Everybody who’s stepped on a skateboard within the past five years has heard of Braille Skateboarding. They are one of the most prominent skating companies of the past decade and continue to grow. It all started with Aaron Kyro designing a business model around making skateboarding more accessible to everyone worldwide. In 2013 he released one of Braille’s first products, Skateboarding Made Simple Volume 1. It’s an e-book that serves as a starter guide for people who are interested in skateboarding or have just gotten their first board and don’t know how to get started. I bought this book shortly after it came out and knew most of the tricks by then. I was still curious about how this is structured. Teaching skateboarding to others is one of my favorite aspects of skateboarding itself.

First Impressions

When flying through the pages, you can already see that every chapter serves as a separate lesson. First, the skateboard parts, then the riding basics, and then all beginner tricks up to the Kickflip. The order of the chapters makes sense as the maneuvers required board control gradually increases. The steps are quite detailed, more than the average internet content for beginners. Still, he doesn’t go too much into detail, probably to not overwhelm starters.

Ollie, Frontside 180, Backside 180

Every single part of each trick is well broken down into little baby steps. The videos are relatively short (less than five minutes) but still manage to be more detailed than your average YouTube tutorial. The text is an excellent addition to the videos, as every step is described again. You can easily pull out your phone when skating and take a look at the individual parts. There shouldn’t be any issues or misunderstandings when learning these, as he made everything clear.

Pop Shove-it, Frontside Shove-it

The baby steps in which Aaron Kyro explains these tricks really help to take away the fear at the start and helps to commit to the tricks later. He provides us with simple practices to learn how to build up the muscle memory to make the skateboard do the maneuvers without much of a risk of getting hurt. Again the instructions are very detailed and easy to understand.

Heelflip, Kickflip

This chapter’s videos are six to eight minutes long but break down every step you need to know and practice. I’ve learned Kickflips before I learned Heelflips, which (due to neglecting and barely ever trying it) I still struggle with. Going through the Kickflip-chapter, I can see why it took me almost two years of trial and error until I landed one. As I mentioned earlier in this review, I bought this e-book shortly after it came out about seven years ago. Truth be told, I just wanted to finally land a Heelflip. With the help of SMS, I learned the Heelflip within a matter of one day. Once again, everything is highly detailed and well broken down into baby steps.

Conclusion

I have not seen every single tutorial on the internet. But the ones I’ve seen aren’t even as close as detailed as the ones in Skateboarding Made Simple. Sure, you could get away with the YouTube videos or, even better, having a patient skater teaching you this stuff in person at your skatepark or spot. Still, there is no doubt that SMS Volume 1 is a great way to learn skateboarding right from the get-go. I think it’s worth the money (6,99€), especially if you consider the additional text alongside the video, which could serve as a checklist, for example. Since it’s an e-book, you will have the instructions and videos downloaded on your phone, so you won’t have to worry about your data plan when you’re out skating. If you want guidance for your tricks and want to get down skateboarding basics, get Skateboarding Made Simple. However, keep looking over the fence and do research on your own since this book won’t tell you everything.

Official website: https://brailleskateboarding.com/product-category/skateboarding-made-simple/