Different Styles Of Skimboarding

Many people don't know that there are many different ways to ride a skimboard. You can either glide over a layer of water or glide across wet sand to a wave or ride in shallow water towards the ocean; this is also known as flatland or inland skimming. Most of the flatland skimming takes place over rivers or tide flats.

Wave riding is definitely more advanced than skimboarding on flatland. Flatlanding is becoming more and more popular though. Over the years people have developed ramps, advanced rails and technical tricks.

Every skimboarder had to first learn how to ride a skimboard by first throwing it down while running then jumping onto the board. After people have mastered the basics they can they can move to more complicated tricks, or riding waves, grinding rails, or other skateboarding type techniques.

Watching an advanced skimboarder perform tricks and techniques though is a very impressive show just because of the amount of skill and talent it takes to do what they do.

One advanced move is called the 'Wrap." This is when the skimboarder reaches the wave, by shifting their weight the skimboarder can wrap around it, which also propels them back to shore. To take it a step further, a very advanced move is called the "Wrap Barrel."

This is when you wrap the wave, but instead of coming directly back to shore, you turn farther and get into the barrel of the wave.

Another technique that is used often to reach "hard-to-reach waves" is "side-slipping." It involves doing the normal one-step but once the rider has landed on the board, they turn the skimboard sideways and crouch into balance, approaching the wave rail-first. This technique allows for the rider to have much less surface friction which allows the rider to keep a faster speed which is different than the traditional way of going straight out into the on-coming wave.

Another technique involves "pumping the board" both leading to and once on a wave to maintain speed.

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SkimBoard Pros

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