How to Stop on a Longboard

If you are just getting into longboarding, there are a variety of skills that you will need to learn. One of the most important skills that you need to learn is how to stop on a longboard. Of course, getting up to high speeds is a lot of fun.

However, riding really fast won’t do you any good if you don’t know how to stop. If you don’t know how to stop, you are undoubtedly going to get hurt.

Therefore, how to stop on a longboard is exactly what we are going to teach you today. As you are going to find out below, there are various ways to slow down and to stop on a longboard.

How to Stop on a Longboard: Five Different Ways

As mentioned above, there are many different ways to slow down and to stop on a longboard, five ways to be exact. Let’s take a closer look at the five different ways to stop on a longboard.

1. Foot Braking

One of the most common ways to stop on a longboard is by foot braking. Foot braking is when you take one foot off of the longboard and place it on the ground. The point here is of course to place your foot on the ground in to apply a lot of pressure to slow yourself down.

One of the most important things you need to learn when foot braking is to balance on one leg while using the other to slow down. The foot that remains on the longboard needs to hold all of your weight while the other leg does the braking.

Foot braking is done by dragging your back foot on the ground to slow yourself down by producing friction. Keep in mind that not only are you using your back foot, but also the heel of your back foot. You don’t want to put your toes down on the ground, as this can cause injury.

You are using the back portion, the heel, of your back foot. Remember, if you apply too much pressure, you might come to a dead stop and go flying. The hardest thing to learn about foot braking on a longboard is how much pressure to apply.

2. Carving

Foot braking is a great technique for stopping, but it will destroy your shoes. Moreover, if you are traveling at the great speeds, foot braking can be extremely difficult and risky too. Therefore, you first need to slow your long board down to the point where you can use your foot to totally stop.

One of the best ways to slow down is to carve. This is where you turn back and forth constantly while leaning into the hill. This is almost as if you were going uphill. This is the exact same method that both snowboarders and skiers used to slow down and to stop.

Here, the point is to turn with an angle that is sharp enough to cause your wheels to almost start sliding.

This means that you need to be adept at making very tight turns without wiping out. This is a skill that requires great practice to master. However, it is by far one of the most effective ways of slowing down safely.

3. Slide Stopping

The fastest way to stop on a longboard is by sliding. However, it’s also by far the hardest and the most dangerous technique. If we were to compare this to another sport, we would compare it to skating.

Just imagine how a skater slides sideways to come to a quick stop. This is exactly what happens on a longboard. Simply put, what you’re doing here is turning the board sideways so that the wheels don’t roll.

The wheels are going to slide sideways against the pavement, thus slowing you down really quickly. With that being said, it is quite dangerous because you can easily go flying off of the longboard if you don’t have a good balance.

It’s also something that is going to quite quickly destroy the wheels on your longboard. All of that said, if you are traveling at very high speeds and need to brake quickly, this is the fastest way to do so.

4. Ride onto Rough Terrain

If you aren’t going too fast, and you aren’t good at breaking on a longboard, then riding onto a rough surface is a good way to slow down and even to fully stop. Gravel, dirt, sand, and grass are all surfaces that are going to slow you down.

If you roll onto them, you will slow down and eventually come to a stop. It’s not the fastest way to slow down, but it is fairly safe. Obviously, the best option here is grass.

That said, keep in mind that if you hit something like deep and soft sand or thick grass, it can slow you down extremely quickly and throw you off the board. However, if the option is either rolling onto the grass or hitting a car, then the choice is quite obvious.

5. Stop Pushing and Jump Off the Longboard

If you aren’t riding very fast and you are on relatively smooth and flat terrain, you can just stop pushing. Due to the way in which physics works, when you stop pushing, you will slow down, and eventually stop.

If you are riding at a relatively slow pace, no faster than walking speed, you can just hop off the board and then catch it with your hands.

If you are going way too fast, and you have absolutely no other options, your last choice is going to be to bail off the board. If you are forced to bail off a longboard, remember to tuck your head and roll.

Stopping on a Longboard – Final Thoughts

You should now have all of the knowledge that you need to effectively and quickly stop on a longboard in a safe manner.