With all of us having the shared goal of getting to the nose & hanging those piggies over, a common mistake I see people make is trying to get to the nose without any sort of foundation in place.

While this is totally understandable (I did this when I was learning how too), it’s also the wrong approach – it’s like learning to run before you can walk & can actually hinder your longboarding progression.

So until you’re comfortable cross stepping & turning, I’d forget about the nose for a second & follow this progression plan:

longboard Progression plan

1) Practice cross stepping between the middle of your board & the tail. Notice how you slow down when walking back & then speed up again when walking to the middle. Do this when simply trimming along a wave face to get a feel for how the board responds & get more comfortable cross stepping in general.

2) Once you’re comfortable with the above, do it again but with a turn thrown in. Cross step back, turn, cross step forward. Again, notice how the board responds & more importantly, notice how your positioning on the wave has now changed too.

Practicing those 2 points above will give you a solid foundation for cross stepping, learning how to change direction, & learning how to change positioning on the wave face. Once you’re comfortable with that, you’re nearly there:

3) Practice cross stepping from the middle of your board to the front third & back to the middle. Again, notice how moving forward speeds you up & moving back slows you down. This will be a little more subtle than moving between the middle & back thirds, but it still applies.

At this point you should be able to traverse most of the length of your board by cross stepping & also able to turn comfortably. This is a really solid foundation for your longboarding & getting to the nose will be a natural next step from here.

Just make sure you’re noseriding in the right section of the wave (see tip 7) & getting your timing right (see tip 16) & it will all come together!

🙋 Looking for more personalized advice? Try a video analysis or 1:1 mentor session

🙏 Enjoying this series? Share the stoke & buy me a beer! 😄🍻