How to Crawl Drop
Crawl Drop aka Monkey Crawl, is a rather unique way to approach getting on your skimboard. It requires that you bend down to the surface you are dropping on and crawl on to the board rather than your standard up and stepping on technique. Crawl ultimately makes it easier to control the board when doing really deep water drops. It can also help in windy conditions. Since this is a beginner skim tips information we will only be discussing entry-level techniques to get comfortable with doing the crawl drop.
When first learning a new drop or trick it’s important to start slow and easy, working in muscle memory and getting a feel for things at an easy pace will make progression a lot smoother and less frustrating.
Last thing you want to do is hurt yourself so stay in your comfort zone. first thing we will go over is where to position yourself on the beach.
Positioning
When learning and getting comfortable it’s best to give yourself plenty of calm open space down on the wet sand, enough room to where you can run drop and slide for a couple of seconds. This will give you a great opportunity to feel everything out and get comfortable with all the motions without having a bunch of waves and slope making things harder.
Another key thing to have is a beach that is more flatland rather than big slope. Having a slope to drop on requires skill in itself where flatland is a lot more forgiving in many ways.
Read the waves and make sure you won’t have any incoming waves that will hinder your ride. Allow for a good amount of backwash to recede and go for the highest part of the wet sand that you can. Taking advantage of as much clean open space as possible. This lets you get on the board and slide without having obstacles and other things that make it more difficult to learn.
Pushing Start
hardest part about learning the crawl drop is bending down and placing the board on the ground while running. There is a tricky part where you need to pull your fingers onto the top side of the deck as you’re pushing down so that you don’t get your fingers stuck underneath as you make ground contact. What I found best is to start your crawl drop being already bent over with the hands placed on the top of the board. This way you can push the board along and start to get a steady run and crawl without having to do the bending over and finger adjustments.
Hand Placement
With a pushing start I like to have my hands right next to where each of my feet will be holding the board anywhere from 45 to 90 degrees. I ride with my right foot in the front so my right hand is placed forwards. As you push the board across the sand you can adjust your hands to better suit where you feel comfortable.
Skimboard Orientation
Orientation of the board is a big factor. 45-degree angle is just about the sweet spot when it comes to almost any drop. Pushing your board at this angle will be more comfortable and make the distance your front foot house to travel shorter allowing for a smoother transition and quicker side slip.
Getting Your Feet on the Skimboard
when it comes to the point where you are going to crawl onto the board your last step will be made with the foot that you place on the front of the board while riding. After that step your back foot will come onto the board. Lean forward and bring your front foot on and lift your hands off the deck. Keep your knees bent and your shoulders slightly forward and at this point you should be standing up. Make foot adjustments if you happen to step on in the wrong spots.
Repetition is the key to success. You should be starting off slow and easy. As you practice this way going back and forth across a beach you should eventually start to feel it get easier. best way to gauge how good you are at something in skimboarding is by how well you can do it while running full speed. Basically you want to practice this technique until you feel comfortable going full speed with it. Once you start getting consistent full speed runs you should be ready to move on to standing starts.
Standing Starts
Now that you have gone comfortable with full speed push starts you should be ready to try standing starts. This is the tricky part where you need to bend down while running and adjust your fingers to the top of the deck at the same time. This part can be sketchy as you’re going to basically be diving your face towards the floor, take it slow and easy to help prevent injury. You will basically apply all the same steps from the push start, starting with plenty of clean open space, get a light run to gather momentum.
As you start to run you can hold the board in the regular way but as you get ready to drop you can then adjust the board to a 45 degree angle. Hands more up front, board held slightly closer to the chest and leaning forward. Finding a nice spot to land the drop get in your last couple steps for momentum and start to lean towards the ground. Once you’re ready to go all the way down bring the board towards the ground out in front of you. At the very last moment you will need to pull your fingers out from under the board. This is going to mean you lose grasp of the board so you’ll need to add extra pressure with your elbows as you bend down to keep the board in contact with the palm of your hands. Once you’re down you can then step onto the board with your back foot first and follow the same steps from the push start.
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