By Sofia D.-P., Puma Press Web Editor-in-Chief

Math teacher and Skate Club adviser Dan Chestnut has been skateboarding for more than 30 years.

“I was playing music when I was a kid in punk rock bands. And back then, nobody skateboarded,” Dan said. “And the other people that were skateboarding were some of the punk rock kids. So I tried it out, and it was pretty fun. So then I kept doing it.”

Back when Dan was learning, there was no YouTube to quickly look up a tutorial of how to do a certain trick, or even really get started. He learned through friends and VHS skating tapes.

“It’s a lot of trial and error, which is a good way to learn in general,” Dan said. “It’ll take you like a month just to be able to get the board off the ground, of practicing every day. When you want to learn how to kickflip, it’ll take like, three months or a year of just trying to get the board to flip over right. And you have to try it hundreds or thousands of times so it works.”

When skateboarding, the most important thing you can have is consistency, according to Dan.

“You gotta keep doing it,” He said. “And you’re going to look like an idiot when you’re trying to ollie and you can’t ollie. You just got to keep doing it. I remember all the tricks I learned looked terrible for weeks and weeks and weeks until your body kind of gets the right muscle memory to make everything happen in the right sequence and the right timing to make the trick pop out.”

Getting Started

Basics

1. Learn how to ride on the board
2. Learn how to ride one-footed
3. Kick and push off comfortably
4. Get off the board safely

Learning Tricks

1. Get the board off the ground
2. Study the trick you want to learn
3. Practice consistently

Tricks

Ollie: One of the most fundamental skateboarding tricks where the rider and board leap into the air without the use of the rider’s hands. Necessary for jumping onto, over or off obstacles.

Kickflip: A kickflip is the next step up from an ollie. In a kickflip, the rider jumps vertically, then uses their front foot to flip the board so that it spins in the air before landing.

Heelflip (Dan’s favorite): Similar to a kickflip but the rider flips the board the other way while in the air.

“With the heelflip, the board rotates a little slower, you catch it on your heels, underneath your feet, in a cooler way than the kickflip,” Dan says. “I think kickflips are easier, but heelflips are more like a glide, floaty.”

A Q&A WITH THE PUMA PRESS WEB EDITOR-IN-CHIEF SOFIA D.-G. 

How did you come up with this story idea?

I wasn’t the one who came up with the idea. I think it was Carter H., one of our print editors-in-chief, who came up with it and a bunch of other people jumped on the bandwagon, so to speak. 

What surprised you while working on this article?

I was surprised at the amount of commitment that goes into skateboarding and getting good at it. That was something Mr. Chestnut really emphasized: the importance of practicing every day and just putting in the work to get good.

What did you learn while working on this piece?

I learned a lot about skateboarding culture and what it takes to learn tricks, along with how Mr. Chestnut came to skateboard and why he continues to do so. I had done a bit of skateboarding when I was a kid, but it was at a very, very low level. It was nice to see what that could become if you really put your heart into it. 

What have you learned from Journalism class this year?

If there is one thing that I have taken away from this whole year of school is that journalism is an essential part of my life. Not just learning how to report better, design better, or edit better, although I have done that, but all the connections I have made and relationships I have built with the class and our community have improved me for the better. Journalism is so good because it allows you to explore our community and meet and talk with people you could have never expected to, as well as impacting the greater UPrep community in a positive way. 

To read more articles from The Puma Press, click here.