I love how this is the most broken down way of watching skating. All skaters love skate information. Math or not, all skaters will enjoy. Goofy gang for life!
This is super interesting. As a right-handed regular footer who started skating at 10, I initially needed all the power I could get in that pop. Regular stand allowed me to pop with my dominant foot. Had nothing to do with comfort as both stances felt weird at first. Now I'm in my 30s with adult legs and a PhD in physics, so it's all about leverage points and minimizing activation energy. Popping hard isn't much of an issue as creating the right fulcrum with my flick foot. My dominant foot is much more dexterous when it comes to the more subtle movements you need to do flips. I can't land switch flips as consistently as kickflips due to decades of skating regular, but they sure as hell look better than my regular ones. That's just my experience. In the end it's probably arbitrary, and you do what you've established muscle memory with.
Why is it that switch kicks just look so much better? I'm the same, nowhere as consistent by my best switch flips looks immensely better than my best regular kick
It's not certain whether your switch flips are better because you're now using your more dexterous dominant foot to flick. It could also be the case that the you never had to figure out from scratch how to do switch flip. Since having the kickflip down already, you learn a smarter way to switch flip, being taught by your other foot how to flick.
I'm a right handed, right footed goofy skater. Before I even knew that there is something more to skateboarding than just riding it downhill (I was probably 6) my older buddy that owned a skateboard asked me to step on it and tell him which leg forward I felt better. I said right foot forward. Now when I think about it, it seems simple - I'm right footed and right handed so my right hand and right foot should be in front of the board (and in case I fall - I feel more comfortable when I know I have my dominant hand in front). Also, if I'm right footed - I want to do all flicks with my dominant foot, because it is more complicated task than just popping.
Fantastic video. Two facets I thought of that could be included in a supplemental episode: 1) I am right-handed, right-footed, regular and for the first 10 years of skating, I pushed mongo. I finally trained myself to push non-mongo to the point where it feels totally natural, but deep down I still sometimes get the urge to push mongo (when no one is looking). I also alternate between mongo/non-mongo when pushing up a hill to give my legs a rest.... The upside is that I now essentially push correctly both regular and switch. Annnd I can also push mongo switch and regular completely naturally as well. Not sure many people can say that, but maybe I'm wrong. 2) It might be worth looking into the idea that some people learn to skate their "unnatural" stance. Case in point, one of my best friends in high school who was a below average skater skated regular. But it could be because we all learned at the same time and the rest of us were all regular. We were surprised to find that when he finally got around to trying "switch" tricks for him (i.e. goofy footed), he was much more consistent with these than his regular tricks.
Yo I’m an older skater also and right handed. I learned to push goofy and ollie regular so mongo felt natural to me. I never have nor do currently get shit on for pushing mongo. It’s a dumb thing to nitpick about I feel like.
I started off mongo as a kid but later on moved to pushing regular, I feel much more comfortable pushing regular now. And having the ability to push both ways has helped my tricks immensely.
I'm convinced that there is a lot of noise in the stance data due to how we pick our stances. Most people do the push the person forward, see what foot moves forward test, and the results of this are mostly random. Because this happens when the person is first learning to skateboard, standing on it feels awkward no matter what and they get used to it from that point on and solidify their stance.
Yeah I don't believe for a second that you can learn skating in your "wrong" stance by mistake or by wrong advice. Snowboarding? Perhaps But with skating, if you reach any "serious beginner level" (e.g. ollies and kickflips), you'll do it in your natural stance
The falling test is actually a great test, not specific to skating at all. I used this to figure out form when I played sports growing up. Unless you are ambidextrous, it is very effective. I first tested it for basketball and it was my left. Finding my dominant foot helped tremendously in sports. It made it easy to change hands for layups and passes, or in soccer it allowed me to be able to cross from either side of the field. I can use both hands and feet now for most things and it feels natural. Although, my right hand and left foot are slightly more natural feeling.
I'm right handed, skate goofy, and am left foot dominant (known from pole vaulting and long jump in high school track). An interesting thing to consider than many people won't think about is which leg is actually longer than the other. Many people have a small amount of asymmetry in the length of their legs and that could contribute to their stance preference. My right leg is about an inch shorter than my left (all in the femur and an inch is a pretty big difference in leg length) and I believe that makes a big difference in my stance. Another interesting fact is that I ride my bikes left foot forward, though I am pretty good at riding switch on my bikes as well.
I'm mongo goofy and I mainly attribute it to playing soccer growing up. When you dribble, shoot, and pass primarily with your right foot (what soccer players would consider the dominant foot) your left leg tends to gets stronger and builds more balance due to all of the planting and pushing off the ground to generate power. You're dominant foot becomes more of a pendulum responsible for fine movement while the non-dominant foot becomes stronger and easier to balance on.
I am right-handed but grew up playing baseball and golf left-handed so the goofy stance was the most natural to me. I just realized this right now lol.
Right handed and regular here. My theory on my stance comes from doing karate for years into my first year of skating. I strongly preferred kicking with my right leg and naturally developed better balance on my left leg and I guess that translated to pushing regular. (looks like you pretty much get right into this halfway through the video, nice)
This is super interesting. Also right handed and dominant kicking with the right leg (off the left foot) and I skate goofy. Your theory makes sense, except the that I have much better balance on my right foot while pushing, but pushing switch is hard to balance on my left foot. However, if that is a cause or an effect of skating goofy for years.
The neck on a "right handed" guitar is pointing to the left and the left hand does all the fingering work so the name doesn't make much sense but people still think of it as "normal". Same with stance. "Regular" is an arbitrary name really.
I’m left handed and regular, but started pushing mongo because I didn’t know that goofy was a thing. I guarantee I’d naturally be goofy footed if I didn’t force myself to skate regular
I am a right handed goofy skater and have been trying for years to skate switch. It's still very hard for me, can roll around like a beginner with left foot in front regular stance. But I cannot push mongo ! I've actually tried very hard to push mongo, just doesn't work.
There is no such thing as dominance. You learn what you learn and then that's your dominance. You could switch if you wanted to. It would just require re-learning everything. I did this with handedness because I had this weird tendonitis thing that made my right hand completely useless. After a while, I was actually left handed (although I never learned to write with my left hand because nobody writes anymore) and it was DIFFICULT to go back to my right hand a year later when it was healed. There is no such thing as dominance there is only what you learn on.
I saw something about figuring out your stance as a beginner. Have someone push you from behind unexpectedly. Whichever foot you put in front of yourself to stop yourself from falling is your front foot.
I use my right foot, so I should be goofy. But I'm not, I'm regular. My instructor told me to run and slide on the floor in socks, and I did that both ways so it didn't help. I never tried the push and catch yourself thing, but when I do that now I'm goofy. But I can't ride goofy cause I learned regular. It just goes to show that it DOESNT MATTER AT ALL which way you learn.
Bro this is so interesting. My first interactions with a board I pushed Goofy, then later when I learned how to ollie I did it Regular because I didn't really pay attention to what I was doing. Later when trying moving ollies I was like "wait I'm ollieing switch..." and so I had to learn to push Regular. It's interesting how your experience was similar, and your research makes some sort of sense regarding assigning different uses to each leg. I also do MTB and ride my bicycle with my right foot forward, meaning Goofy. And I suppose many people's first stance 'decision' would be from riding a bicycle, where the right foot is usually stronger.
I've only skated for a year when I was 12, did it in regular stance while being a left-handed. About 2 years ago, I had to research handedness in terms of language skills; and being a left-handed in writing, but right-handed in most of the other things I came up with the idea that handedness (or footedness) is not necessarily a fixed attribute. During the research phase, I have found many statements about left-handed people being more ambidexterous that right-handed people (and I can back that up personally). I propose that when we think about handedness (or footedness), we really have to consider the "tool" in question. For instance, I play guitar right-handed like many lefties but this mainly happens because there are not a lot of left-handed guitars laying around. The skateboard, on the other hand, can be used goofy or regular with no problem because of the shape of skateboard being symmetrical. So, when people --whether right or left handed-- are left with a choice with no limitation, we are able to see actually how diverse the public is in terms of footedness. In the end, I think the real advantage happens when people mix-match their handedness and footedness because it helps us to adapt more easily to the other side. Also, here are some interesting personal facts about this issue: 1. Playing a right-handed guitar, I cannot strum at all. But give me a fingerstyle track that is heavy on the fretboard and it is way more easy for me. 2. Shooting the ball in football, right foot is stronger, left foot is more accurate. 3. Trackpads in laptops; completely ambidexterous (have you guys ever realize that the shortcuts force us to use all kinds of pointers right handed. good luck using a left-handed mouse with rigth handed keyboard while using ctrl+c and ctrl+v all time) 4. 28 years old and still cannot use regular scissors and get angry about it. 5. Writing and eating left-handed As a conclusion, I think that ambidexteriousity is higher when an activity actually requires us to use both sides. Check out the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory and you will see that in order to test people for handedness, they had to include everyday activities exclusively that can be done with one-hand and because of this testing methodology, researchers had only access to the simple framework of being left-handed, ambidexterous, or right-handed but in reality handedness and footedness is more complicated than that.
yeah he mentioned it at the end, I'm almost the same as you just with left eye dominant due to right one being lazy lol. Maybe I should try switch more
MONGO Pushing is the epitome level of stance. Switch, nollie, and fakie will be developed to the fullest. Just you need to look for a good stylish Mongo pusher.
Popping board is an easy and a straightforward task while giving the board rotation is something of a more precise action, therefore i can't imagine myself skating regular.
Would love to hear the stats on right/left eye-dominance in regard to stance. Almost everyone I spoke to about this has their dominant eye facing the way they are skating (left eye for regular, right eye for goofy).
Yeah I'm just one guy but I'm also regular/left eye dominant. He says "who the hell knows which is their dominant eye" but acts like everybody knows their dominant foot, like that's a normal thing. Personally I definitely know which eye is dominant but I'm still not sure about my feet.
Yeah I'm cross eye dominant, right handed left eyed, and I'm regular stanced, but I picked regular because it's called regular, not because it felt better to me.
I’ve recently had a similar chain of thought with dominant hand and board stance but through the lens of disc golf. To perform a proper Right-handed backhand throw in disc golf, you have to plant with your right foot and throw from a “goofy-like” stance. I’ve got a hunch that a lot of the top disc golfers would be goofy stance riders on a board. It could just be me (right handed, reg stance) trying to make myself feel better though… great video as always!!! 🤘Love the vintage footy!
Ive snoboarded goofy my whole life and when I learned to play disc golf the right hand back hand came much more naturally than the forehand so that makes sense.
The weird issue I have is if the board has no straps like a skateboard, surf board, wake skate, etc I ride goofy, if it has straps like a snowboard, wakeboard, snakeboard, etc I always ride regular. But then again I do most things right handed, but write with my left hand, play pool left handed, archery right handed. Im all kinds of messed up lol
The bigger question I think about with switch is what degree you have your back foot at??? Snowboarders call what most people ride switch a negative- positive stance before popping, this is where the back popping foot is at a negative degree pushing away while the front foot is at a positive degree like 30 degrees. But snowboarders say for more control to use a posi-posi stance where the back foot is at a positive degree and this allows the knee to bend forward more (a scooch-knee if you will). I learned about these different stances on CZcams cuz I’m not that experienced in snowboarding but once I learned about negative positive versus positive positive stance it opened my mind and I realized everybody who skates switch almost does the trick differently than if they were to do it regular. For example most people when they pop an ollie regular they naturally go to the posi posi stance because this allow the knee to go forward more over the toes thereby increasing the leverage of your jump; however these same people while skating switch will place their back popping foot at a negative degree because that leg has less strength!!! And we avoid using that leg so much and after skating so much in regular your legs become imbalanced and thats a classic athletic defect, one which skaters often compensate for by either avoiding switch because an ollie is basically a one legged jump off the back leg with the front leg guiding the board but when an imbalanced body tries skating switch we compensate by almost facing backwards whereby the front leg jumps and the back foot pushes the board back and pops (because the front leg in switch is usually dominant and we just can’t help but use that leg to jump). I’ve been experimenting with this posi posi stance in switch so that it’s basically like a mirror of my regular. And what makes it even more difficult is 16 years ago I had 3 ACL replacements and an eventual ACL removal so my left leg is mad weak but I’ve done rehab for 3 years via KNEESOVERTOESGUY and ATG which I recommend to any skater. And I have a video explaining why the switch kickflip I learned is different because of the posi posi stance which took me so much longer to learn cuz of my bum knee and how mind fucking it is to actually force yourself to do the mirror opposite, so come check that out. Thank you so much for doing this video cuz we all get stuck in our ways skating but there is a lifelong adventure awaiting all skaters who wish to learn a new thing every day the possibilities are endless
Right handed/footed goofy skater here. I like to use my "better" side for flip control and slams. These statistics are super interesting and enlightening, yet perplexing I must admit. Good work!
Another factor that is often overlooked is the direction a person feels more comfortable spinning which has a weird correlation with handedness and foot dominance. I’ve actually never seen anyone do something like a 900 frontside which makes another argument that it might be better for people to skate with their dominant foot in front because most people naturally spin left (being the reason race tracks go counter clockwise) so regular skaters mostly would be pushed to spin their unnatural direction on vert if they’re right handed. You look at the things it does in games of skate as well which are crazy. Like P rod is a lefty, Nyjah, is a righty but both are goofy. When they played skate, Nyjah was able to land a cabalerial kickflip which PRod failed then prod did mirror image of that trick being a nollie 360 kickflip and subsequently got Nyjah a letter.
My theory for goofy vs regular is that goofy skaters tend to be better at flip tricks because most ppl are right foot dominant, and having your dominant foot be the one that manipulates the board must have some kind of advantage haha - your info can be interpreted to support my theory too : 3 shuvs and impossibles are back foot tricks and so the regular crowd is better at them. I also think that rotation is somehow experienced differently regular vs goofy, maybe in relation to whether you are turning to face the way you go vs blindside - that’s why fakie frontside vs backside flips have opposite outcomes despite them being the “same” rotation. My goofy friends growing up all seemed to have different path of progression from the regular ones.
same here, though right handed // left footed regular - i also suck at flips maybe it's the dominant hand being behind? I always felt that riding "switch" wasn't that difficult to me, we might have just learned the wrong stance from the beginning@@PatinetasyMisterios
I found a very fascinating way to tell somebody’s stance without them even skateboarding. Which ever hand you lead with doing a cartwheel almost always determines your stance. If you cartwheel with your right hand first, You’re Goofy. If you cartwheel with your left hand first, You’re Regular. It’s an easy way to find out people’s stances who’ve never even skated. I’m left handed and goofy by the way.
I'd love to see brain scans of people just starting to skate and trying different stances. At the core of it there is something innate that says either - I'm travelling forwards or I'm travelling backwards. But what causes that is a mystery to me.
i've said it before and I'll say it again: regular stance skaters literally are more regular overall as people and goofy stance skaters are generally goofier in more ways
What about comparing stance and location, I wonder? How much does environment play a role? It would be interesting to find certain areas, skate spots, skate parks, cities, etc. that might cater slightly more to regular or goofy skaters, and see if geographical proximity affects the prominence of one stance over another somehow. Hell, maybe I skate regular just because my childhood driveway encouraged it in some way. Who knows, just a thought.
The neuroscientist comment got me thinking as I have a degree in neuroscience as well. The corpus callosum is basically the bridge between your 2 hemispheres. People who are left handed typically have a larger corpus callosum and tend to be more ambidextrous. I wonder if left handed people are better at switch, and if so, which default stance are they most comfortable with being switch? It would be very difficult data to gather because skateboarding is so subjective, but it would be really interesting to study.
It could be reasonably easy to measure how comfortable subjects are riding switch. We did a study where subjects were doing a task (basically doing yes/no responses with a thumb clicker in response to auditory prompts delivered over headphones) while riding a motorized skateboard, and we recorded their brainwaves while they were doing it to see how perturbed they were while making the decisions... We only analysed for differences between natural and switch stance, I don't remember if we even thought to look at whether handedness had an effect on the magnitude of the effect, but we might have data on that...
@@petehurd5301 interesting! I would love to be part of an experiment like that. What were you looking for? I work with EEGs and they’re super difficult to keep artifact free if the subject is moving. Are you able to work around that or is there a different method of recording?
@@mrburns805 I'm not an EEG guy, so my original naive motivation in collaborating with the mobile EEG folks was to see if it was possible to detect some sort of asymmetrical difference in primary visual cortex as a function of stance. We had tried to test for asymmetries in sensitivity to optic flow as a function of preferred stance in an earlier study, and were searching for ways to correlate visual asymmetries to stance... The mobile EEG people had a backpack EEG recording rig that they were using on cyclists, and also a research budget that could afford a motorized skateboard (the motorized part being a huge help in minimizing motor aftefacts). doi:10.1111/ejn.15163
Two personal anecdotes: I'm right hand dominant, but I couldn't pop the board with my right leg. However, I think my left leg was what was stopping me from being able to pop with my right. I couldn't lift my left leg up out of the way in coordination while popping the board with my right leg. It was far easier for me to pop with my left leg and lift my right leg to control the front of the board (which is probably the harder thing to do anyway) so it makes sense to me in hindsight. I went snowboarding for the first time. My friends and I were trying to figure out how I should ride. My friend told me to face down the mountain while not standing on a board (only a slight slope) and he shoved me forward from behind. My right foot instinctively went forward to catch my balance. He said that was how I should naturally ride. Considering that's how I ride skateboards as well, I think there may be something to this method.
Im Right footed, started rolling goofy and did tricks standing in regular, but also in goofy cause I had no idea what I was doing. I then mongo pushed for a while but later forced my self to push regular and made it my stance. All this resulted in not feeling a difference today between pushing in both stances and I kind of learned switch tricks parallel to regular ones. Ok thanks.
I'm still convinced that it depends on which way your organ hangs in your pants. If it's to the left, you're goofy. If it's to the right, you're regular.
I remember my experience when I was choosing a stance, I think it depends on the thought process. Most people, me included, are right-handed, right-footed, and right eyed. So when you look at the board, there is a slight thought process going in your brain. You decide what task you want to assign to your dominant leg, it's either pushing(and poping in the future) or stabilization(and flicking in the future) I believe it has nothing to do with your side dominance as lefties face the exact thought process. That's why there is no correlation between stance and dominant side
I always figured that which hand you use in addition to whether you played other sports before skating was the cause of stance choice. I played soccer and basketball as a right hander before skating. As a righty we were training to jump off our left foot for right handed layups, and you plant your left foot for right handed kicks in soccer. (Both with left leg being the base/pop and back, and right foot forward) I think it naturally made me have more balance+pop in my left foot which is why it made more sense to me to use my right foot for flip tricks since I was more coordinated in its movement.
I'm right handed, right footed, and skate goofy. I prefer my dominant foot to manipulate the board and my non dominant foot to pop, because literally all it's doing is popping. There's no finesse to its job. I find it weird that so many people use their dominant foot for popping.
Goofy, write with my left, throw with my right. My perception when I used to skate was that the regular guys are the naturals and us goofy guys are the rebels.
One thing that you could account for is pushing and find that data. Since there's this hate around mongo pushing more people try to push regular which is harder to do. If I learned to push regular early on I might of switch to goofy as a right handed person since I prefer pushing mongo. I skate regular now and push mongo but that in turn makes me really good at pushing switch. I am now at the point I can push both ways, but still prefer mongo. I think the way one pushes early on is what determines how they pick there stance.
I used to push mongo, but now don't and I've always rode goofy. Im as good at pushing switch as I am regular. However, one stance mongo is good for is nollie. You can push mongo and swing into nollie really easily I've always found.
Regular, right handed skateboarder since 94. Was that way until in 1999 i found Keenan milton, danny montoya, jason wussler, jb gillet etc. From there i started skating more switch, to where most of my footy from there on was nollie/switch. Idk if that means anything, but thanks for the interesting vid.
Bro, I spent all day at work staring blankly at analytical chemistry data only to come home and stare blankly at skateboard data please help I don't know what I'm doing
Lol, the video that I didn’t ask for but really needed to watch, I haven’t understand why it’s bmx so hard for me, I’m left footed but right handed and right predominant, so I have mi own definition for “regular” and “opposite” tricks
The eye thing could be underrated, i sometimes feel blind trying fakie tricks onto ledges but have no problem nollie with my dominate eyes forward as normal.
I learned to skate (push, turn, stop) alone. In the 80s, so I had no thought of regular or goofy. I’m right handed. It just seemed to make sense that my right foot would be at the front of the board. The weird thing is when I was older and took some boxing lessons. I wanted to stand southpaw and a normal boxing stance felt really weird. When I open a jar I hold it in my right hand and twist the top with my left. And other things like that that make me think I was supposed to be a lefty and parents and teachers kind of forced me to be a righty. I dunno.
When I jump my left foot pushes, thus when I skate put my right foot on the board. When Muay Thai, I feel more comfortable kicking with my right leg, thus normal stance where the left foot is at front feels more comfortable-throwing the right leg, as to kick, is similar to jumping or skating goofy. I’m right handed when writing ✍️ when playing football (soccer), I kick the ball with my right foot-here I’m also throwing the right leg as I jump or skate goofy. So, not sure if I understood what you mean with southpaw, is it the same as me?
I know guys in the national team who snowboard goofy and skate regular. I've worked with them and they performe at high levels. And you can still see the difference in confidence when they're in switch with both.
I’m 51, skating since i was ten… i also happen to practice traditional martial arts, yoga & self defense… I am right hand dominate and right leg dominate and i ride goofy, though my fakie skills are good i don’t think or feel it as switch…. those subtleties could make for another topic… anyway i wanted to add about Cross Body Power and how that principle applies… my stable dominate right leg holds me in a significantly strong balance while simultaneously sourcing the ground for power behind every kick in my push. making power distribution from my left leg push negligible.. more so the left leg is more relaxed and whip like ….. hence right hand and leg yet Goofy… and being goofy i think pushing mongo is just fine…. hahaha Nice Vid man 🤘🏼🛹🤘🏼
some tricks are also easier switch , in general people like rotating to one direction more. i think switch 270 fs board is easier than regular fs board, same for fs shuv or fs bigspin , i dont do those tricks regular but can do them switch, really stance is actually more in our head because we watch so much skateboarding and get used to skating one way and just go with it ....... and because nobody wants to push mongo we dont get better at both stances early on because most people would rather learn ollie then kickflip then ollie then switch ollie so the way we practice also has a lot to do with it
What I find interesting is that the tricks at BATB where a specific stance (in my case goofy) has an advantage over the other stance, are also tricks that I somehow find very easy to do or, if I've never landed them, atleast find them easier to practice/learn than the others.
When I started skating I tried to copy my friend who got me into skating. He was goofy, but for me I could balance for longer with my left in front, and just naturally went regular stance instead of copying. I am also left eye dominant by a good amount
As a right-handed, right-footed, goofy skater, it never seemed to intuitive to use my dominant foot to pop. The front foot guides the board and does all the flicking, which I'm better at doing with my dominant foot.
My right eye is squinting. So my left eye is dominant. And so I skate regular. I am convinced that the eye dominance place a huge maybe often the biggest role.
Wait, I’m ‘goofy’? Surly having my best foot and best eye forward makes sense. This video is slightly mind blowing along with the comments. I like ‘which way you cartwheel’ response.
Superb Video! I loved that there's all this extensive math and statistics to just conclude on: Ye! It doesn't matter, do what you love (don't ride mongo tho)... Loved it! 10/10
I've thought about this thousands of times since the 80's. Thank you for making this video! It gets more confusing when people are proficient in skateboarding and snowboarding but mix their stances! Gives me a headache just trying to comprehend why they don't ride skate/snowboards the same stance. Mix in surfing and you have one more variable to confuse the data. I'm so goofy-minded I can't ride an electric scooter regular footed. Even bowling is tricky since your end stance is regular when you're right handed. Forget about curling.., then I have to slide in a regular stance as I release the stone with the right hand. Then there's the using a golf club and a hockey stick issue... there's no consistency there either. The majority of right handed people will hit a slapshot in a goofy stance with their right hand closest to their body but it's the other way around in golf. This from what I understand has more to do with tradition and equipment being 99% right swinger for generations. But as left swinging clubs become more common so are people who swing left. Leandre Sanders is so frustrating to watch. First time I saw him he was an unknown guy and I was so confused my brain was working at 200% trying to fathom why this guy was skating the Venice park regular in the street section and when doing flyouts, but goofy on transition. So so so so so incomprehensible. Anyway. Great video!
"Gives me a headache just trying to comprehend why they don't ride skate/snowboards the same stance." Because stance isn't real. Even handedness isn't real. If you learn something (say knitting) left handed, even if your'e right handed, you will NEVER be able to knit right handed until you re-learn it with your right hand. You simply can't do things well that you never learned to do.
@@LarsLarsen77 That's my point. If you already can skateboard and do so with a regular stance then why wouldn't you also ride in a regular stance if you picked up snowboarding or surfing? It's like you already know how to write with your right hand and then when you pick up graffiti you chose to only use your left hand.
Great video! I think it could be interesting if you made a video that takes an in depth look at which switch/nollie/fakie tricks are easier for each stance. I know you touched on it during the batb defensive statistics portion, but an insane amount of surveys could possibly reveal some interesting trends. For instance, I've always felt that goofy skaters are more likely to be skilled at switch front heels, bigspins, and big heels.
The only thing that matters is for long term you learn to ride switch. Trust me, my lower back muscles got strained and then tangled, locking into a spasm. Entirely from never committing to switch and constantly pounding on one side. Take care of yourself don’t worry about others.
Some dumb data ive learned over the many years of skating that pertain to this, is that goofy skaters on average find kickflip and backside tricks easier and regular skaters on average find heelflip and frontside tricks easier.
the reason i chose to stick to goofy was the hand i felt i could catch myself better. while stationary in my second year of skating i fell on my tail and fractured my left wrist
Where it really throws you off is im also a kickboxer, and goofy foot, so I end up being a unnatural southpaw fighting with my power hand in the front. Opposite of how they teach but my balance is best with my right foot forward
Right handed goofy here. I used to be regular until one day when I was about 9-10 it just no longer felt comfortable. I felt much more comfortable balancing on my right foot while pushing with my left. To this day I still find it awkward to balance on my left foot while pushing with my right.
for me i think i like goofy foot because im more comfortable catching myself on my right side, i want my strong side to hit the floor when i fall forward as im more comfortable (i just fall forward way more often than backwards)
I just started skating like a week ago and i instantly gravitated towards skating goofy because it just made sense to me to have my dominant foot in front. I’m right handed and right footed and having my right foot keeping me stabilized on the board just feels safe and solid. Also when I kick a ball I use my right foot, and if I fall forward, I instinctively put my right foot forward.
The stability vs. Action foot is a very interesting point. I started snowboard first, and was goofy. Years later I picked up skateboarding, and without even thinking about it I was skateboarding regular. The pushing of skateboarding being comparable to kicking a soccer ball explains a lot about this discrepancy in stance between the two sports. In the end, stance and handidness is such a weird concept. I know many people who are “right handed” for common task like writing or throwing a ball, but they’ll change hands for eating, or golfing/hockey. So strange!
I could never wrap my hand around how people could ride different stances on a skateboard and a snowboard. I am right handed and my stability foot is the left foot, my action foot is the right. My right foot is always in the back, no matter if I'm on a skateboard, snowboard, BMX, surfboard, wakeboard, you name it. In snowboarding you also put your weight on your front foot (so you can move your back foot to either side to initiate turns), in a similar way you do when pushing a skateboard, or kicking a ball.
I love how this is the most broken down way of watching skating. All skaters love skate information. Math or not, all skaters will enjoy. Goofy gang for life!
If you were born regular footed, you would have said “regular gang for life”
@@George-um2vcyeah, but he didnt
@@George-um2vcyeah, but he didnt
@@Neverneednevernotyeah, but he could’ve
Unless you're Crob or Berra, they're apparently too cool for stats
That mongo jump scare at the end got me good.
You're not alone. I was distracted, and it brought me back to reality lol
Spoilers bruh
@@Fractal_Forge_Designscomment section is all spoilers.
@@Fractal_Forge_Designsfr
This is super interesting. As a right-handed regular footer who started skating at 10, I initially needed all the power I could get in that pop. Regular stand allowed me to pop with my dominant foot. Had nothing to do with comfort as both stances felt weird at first. Now I'm in my 30s with adult legs and a PhD in physics, so it's all about leverage points and minimizing activation energy. Popping hard isn't much of an issue as creating the right fulcrum with my flick foot. My dominant foot is much more dexterous when it comes to the more subtle movements you need to do flips. I can't land switch flips as consistently as kickflips due to decades of skating regular, but they sure as hell look better than my regular ones. That's just my experience. In the end it's probably arbitrary, and you do what you've established muscle memory with.
I bet you never played basketball did you?
Great comment homie
Why is it that switch kicks just look so much better? I'm the same, nowhere as consistent by my best switch flips looks immensely better than my best regular kick
It's not certain whether your switch flips are better because you're now using your more dexterous dominant foot to flick. It could also be the case that the you never had to figure out from scratch how to do switch flip. Since having the kickflip down already, you learn a smarter way to switch flip, being taught by your other foot how to flick.
@@anonymousperson7889 Lol definitely not. Way too short. Do you learn to go left and right early on?
The mongo burn at the end was gold.haha
I'm a right handed, right footed goofy skater. Before I even knew that there is something more to skateboarding than just riding it downhill (I was probably 6) my older buddy that owned a skateboard asked me to step on it and tell him which leg forward I felt better. I said right foot forward. Now when I think about it, it seems simple - I'm right footed and right handed so my right hand and right foot should be in front of the board (and in case I fall - I feel more comfortable when I know I have my dominant hand in front). Also, if I'm right footed - I want to do all flicks with my dominant foot, because it is more complicated task than just popping.
I wonder if this is related to when people take up skating? I was the same age and also right hand, goofy.
right handed right footed goofy here, I was 12 when I started@@Nick-tj9cr
I took it up at 12 and also right hand right foot goofy so I don’t think so
Fantastic video. Two facets I thought of that could be included in a supplemental episode:
1) I am right-handed, right-footed, regular and for the first 10 years of skating, I pushed mongo. I finally trained myself to push non-mongo to the point where it feels totally natural, but deep down I still sometimes get the urge to push mongo (when no one is looking). I also alternate between mongo/non-mongo when pushing up a hill to give my legs a rest.... The upside is that I now essentially push correctly both regular and switch. Annnd I can also push mongo switch and regular completely naturally as well. Not sure many people can say that, but maybe I'm wrong.
2) It might be worth looking into the idea that some people learn to skate their "unnatural" stance. Case in point, one of my best friends in high school who was a below average skater skated regular. But it could be because we all learned at the same time and the rest of us were all regular. We were surprised to find that when he finally got around to trying "switch" tricks for him (i.e. goofy footed), he was much more consistent with these than his regular tricks.
embrace the mongo a surprising amount of old pros skate it
Yo I’m an older skater also and right handed. I learned to push goofy and ollie regular so mongo felt natural to me. I never have nor do currently get shit on for pushing mongo. It’s a dumb thing to nitpick about I feel like.
I started off mongo as a kid but later on moved to pushing regular, I feel much more comfortable pushing regular now. And having the ability to push both ways has helped my tricks immensely.
You're not right footed, there is no such thing. You just chose regular and learned that way.
I'm convinced that there is a lot of noise in the stance data due to how we pick our stances. Most people do the push the person forward, see what foot moves forward test, and the results of this are mostly random. Because this happens when the person is first learning to skateboard, standing on it feels awkward no matter what and they get used to it from that point on and solidify their stance.
Yeah I don't believe for a second that you can learn skating in your "wrong" stance by mistake or by wrong advice. Snowboarding? Perhaps
But with skating, if you reach any "serious beginner level" (e.g. ollies and kickflips), you'll do it in your natural stance
The falling test is actually a great test, not specific to skating at all. I used this to figure out form when I played sports growing up. Unless you are ambidextrous, it is very effective. I first tested it for basketball and it was my left. Finding my dominant foot helped tremendously in sports. It made it easy to change hands for layups and passes, or in soccer it allowed me to be able to cross from either side of the field. I can use both hands and feet now for most things and it feels natural. Although, my right hand and left foot are slightly more natural feeling.
I'm right handed, skate goofy, and am left foot dominant (known from pole vaulting and long jump in high school track). An interesting thing to consider than many people won't think about is which leg is actually longer than the other. Many people have a small amount of asymmetry in the length of their legs and that could contribute to their stance preference. My right leg is about an inch shorter than my left (all in the femur and an inch is a pretty big difference in leg length) and I believe that makes a big difference in my stance. Another interesting fact is that I ride my bikes left foot forward, though I am pretty good at riding switch on my bikes as well.
Me too I thought I was the crazy one 🤘🏾
I'm mongo goofy and I mainly attribute it to playing soccer growing up. When you dribble, shoot, and pass primarily with your right foot (what soccer players would consider the dominant foot) your left leg tends to gets stronger and builds more balance due to all of the planting and pushing off the ground to generate power. You're dominant foot becomes more of a pendulum responsible for fine movement while the non-dominant foot becomes stronger and easier to balance on.
@@guitar2935 Oh this might actually explain me being mongo goofy
@@koleka3233 Yeah I had a few other soccer friends and most skated mongo goofy, despite it being stupid rare otherwise.
Im right foot dominant but jump with left. Kick a ball with right and regular. Usually you jump with the non-dominant foot
I’m just so glad you didn’t mention skategoat. That dude wishes he had no stance.
I am right-handed but grew up playing baseball and golf left-handed so the goofy stance was the most natural to me. I just realized this right now lol.
I bet you also played some basketball, which is very left foot dominant for right handed players
Lol exactly like me but I skate regular , It’s called cross dominance
As a data scientist who loves skating this is such a great video! I aim to be able to present findings like Mr Dumb Data this shit is so fire GYATT
Right handed and regular here. My theory on my stance comes from doing karate for years into my first year of skating. I strongly preferred kicking with my right leg and naturally developed better balance on my left leg and I guess that translated to pushing regular. (looks like you pretty much get right into this halfway through the video, nice)
Same with Taekwondo, but I skate goofy because my dominant right side being forward feels easier to balance and more control when flicking tricks
@@iorilamia interesting, do you push mongo switch? (I'm gonna guess no) I do- been skating since 99 so I get a pass :^)
I'm goofy from playing basketball and jumping off of my left foot
I've never understood why anyone that is right footed stands regular ...as a right footed person it feels a lot easier to balance on my right leg.
This is super interesting. Also right handed and dominant kicking with the right leg (off the left foot) and I skate goofy. Your theory makes sense, except the that I have much better balance on my right foot while pushing, but pushing switch is hard to balance on my left foot. However, if that is a cause or an effect of skating goofy for years.
The neck on a "right handed" guitar is pointing to the left and the left hand does all the fingering work so the name doesn't make much sense but people still think of it as "normal". Same with stance. "Regular" is an arbitrary name really.
"contest skaters have more variety of tricks = cancelled" - every t funk fan
I’m left handed and regular, but started pushing mongo because I didn’t know that goofy was a thing. I guarantee I’d naturally be goofy footed if I didn’t force myself to skate regular
You make no sense
@@puppet3668 I’m sorry your reading comprehension is below a 3rd grade level.
I am a right handed goofy skater and have been trying for years to skate switch. It's still very hard for me, can roll around like a beginner with left foot in front regular stance. But I cannot push mongo ! I've actually tried very hard to push mongo, just doesn't work.
There is no such thing as dominance. You learn what you learn and then that's your dominance. You could switch if you wanted to. It would just require re-learning everything. I did this with handedness because I had this weird tendonitis thing that made my right hand completely useless. After a while, I was actually left handed (although I never learned to write with my left hand because nobody writes anymore) and it was DIFFICULT to go back to my right hand a year later when it was healed. There is no such thing as dominance there is only what you learn on.
@@LarsLarsen77 you should Google how genetics work before commenting something
I saw something about figuring out your stance as a beginner. Have someone push you from behind unexpectedly. Whichever foot you put in front of yourself to stop yourself from falling is your front foot.
👍I used this technique as a snowboard instructor.
i heard it should be the same way you would slide on ice
I use my right foot, so I should be goofy. But I'm not, I'm regular. My instructor told me to run and slide on the floor in socks, and I did that both ways so it didn't help. I never tried the push and catch yourself thing, but when I do that now I'm goofy. But I can't ride goofy cause I learned regular. It just goes to show that it DOESNT MATTER AT ALL which way you learn.
I only ride regular because my mom said that my left foot should be in front because that’s how she does it, even though goofy feels more comfortable
Bro this is so interesting. My first interactions with a board I pushed Goofy, then later when I learned how to ollie I did it Regular because I didn't really pay attention to what I was doing. Later when trying moving ollies I was like "wait I'm ollieing switch..." and so I had to learn to push Regular.
It's interesting how your experience was similar, and your research makes some sort of sense regarding assigning different uses to each leg.
I also do MTB and ride my bicycle with my right foot forward, meaning Goofy. And I suppose many people's first stance 'decision' would be from riding a bicycle, where the right foot is usually stronger.
I've only skated for a year when I was 12, did it in regular stance while being a left-handed. About 2 years ago, I had to research handedness in terms of language skills; and being a left-handed in writing, but right-handed in most of the other things I came up with the idea that handedness (or footedness) is not necessarily a fixed attribute. During the research phase, I have found many statements about left-handed people being more ambidexterous that right-handed people (and I can back that up personally). I propose that when we think about handedness (or footedness), we really have to consider the "tool" in question. For instance, I play guitar right-handed like many lefties but this mainly happens because there are not a lot of left-handed guitars laying around. The skateboard, on the other hand, can be used goofy or regular with no problem because of the shape of skateboard being symmetrical. So, when people --whether right or left handed-- are left with a choice with no limitation, we are able to see actually how diverse the public is in terms of footedness. In the end, I think the real advantage happens when people mix-match their handedness and footedness because it helps us to adapt more easily to the other side.
Also, here are some interesting personal facts about this issue:
1. Playing a right-handed guitar, I cannot strum at all. But give me a fingerstyle track that is heavy on the fretboard and it is way more easy for me.
2. Shooting the ball in football, right foot is stronger, left foot is more accurate.
3. Trackpads in laptops; completely ambidexterous (have you guys ever realize that the shortcuts force us to use all kinds of pointers right handed. good luck using a left-handed mouse with rigth handed keyboard while using ctrl+c and ctrl+v all time)
4. 28 years old and still cannot use regular scissors and get angry about it.
5. Writing and eating left-handed
As a conclusion, I think that ambidexteriousity is higher when an activity actually requires us to use both sides. Check out the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory and you will see that in order to test people for handedness, they had to include everyday activities exclusively that can be done with one-hand and because of this testing methodology, researchers had only access to the simple framework of being left-handed, ambidexterous, or right-handed but in reality handedness and footedness is more complicated than that.
And I was a heavy kid and broke my relatively too-expensive-to-replace skateboard when landing my first ollie :(
I wonder if eye dominance plays a part? I’m right handed, right eye dominant and goofy so my dominant eye is more forward facing.
yeah he mentioned it at the end, I'm almost the same as you just with left eye dominant due to right one being lazy lol. Maybe I should try switch more
Yeah I’m exact same right handed, goofy and right eye dominant lol. It would be interesting if it does play a part
just came to say im the same
MONGO Pushing is the epitome level of stance. Switch, nollie, and fakie will be developed to the fullest. Just you need to look for a good stylish Mongo pusher.
I push Mongo with steez
Mongo is so under-appreciated, I could get around terrain with ease that regular pushers would struggle with.
Popping board is an easy and a straightforward task while giving the board rotation is something of a more precise action, therefore i can't imagine myself skating regular.
Would love to hear the stats on right/left eye-dominance in regard to stance. Almost everyone I spoke to about this has their dominant eye facing the way they are skating (left eye for regular, right eye for goofy).
Yeah I'm just one guy but I'm also regular/left eye dominant.
He says "who the hell knows which is their dominant eye" but acts like everybody knows their dominant foot, like that's a normal thing. Personally I definitely know which eye is dominant but I'm still not sure about my feet.
i'm a regular skater, right eye dominant.
Yeah I'm cross eye dominant, right handed left eyed, and I'm regular stanced, but I picked regular because it's called regular, not because it felt better to me.
I’ve recently had a similar chain of thought with dominant hand and board stance but through the lens of disc golf. To perform a proper Right-handed backhand throw in disc golf, you have to plant with your right foot and throw from a “goofy-like” stance. I’ve got a hunch that a lot of the top disc golfers would be goofy stance riders on a board. It could just be me (right handed, reg stance) trying to make myself feel better though… great video as always!!! 🤘Love the vintage footy!
Ive snoboarded goofy my whole life and when I learned to play disc golf the right hand back hand came much more naturally than the forehand so that makes sense.
The weird issue I have is if the board has no straps like a skateboard, surf board, wake skate, etc I ride goofy, if it has straps like a snowboard, wakeboard, snakeboard, etc I always ride regular. But then again I do most things right handed, but write with my left hand, play pool left handed, archery right handed. Im all kinds of messed up lol
The bigger question I think about with switch is what degree you have your back foot at??? Snowboarders call what most people ride switch a negative- positive stance before popping, this is where the back popping foot is at a negative degree pushing away while the front foot is at a positive degree like 30 degrees. But snowboarders say for more control to use a posi-posi stance where the back foot is at a positive degree and this allows the knee to bend forward more (a scooch-knee if you will). I learned about these different stances on CZcams cuz I’m not that experienced in snowboarding but once I learned about negative positive versus positive positive stance it opened my mind and I realized everybody who skates switch almost does the trick differently than if they were to do it regular. For example most people when they pop an ollie regular they naturally go to the posi posi stance because this allow the knee to go forward more over the toes thereby increasing the leverage of your jump; however these same people while skating switch will place their back popping foot at a negative degree because that leg has less strength!!! And we avoid using that leg so much and after skating so much in regular your legs become imbalanced and thats a classic athletic defect, one which skaters often compensate for by either avoiding switch because an ollie is basically a one legged jump off the back leg with the front leg guiding the board but when an imbalanced body tries skating switch we compensate by almost facing backwards whereby the front leg jumps and the back foot pushes the board back and pops (because the front leg in switch is usually dominant and we just can’t help but use that leg to jump).
I’ve been experimenting with this posi posi stance in switch so that it’s basically like a mirror of my regular. And what makes it even more difficult is 16 years ago I had 3 ACL replacements and an eventual ACL removal so my left leg is mad weak but I’ve done rehab for 3 years via KNEESOVERTOESGUY and ATG which I recommend to any skater. And I have a video explaining why the switch kickflip I learned is different because of the posi posi stance which took me so much longer to learn cuz of my bum knee and how mind fucking it is to actually force yourself to do the mirror opposite, so come check that out. Thank you so much for doing this video cuz we all get stuck in our ways skating but there is a lifelong adventure awaiting all skaters who wish to learn a new thing every day the possibilities are endless
I have a goofy personality and skate regular. Explain that one to me with your fancy graph and numbers!
I'm right footed and Goofy at skateboarding, but when snowboarding, I'm regular footed.
This proves that dominance isn't real. It's just what you learn on.
My hypothesis is that it has something to do with the genetic shape of your hips and if they prefer to internally or externally rotate
Right handed/footed goofy skater here. I like to use my "better" side for flip control and slams. These statistics are super interesting and enlightening, yet perplexing I must admit. Good work!
If I ever have to bash something with my shoulder I always choose my left shoulder. That's why I'm regular.
Another factor that is often overlooked is the direction a person feels more comfortable spinning which has a weird correlation with handedness and foot dominance. I’ve actually never seen anyone do something like a 900 frontside which makes another argument that it might be better for people to skate with their dominant foot in front because most people naturally spin left (being the reason race tracks go counter clockwise) so regular skaters mostly would be pushed to spin their unnatural direction on vert if they’re right handed. You look at the things it does in games of skate as well which are crazy. Like P rod is a lefty, Nyjah, is a righty but both are goofy. When they played skate, Nyjah was able to land a cabalerial kickflip which PRod failed then prod did mirror image of that trick being a nollie 360 kickflip and subsequently got Nyjah a letter.
My theory for goofy vs regular is that goofy skaters tend to be better at flip tricks because most ppl are right foot dominant, and having your dominant foot be the one that manipulates the board must have some kind of advantage haha - your info can be interpreted to support my theory too : 3 shuvs and impossibles are back foot tricks and so the regular crowd is better at them.
I also think that rotation is somehow experienced differently regular vs goofy, maybe in relation to whether you are turning to face the way you go vs blindside - that’s why fakie frontside vs backside flips have opposite outcomes despite them being the “same” rotation.
My goofy friends growing up all seemed to have different path of progression from the regular ones.
agree, i am goofy left handed and i suck doing flips hahaha
same here, though right handed // left footed regular - i also suck at flips maybe it's the dominant hand being behind? I always felt that riding "switch" wasn't that difficult to me, we might have just learned the wrong stance from the beginning@@PatinetasyMisterios
I found a very fascinating way to tell somebody’s stance without them even skateboarding.
Which ever hand you lead with doing a cartwheel almost always determines your stance. If you cartwheel with your right hand first, You’re Goofy.
If you cartwheel with your left hand first, You’re Regular. It’s an easy way to find out people’s stances who’ve never even skated.
I’m left handed and goofy by the way.
Are you sure it’s not the other way around? I cartwheel with my left hand first and I’m right handed goofy
not true i cartwheel with my left and im goofy...
do you start your cartwheel with your left hand?
Best way is to just simply run and slide on something. If your body turns left with your left foot behind, you're goofy.
@@omgvagueno. I am right handed right footed goofy, and I slide on ice with my left foot forward.
I'd love to see brain scans of people just starting to skate and trying different stances. At the core of it there is something innate that says either - I'm travelling forwards or I'm travelling backwards. But what causes that is a mystery to me.
i've said it before and I'll say it again: regular stance skaters literally are more regular overall as people and goofy stance skaters are generally goofier in more ways
What about comparing stance and location, I wonder? How much does environment play a role?
It would be interesting to find certain areas, skate spots, skate parks, cities, etc. that might cater slightly more to regular or goofy skaters, and see if geographical proximity affects the prominence of one stance over another somehow.
Hell, maybe I skate regular just because my childhood driveway encouraged it in some way. Who knows, just a thought.
It's another form of Systemic Racism I guess haha
goofy versus regular contest needs to come back
I'm left handed regular and it definitely helps me do fingerflips
The neuroscientist comment got me thinking as I have a degree in neuroscience as well. The corpus callosum is basically the bridge between your 2 hemispheres. People who are left handed typically have a larger corpus callosum and tend to be more ambidextrous.
I wonder if left handed people are better at switch, and if so, which default stance are they most comfortable with being switch?
It would be very difficult data to gather because skateboarding is so subjective, but it would be really interesting to study.
It could be reasonably easy to measure how comfortable subjects are riding switch. We did a study where subjects were doing a task (basically doing yes/no responses with a thumb clicker in response to auditory prompts delivered over headphones) while riding a motorized skateboard, and we recorded their brainwaves while they were doing it to see how perturbed they were while making the decisions... We only analysed for differences between natural and switch stance, I don't remember if we even thought to look at whether handedness had an effect on the magnitude of the effect, but we might have data on that...
@@petehurd5301 interesting! I would love to be part of an experiment like that. What were you looking for? I work with EEGs and they’re super difficult to keep artifact free if the subject is moving. Are you able to work around that or is there a different method of recording?
@@mrburns805 I'm not an EEG guy, so my original naive motivation in collaborating with the mobile EEG folks was to see if it was possible to detect some sort of asymmetrical difference in primary visual cortex as a function of stance. We had tried to test for asymmetries in sensitivity to optic flow as a function of preferred stance in an earlier study, and were searching for ways to correlate visual asymmetries to stance...
The mobile EEG people had a backpack EEG recording rig that they were using on cyclists, and also a research budget that could afford a motorized skateboard (the motorized part being a huge help in minimizing motor aftefacts).
doi:10.1111/ejn.15163
Right hand regular. For me it always made sense to have my strong foot (right) on the tail so I can pop harder.
Two personal anecdotes: I'm right hand dominant, but I couldn't pop the board with my right leg. However, I think my left leg was what was stopping me from being able to pop with my right. I couldn't lift my left leg up out of the way in coordination while popping the board with my right leg. It was far easier for me to pop with my left leg and lift my right leg to control the front of the board (which is probably the harder thing to do anyway) so it makes sense to me in hindsight.
I went snowboarding for the first time. My friends and I were trying to figure out how I should ride. My friend told me to face down the mountain while not standing on a board (only a slight slope) and he shoved me forward from behind. My right foot instinctively went forward to catch my balance. He said that was how I should naturally ride. Considering that's how I ride skateboards as well, I think there may be something to this method.
the lengths you take to get these numbers is insane. absolutely bonkers. thank you for feeding the statistical analysis portion of my being
Pushing mongo taught me switch and now I have both
Im Right footed, started rolling goofy and did tricks standing in regular, but also in goofy cause I had no idea what I was doing. I then mongo pushed for a while but later forced my self to push regular and made it my stance. All this resulted in not feeling a difference today between pushing in both stances and I kind of learned switch tricks parallel to regular ones. Ok thanks.
Yes, dominance isn't real. There's only what you learned on.
i feel like i left this video with more questions than answers… 10/10 subscribed 😂
I'm still convinced that it depends on which way your organ hangs in your pants. If it's to the left, you're goofy. If it's to the right, you're regular.
I shudder thinking what that means about female skaters labias
The graph about halfway through is genius level.
I remember my experience when I was choosing a stance, I think it depends on the thought process. Most people, me included, are right-handed, right-footed, and right eyed.
So when you look at the board, there is a slight thought process going in your brain.
You decide what task you want to assign to your dominant leg, it's either pushing(and poping in the future) or stabilization(and flicking in the future)
I believe it has nothing to do with your side dominance as lefties face the exact thought process.
That's why there is no correlation between stance and dominant side
I always figured that which hand you use in addition to whether you played other sports before skating was the cause of stance choice. I played soccer and basketball as a right hander before skating. As a righty we were training to jump off our left foot for right handed layups, and you plant your left foot for right handed kicks in soccer. (Both with left leg being the base/pop and back, and right foot forward) I think it naturally made me have more balance+pop in my left foot which is why it made more sense to me to use my right foot for flip tricks since I was more coordinated in its movement.
@9:48 I don't remember ever pooping with my right foot
I’ve always wondered why I ride goofy when I am a right hand dominant person
I'm right handed, right footed, and skate goofy. I prefer my dominant foot to manipulate the board and my non dominant foot to pop, because literally all it's doing is popping. There's no finesse to its job. I find it weird that so many people use their dominant foot for popping.
i think some of it is some people prefer their 'good' foot to be their base to stand on, and others prefer it to be the one to push/trick with.
Goofy, write with my left, throw with my right. My perception when I used to skate was that the regular guys are the naturals and us goofy guys are the rebels.
At 2:48 I realized I was waaayy to tired to pick up an ounce of what you're putting down
Right handed goofy skater but love every stance. Love the info and the videos keep it coming
Who knows their eye dominance? Anyone who has ever been taught to shoot a gun. They have you figure out your dominant eye first thing.
One thing that you could account for is pushing and find that data. Since there's this hate around mongo pushing more people try to push regular which is harder to do. If I learned to push regular early on I might of switch to goofy as a right handed person since I prefer pushing mongo. I skate regular now and push mongo but that in turn makes me really good at pushing switch. I am now at the point I can push both ways, but still prefer mongo. I think the way one pushes early on is what determines how they pick there stance.
I used to push mongo, but now don't and I've always rode goofy. Im as good at pushing switch as I am regular. However, one stance mongo is good for is nollie. You can push mongo and swing into nollie really easily I've always found.
Regular, right handed skateboarder since 94. Was that way until in 1999 i found Keenan milton, danny montoya, jason wussler, jb gillet etc. From there i started skating more switch, to where most of my footy from there on was nollie/switch. Idk if that means anything, but thanks for the interesting vid.
Bro, I spent all day at work staring blankly at analytical chemistry data only to come home and stare blankly at skateboard data please help I don't know what I'm doing
Vicious cycle eh
Lol, the video that I didn’t ask for but really needed to watch, I haven’t understand why it’s bmx so hard for me, I’m left footed but right handed and right predominant, so I have mi own definition for “regular” and “opposite” tricks
Rollerbladers have a similar mystery. But for them it's more about who gives and who receives.
The eye thing could be underrated, i sometimes feel blind trying fakie tricks onto ledges but have no problem nollie with my dominate eyes forward as normal.
Dude I said on your poll: eye dominance and foot stance is somewhat correlated. Research that.
That ending earned a sub 😂❤
probability(goofy | lefthanded) = probability(lefthanded | goofy) * probability(goofy) / probability(lefthanded)
I learned to skate (push, turn, stop) alone. In the 80s, so I had no thought of regular or goofy. I’m right handed. It just seemed to make sense that my right foot would be at the front of the board. The weird thing is when I was older and took some boxing lessons. I wanted to stand southpaw and a normal boxing stance felt really weird. When I open a jar I hold it in my right hand and twist the top with my left. And other things like that that make me think I was supposed to be a lefty and parents and teachers kind of forced me to be a righty. I dunno.
When I jump my left foot pushes, thus when I skate put my right foot on the board. When Muay Thai, I feel more comfortable kicking with my right leg, thus normal stance where the left foot is at front feels more comfortable-throwing the right leg, as to kick, is similar to jumping or skating goofy. I’m right handed when writing ✍️ when playing football (soccer), I kick the ball with my right foot-here I’m also throwing the right leg as I jump or skate goofy.
So, not sure if I understood what you mean with southpaw, is it the same as me?
As a regular rider, I am left footed and I couldnt imagine being as accurate with flips and stuff with my weak foot..
I know guys in the national team who snowboard goofy and skate regular.
I've worked with them and they performe at high levels.
And you can still see the difference in confidence when they're in switch with both.
I’m 51, skating since i was ten… i also happen to practice traditional martial arts, yoga & self defense… I am right hand dominate and right leg dominate and i ride goofy, though my fakie skills are good i don’t think or feel it as switch…. those subtleties could make for another topic… anyway i wanted to add about Cross Body Power and how that principle applies… my stable dominate right leg holds me in a significantly strong balance while simultaneously sourcing the ground for power behind every kick in my push. making power distribution from my left leg push negligible.. more so the left leg is more relaxed and whip like ….. hence right hand and leg yet Goofy… and being goofy i think pushing mongo is just fine…. hahaha Nice Vid man 🤘🏼🛹🤘🏼
i choose to believe the pooping typo over tyshawn was on purpose 😂
This scratched every itch in my brain
2:50 thought that was Alex Jones for a second 😂😂
some tricks are also easier switch , in general people like rotating to one direction more.
i think switch 270 fs board is easier than regular fs board, same for fs shuv or fs bigspin , i dont do those tricks regular but can do them switch, really stance is actually more in our head because we watch so much skateboarding and get used to skating one way and just go with it ....... and because nobody wants to push mongo we dont get better at both stances early on because most people would rather learn ollie then kickflip then ollie then switch ollie so the way we practice also has a lot to do with it
What I find interesting is that the tricks at BATB where a specific stance (in my case goofy) has an advantage over the other stance, are also tricks that I somehow find very easy to do or, if I've never landed them, atleast find them easier to practice/learn than the others.
Time for a betting line in Vegas. That is really the only excuse for this data existing at all.
when i was little and i found out the way i stood was called goofy i thought something was wrong with me 😂
When I started skating I tried to copy my friend who got me into skating. He was goofy, but for me I could balance for longer with my left in front, and just naturally went regular stance instead of copying. I am also left eye dominant by a good amount
I am right handed
As a right-handed, right-footed, goofy skater, it never seemed to intuitive to use my dominant foot to pop. The front foot guides the board and does all the flicking, which I'm better at doing with my dominant foot.
My right eye is squinting. So my left eye is dominant. And so I skate regular. I am convinced that the eye dominance place a huge maybe often the biggest role.
u are doing the lords work thank u for sk8 sabermetrics
Was about to mention eye dominance until I saw it popping in the end of the video… there might be something in that category 🤔
Wait, I’m ‘goofy’? Surly having my best foot and best eye forward makes sense. This video is slightly mind blowing along with the comments. I like ‘which way you cartwheel’ response.
I don't know why but this gets hyped to skate
This is the kind of stuff I subscribed to dumb data for ❤
Superb Video! I loved that there's all this extensive math and statistics to just conclude on: Ye! It doesn't matter, do what you love (don't ride mongo tho)...
Loved it! 10/10
I've thought about this thousands of times since the 80's. Thank you for making this video! It gets more confusing when people are proficient in skateboarding and snowboarding but mix their stances! Gives me a headache just trying to comprehend why they don't ride skate/snowboards the same stance. Mix in surfing and you have one more variable to confuse the data. I'm so goofy-minded I can't ride an electric scooter regular footed. Even bowling is tricky since your end stance is regular when you're right handed. Forget about curling.., then I have to slide in a regular stance as I release the stone with the right hand. Then there's the using a golf club and a hockey stick issue... there's no consistency there either. The majority of right handed people will hit a slapshot in a goofy stance with their right hand closest to their body but it's the other way around in golf. This from what I understand has more to do with tradition and equipment being 99% right swinger for generations. But as left swinging clubs become more common so are people who swing left.
Leandre Sanders is so frustrating to watch. First time I saw him he was an unknown guy and I was so confused my brain was working at 200% trying to fathom why this guy was skating the Venice park regular in the street section and when doing flyouts, but goofy on transition. So so so so so incomprehensible.
Anyway. Great video!
"Gives me a headache just trying to comprehend why they don't ride skate/snowboards the same stance."
Because stance isn't real. Even handedness isn't real. If you learn something (say knitting) left handed, even if your'e right handed, you will NEVER be able to knit right handed until you re-learn it with your right hand. You simply can't do things well that you never learned to do.
@@LarsLarsen77 That's my point. If you already can skateboard and do so with a regular stance then why wouldn't you also ride in a regular stance if you picked up snowboarding or surfing? It's like you already know how to write with your right hand and then when you pick up graffiti you chose to only use your left hand.
Great video! I think it could be interesting if you made a video that takes an in depth look at which switch/nollie/fakie tricks are easier for each stance. I know you touched on it during the batb defensive statistics portion, but an insane amount of surveys could possibly reveal some interesting trends. For instance, I've always felt that goofy skaters are more likely to be skilled at switch front heels, bigspins, and big heels.
For skateboarding and snowboarding, it was whatever stance felt more natural while going down a hill/incline.
Thank you, I’ve been arguing with my friend about this for almost 10years hahaha
The only thing that matters is for long term you learn to ride switch. Trust me, my lower back muscles got strained and then tangled, locking into a spasm. Entirely from never committing to switch and constantly pounding on one side. Take care of yourself don’t worry about others.
Some dumb data ive learned over the many years of skating that pertain to this, is that goofy skaters on average find kickflip and backside tricks easier and regular skaters on average find heelflip and frontside tricks easier.
the reason i chose to stick to goofy was the hand i felt i could catch myself better. while stationary in my second year of skating i fell on my tail and fractured my left wrist
Where it really throws you off is im also a kickboxer, and goofy foot, so I end up being a unnatural southpaw fighting with my power hand in the front. Opposite of how they teach but my balance is best with my right foot forward
People that start out pushing mongo are always better at switch tho
Right handed goofy here. I used to be regular until one day when I was about 9-10 it just no longer felt comfortable. I felt much more comfortable balancing on my right foot while pushing with my left. To this day I still find it awkward to balance on my left foot while pushing with my right.
for me i think i like goofy foot because im more comfortable catching myself on my right side, i want my strong side to hit the floor when i fall forward as im more comfortable (i just fall forward way more often than backwards)
I just started skating like a week ago and i instantly gravitated towards skating goofy because it just made sense to me to have my dominant foot in front. I’m right handed and right footed and having my right foot keeping me stabilized on the board just feels safe and solid. Also when I kick a ball I use my right foot, and if I fall forward, I instinctively put my right foot forward.
Yeah, always made sense to have my right foot be the one doing the technical stuff (flicking, etc).
The stability vs. Action foot is a very interesting point. I started snowboard first, and was goofy. Years later I picked up skateboarding, and without even thinking about it I was skateboarding regular. The pushing of skateboarding being comparable to kicking a soccer ball explains a lot about this discrepancy in stance between the two sports. In the end, stance and handidness is such a weird concept. I know many people who are “right handed” for common task like writing or throwing a ball, but they’ll change hands for eating, or golfing/hockey. So strange!
I could never wrap my hand around how people could ride different stances on a skateboard and a snowboard. I am right handed and my stability foot is the left foot, my action foot is the right. My right foot is always in the back, no matter if I'm on a skateboard, snowboard, BMX, surfboard, wakeboard, you name it. In snowboarding you also put your weight on your front foot (so you can move your back foot to either side to initiate turns), in a similar way you do when pushing a skateboard, or kicking a ball.
Its teh same as shooting. Your shooting hand vs, the hand your stabilize your shot with. Which is often your writing hand.
I dunno man, I'm goofy on snow and skate
@tynao2029 shooting what? A rifle? Basketball? The shit?