How to Ride Fakie on a Skateboard

Photo by Jose Vicario from Unsplash

Becoming really good at skateboarding often means that you have to get really good at feeling uncomfortable and maintain a willingness to learn and improve. Skateboarders are masters of adaptability, and this is something that helps propel them forward in their mastery of their craft! Remembering to stay resilient and to try again each time you fall is hard. But each time you try a new trick again, you’re getting that much better at skateboarding!

It’s important to have that sort of mindset when skateboarding, because let’s face it, learning new tricks can be uncomfortable and difficult! And that is the truth when learning how to ride fakie. Riding fakie opens up so many opportunities for new tricks on flat ground, bowls, and all sorts of other areas that it really is a fundamental skill to skateboarding. What is riding fakie? Well, simply put, it’s riding backwards on your skateboard. Like I said, getting good at skateboarding means that you gotta get good at feeling uncomfortable at first.

If you’ve just started learning to ride, take some time to develop your basic skills, like stopping, turning, and riding, before attempting to learn to ride fakie. But if you’ve got the basics covered, let’s add on this new trick, riding backward on your skateboard, to your routine! In this post, you’ll learn:

• What’s the difference between riding fakie and switch?
• Why riding fakie is important?
• Helpful tips to help you master riding fakie!

Let’s get started!

What’s the difference between riding fakie (backward) and switch on a skateboard?

As mentioned earlier, riding fakie is simply riding backwards on your skateboard. But how is that different than riding switch? Well, there are a few subtle differences to understand which will help clear this up.

When riding fakie, you will be in the same position that you normally are in when riding in your preferred stance (regular or goofy). Most of the time, you will start in your normal stance and as you go up a bowl or ramp in that stance, you’ll end up going back down if you don’t have the right momentum. Instead of turning your board around to ride down the incline the way you normally would, you stay in the same position that you were in going up the ramp! 

The foot that was standing near the tail becomes your new front foot and the foot that was near the front bolts is now your new back foot. The balance is going to feel a lot different on your skateboard due to your body weight being in a different place than it normally is when riding forward.

This is different from riding switch in that when riding switch, your feet are on the board in the opposite stance than you normally ride. If you ride regular, your left foot is forward on the board. If you ride goofy, your right foot is forward on the board. To ride switch, you simply step onto the board in the stance that you normally don’t use.

Photo by Lucas Lenzi from Unsplash

Why is learning to ride fakie important?

Learning to ride fakie is important for a few reasons. The first is that you need to feel comfortable riding on your skateboard in as many ways as possible so that you can roll away from tricks in just about any stance. This will increase the odds of landing a trick successfully because your body will be used to standing and balancing on the skateboard, regardless of how you land on it.

Riding fakie is also really important to being able to connect turns in bowls and in vert ramps like the quarter pipe and half pipe. Turning your board 180° to go back down a ramp needs to happen quickly and sometimes isn’t possible at certain rates of speed. Learning to ride fakie will give you more options to connect your turns and continue to flow through your routine.

Plus, riding fakie on a skateboard is important to learning exciting new tricks! Skateboarding is a hard sport to master in its own right but adding in the element of riding backwards makes tricks like ollies, shuvits, and grinds that much more difficult. 

Helpful tips to help you master riding fakie on a skateboard!

Learning any new trick requires a good environment to learn in. Two things to consider when learning to ride fakie or any other trick is to remember these two things: right place and right space. Find the right place to practice by looking for an open area that is safe, smooth, and flat to ensure that you don’t have any unexpected obstacles to avoid when riding. Find the right space by examining your head space. Make sure that you are in a good place to try and fail over and over again! Remember to be patient with yourself and that learning a new trick takes time.

Once you’re in the right place and space, let’s begin learning to ride fakie by just standing on the skateboard in your normal stance. Change your point of view by looking forward and backward to get comfortable with facing each way. 

After you feel comfortable facing backward, try to find a slight incline to roll down while in your fakie stance. Roll down straight at first and as you become more comfortable, try to add in some turns to increase your comfortability riding fakie.

Finally, find a small half pipe to work on getting tons of reps in. Start by dropping into the half pipe in your normal stance and roll to the top of the opposite side of the half pipe. As you reach the top of the ramp, simply let your board run out of momentum and wait for it to start rolling backwards and just go with it! Rock back and forth on the halfpipe like this and you’ll master riding fakie in no time.

Final Thoughts

Learning to ride fakie is an important progression in learning how to master skateboarding. It can feel uncomfortable and unstable at first, but as you practice, you’ll be able to overcome those feelings. Stay consistent and make sure to practice in a place and space that will allow you to get plenty of reps in. Let us know how it goes by leaving a comment below!