Mastering freestyle footwork: tips and tricks

A flatground skater might do a trick like a kickflip…and then they might push. Then they’ll push again. And then…a pop shuvit…Whereas freestyle is a little bit more about those in-between moments, those little footwork pieces, the little details that spice up the banger tricks that you have.

Sarah Park-matott in ‘how to freestyle smoother | linking tricks’ (2024)

What separates a freestyler from a street skater who does freestyle tricks?

Unlike a street skater, a freestyler has a different kind of flow. Once they reach a certain level of proficiency, not only does each trick seem effortless, they transition seamlessly.

There is what freestylers call ‘footwork’ that is unique to the discipline. If you skated street, vert, or park, rolling, pushing and pumping is what happens between tricks. In freestyle, footwork happens.

Footwork helps link seemingly disparate sets of tricks into one uniform whole. They get the skater spatially from A to B. They are the respite from the drama of flashy combos. And if used elegantly and creatively, they can become a skater’s signature style. The closest approximation to freestyle footwork is longboard dancing, though the two are not exactly the same.

Unlike rail, casper, truck, and ollie/flip tricks, footwork can take months, sometimes years, to become proficient, but once someone has mastered it, it is magical to watch.

It’s never too early to start working on footwork, and there’s no such thing as too much footwork preparation.

Footwork for Beginner Freestylers

There are already several online videos explaining how to endover/monster walk, walk-the-dog, etc., so we’re not going to repeat that here.

What we do want to emphasise is that, unlike other tricks, footwork takes an age to master, so you might want to start practising footwork as soon as you’re comfortable riding your board.

In a walk-the-dog tutorial, Sarah Park-Matott recommended combining current trick battles with footwork to incrementally improve the latter; we think this is a great idea. Learning how to get into toeside rail? Put two walk-the-dogs in front of every rail entry. Obsessed with shuvits? Do two backside endovers before your backside pop-shuv.

Footwork for Intermediate Freestylers

Footwork for Advanced Freestylers

Freestyle has been around for over half a century. Sometimes it’s hard creating something that hasn’t been done before.

We thought of an exercise that may help forge new connections between tricks. It’s based on the ‘cut-up technique’ that writers and other creatives have been using since the 1920s*.

On a piece of paper, write down a list of footwork that you can do. Cut it up and then toss the pieces around in a bag and pull out three tricks. You can try to combo these three tricks, either in order of how they were picked or in no particular order. Hopefully these spontaneous pairings will force you to try something different, something ingenious perhaps.

Setups for Footwork

Unlike rail tricks and truck tricks, freestyle footwork is fairly easy to learn on most skateboards. Yup, you can learn a lot of footwork on a popsicle board with regular wheels and bushings, while you contemplate committing to a dedicated setup; it’s just more challenging, especially if your popsicle deck has steep concave.

While researching this topic, we asked a bunch of freestylers what they thought about footwork-specific setups. It was hard to find consensus, but there was one thing the freestylers all agreed on: loose trucks hinder footwork.

But how tight do you need to go? The tighter the truck, the more precise tic-tac/pivot-style tricks and 360 spins will feel. Nevertheless, a little bit of squishiness is desirable for footwork tricks with a carving component (i.e. flamingoes).

Additionally, skidplates are handy for preserving your kicks when learning manuals, tailstop shuffles, and spacewalks, while less abrasive griptape will help preserve your shoes.

A (Not Quite) Definitive List of Footwork

It’s hard to search for online tutorials if you don’t know the trick names. Here’s some freestyle footwork names to feed the search engines:

Before We Go

Footwork is wild. It takes effort to tame it, but it is an awesome, fun, brain-stretching kind of thing that’s unique to freestyle. Practise it compulsively, so that one day you can dance around next to the sea like this:

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*Some extra reading: BBC News’ ‘What is the Cut-Up Method?’ (2015) explains the evolution of this arty technique, from its Dadaist origins to 21st-century video cut-ups by Lenka Clayton.