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Moving is defiantly needed! If you can't move there is little else to do on your board. This the hardest thing to explain and there is no way that once you have read this you will be able just to get on a snakeboard and go, there is no secret to it, it is just plain old practice which works best (it's embarrassing to admit, but with no help what so ever it took me around two months just to move). This practicing will be all most for nothing however unless some one points you in the right directions and explains the basics.
1.
First of all you have to find out if you are 'regular' or 'goofy' (left foot facing forward is regular, right foot is goofy), you can find this out by standing on a gentle hill and you will naturally go the way you want to (if you don't find the way you want to go by doing this you're weird, just joking, choose the way you want to go). I recommend going down this hill until you feel comfortable with it, then progress to a steeper hill. once this has been achieved try wiggling the plates on the board as if you were moving by yourself.
2.
Take your board to a flat smooth surface and try to wiggle your plates without moving, try to stir your back foot in a figure of eight (you should now be moving...if not very slowly). All I can say after that is practice makes perfect, and fiddle around with different movements.
3.
Once you can move practice going along up small hills, this will help you build speed when going along on flat.
Hope this diagram helps.
NO JOKE! jumping or ollieing (ollie is a term for jumping) is as easy as breathing, just jump as if you didn't have the board attached to you.
Jumping ramps is a little harder, it uses the same principle and is as easy to do but it's harder to land, remember to keep the board parallel to the ground when in the air (unless you are trying a flip, which I don't recommend if you are reading this to try to learn new stuff).
There are literally hundreds of grabs, at the moment I can't be bothered to name them all. If you are new to all of this stuff you will almost certainly be able to pull of an 'Indy'. This is where you grab the front of the bar with your back hand. remember the longer you hold the grab the better it looks (and the more likely you are to bail). When you have mastered this try grabbing a different part of the board.
Spins are easy if you can go fluently 'fakey' (backwards), '180's' look good no matter were you do them, just as long as you don't fall over.
360's are harder but you can cheat them so that you only have to turn in the air '270' which looks just as good.
HOW TO CHEAT '360's'
As you go along ready to make the jump turn '90' quickly then jump the remaining '270', no one will notice if you do it cleanly, but soon you will find that you no longer need to cheat and that you can do it anyway. This technique is very useful for all big spins so TRY IT OUT!
Like grabs there are loads of different types.
For beginners I recommend '50 50s', this is when you 'wax up' a curb and ollie straight onto it with both 'trucks'(axles)in contact with the curb(hopefully you will slide for a few feet), then before you fall over or stop jump back off into the road.
Once this is accomplished try lifting the front foot as you slide, this is called a 50 (pronounced 5 oh). There are loads of variations of this as well as 'bar slides', try different things out and find one you really like, then maybe try something higher like a small wall then a hand rail.
1.
Find a small 'mini ramp' and stand on the drop in area (with your board on), watch other skaters do it and see how they lean forward as they enter the ramp from the 'coping' (metal pole placed across lip of ramp). DON'T STAND UP THERE FOR TOO LONG, get ready, put your trucks on the coping in a '50 50' position
2.
Spin on your back tuck 90 degrees and lean forward, hopefully you didn't bail. And now you should feel pretty chuffed with your self. Don't get too happy just yet because you'll find your self riding up the other side of the ramp and not really having a clue of what to do. RELAX. Keep going until you feel yourself slowing down then simply turn 180 and exit the ramp. NOW you can feel happy, because you did it. If you didn't you are probably still lying on the ramp with a sore elbow, GET OF THE RAMP because other people will want to have a go. But try again SOON. If you don't try it sooner than later you will start to tell your self that it was much harder and more painful than it truly was.
If you master this try bigger ramps, and get really good
This is the most important thing to do when on a ramp, it's as important as 'psquiffing',(pronounced P-squiff-ing, yer it sounds weird but moving along doesn't really have a name so I have come up with this, also it maches the whole action of movement - weird!)if you can't pump GET OF THE RAMP. Lucky for you it's easier than learning to psquiff, all you do is crouch as you are at a diagonal to the ramp (see diagram if confused) and push down with your legs. If you still havn't a clue watch how people that can do it do it.
Like everything else practice and manipulation is the key, so try 'pumping' in different places in the ramp.
Pulling tricks on ramps is easy if you can do the trick you want to do on flat land all ready. Just do the same except position your board so that you do not 'stack up' (fall over) on the coping.
If you're going for a grind you will find that you have to approach the coping at an angle (because if you don't all you will do is stall, not grind.
If you want to get air from the pipe just ollie as if you were trying to get back on the coping, But do not level out, instead stay parallel to the surface of the ramp, make sure you are not going to clip the coping on the way down, and you should make it. I suggest that you should just do a 180 so that you don't face fakey when you land. You won't however be able to get any air on a mini ramp so don't feel disheartened if you have tried that before.
I think I have covered most areas of basic snaking in this trick tips page, but if you have any questions please ask me.
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