten off the ground a few inches. Now bend your knees so your hips drop a few inches. Jump as high as you can without bending you knees any further. You probably got a bit higher. Now squat down and jump as high as you can. You can jump much higher when you bend your knees and are able to use your upper leg muscles. When you ollie, make sure you squat down and bend your knees! You can only ollie as high as you can jump.

Keep your center of gravity over the center of the board.

Do not lean back when you push down on the back of the board. This will pop the board out from under you making it impossible for you to land your ollie and ride it out. Keep your body straight up and down. If you were to draw a line straight down from your head, it should hit your board half way in between your front and back foot. If your head gets over, or past, your back foot, you’ve leaned back. Don’t! Press straight down with your back foot.

Speed is crucial.

The faster you are going, the higher you will be able to ollie. Most of your speed is generated in your running approach. Some extra momentum can be gained as you step onto your board. Practice going fast!

Ollie over something.
Having something to ollie over helps with a number of different aspects. First of all, it gives you a goal. It will help you get your timing down. It will also help you hit your ollie pit. Start out small and work your way up.

Use your front foot to level out the board.
Leveling out the board in the air will do two things for you. First, it will increase your overall height. Second, in order for you to ride out your ollie, you need to land with the board flat on the water.


Now it’s time for a quiz. What is wrong with the following ollie attempt?

Yup, you got it.
Knees are not bent enough and leaning too far back.

How to ollie higher.
There are three keys to ollieing higher. Go faster, push down quicker and harder with your back foot, and jump higher. Building strength in your legs will help with all three. You will be able to run faster and get more speed on your skimboard. When you're going faster, it becomes more difficult to push down on the back of the board. Remember, when you push down on the back of the board it needs to be a quick pop with lots of power. Increased leg strength will help with the pop. Finally, as your legs get stronger, you will be able to jump higher.