Somedays skateboarding is not an option. It’s hot. It’s raining. It’s nighttime. You’re tired from work or the giant skate sesh from the day prior. You’re injured. Some days are just carpet-boarding days.
What is carpet boarding?
The name pretty much sums it up: stationary skateboard tricks on a skateboard deck, usually on a carpeted surface.
Carpet boarding is generally safer than skateboarding because there are no slip outs and it’s harder to roll an ankle or fracture a foot, making it a great confidence builder for beginners or for anyone learning a new trick.
It also requires less space. A couple of square metres is usually enough room for some carpet boarding.
However, carpet boarding isn’t necessarily easier than regular skateboarding; ollie kickflips, for instance, can be a challenge due to the reduced pop.
Additionally, carpet boarding is not risk free. As per video below, falling still happens. Sometimes you even land in rail (which is really not fun while carpet boarding).
So before your carpet-boarding sesh, clear the area of obstacles. Wear skate shoes. Use protective gear if you think you’ll need it. If you’re already injured, you may want to check in with your doctor or physiotherapist to determine which tricks are okay to do.
Most skateboarders will be familiar with practising street tricks on a carpet board. Shuvits, ollies, kickflips and heelflips are all fair game.
But can you freestyle on a carpet board?
According to YouTuber Midnight Snack Skateboarding, you can ‘pretty much practice any trick you want to on a carpet board [but] just know that some are going to be way harder than others’ (The Best Carpetboarding Techniques! (Skateboarding in the Winter), 30 Jan 2023).
Freestyle is definitely possible on a carpet board. Freestyle kickflips, caspers, yoyo hops, and fingerflips all function on a carpet board.
It is also possible to practise freestyle footwork such as monster walks and endovers, smoothies and jaywalks, walk-the-dogs and walk-the-cows.
However, some stationary freestyle trick categories are incompatible with carpet boarding, chiefly rail tricks and truck tricks. These require trucks and or wheels to function.
What carpet board should I use for freestyle?
Freestyle decks are expensive and hard to come by, so it’s okay if you don’t have a spare freestyle deck that can be used for carpet boarding. Any type of skateboard deck will do as a carpet board.
Just be mindful that the more different your carpet board is from your freestyle skateboard, the more adjustments you need to make when switching between carpet and concrete. For instance, a wider carpet board will flip slower for freestyle kickflips and fingerflips. Differently angled kicks or switching between double and single kicks will make caspers and fingerflips feel different. A change in concave and or wheelbase will impact footwork.
Both new and retired decks can be used for carpet boarding. New decks are great for footwork and tricks like tailstop underflips, since there won’t be any casper griptape (griptape on the graphic side of the kicks) catching the carpet on the pivot or scoop. Retired decks with attached griptape and skid plates will be the best approximation of actual skateboarding for tricks like caspers and fingerflips.
Need more inspiration?
Back in the COVD-19 days, Waltz Skateboarding’s Mike Osterman did a freestyle carpet-boarding video. As well as caspers and freestyle kickflips, he attempted nosehook impossibles, varial tail underflips, varial fingerflips, 360 fingerflips, kickflip to casper, and some very sketchy tailstop to rail things.
Phillip Wingett of Plus One Skateboarding also made a freestyle carpet-boarding video. In it, he messed around with freestyle kickflips, shuvits, caspers (including caveman to casper), fingerflips, hand flips, popcorn stomps, walk-the-dogs, switchblades, and some other cool stuff.
Both videos are testaments to how much fun freestyle tricks on a carpet board can be. So, next time the weather sucks or you’re needing a lighter sesh, why not give carpet boarding a go?