How to Ride a Manual on a Skateboard

The manual is one of those tricks that looks deceptively simple when you watch someone else do it. They just roll along on two wheels, seemingly without effort, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Then you try it for the first time and within about half a second you’re either nose-diving into the tarmac or sitting awkwardly on your tail. Sound familiar? Don’t worry – every skater goes through exactly this. The manual is genuinely one of the most rewarding skills you can develop, and once it clicks, it opens up a whole new world of trick combinations and line possibilities.

This guide is aimed squarely at beginners – people who can push, turn, and maybe stop with some confidence, but who haven’t yet got their balance dialled in on two wheels. We’ll cover what a manual actually is, why it’s worth learning, how to get started safely, and how to build up your consistency over time. Whether you’re practising in a car park in Manchester, a skate plaza in Bristol, or your local park in Edinburgh, the same principles apply.

What Is a Manual, Exactly?

A manual is essentially a wheelie on a skateboard – but on the back two wheels rather than the front. You roll forward, shift your weight back so the nose lifts off the ground, and then balance on just the rear trucks for as long as possible before setting the board back down. The trick is typically done in a straight line across flat ground, though more experienced skaters link them into other tricks or perform them on ledges and manual pads.

There’s also the nose manual, which is the opposite – balancing on the front two wheels with the tail raised. That one comes later and is arguably trickier, so we’ll focus on the standard manual first. Get comfortable with one before you move on to the other.

Unlike many skateboard tricks, the manual doesn’t involve jumping or spinning the board. It’s pure balance and body control, which makes it a brilliant foundation skill. Improving your manual will directly improve your overall skating because it forces you to understand your centre of gravity, your board’s balance point, and how subtle shifts in your stance affect everything.

Why Bother Learning It?

Honestly, the manual might be the single most useful trick in a street skater’s toolkit. Here’s why it matters beyond just looking cool:

It teaches you proprioception – your body’s awareness of where it is in space. This transfers directly to every other trick you’ll ever learn.
It makes your lines infinitely more interesting. Rolling up to a kerb, doing a kickflip, manualling across a flat section, then popping out – that’s a proper line.
It’s a great trick to practise when the ground isn’t ideal for fliptricks or grinds, which in the UK, given our weather, is quite often.
It requires no special terrain. A flat, smooth bit of tarmac or concrete is all you need.
It’s genuinely satisfying. There’s something almost meditative about holding a long manual.

A lot of beginners skip the manual because it doesn’t seem as flashy as an ollie or a kickflip. That’s a mistake. Skaters who put time into their manuals tend to have noticeably better board feel overall. It’s one of those things where the work you put in pays dividends across your entire skating.

Getting Your Setup Right

Before we get into technique, it’s worth making sure your equipment isn’t working against you. You don’t need anything fancy, but a few things will make learning easier.

Your trucks should be tightened to a moderate level – not rock solid, but not so loose that the board wobbles all over the place the moment you lift the nose. If your trucks are extremely loose, finding the balance point during a manual becomes much harder because the board keeps shifting laterally underneath you. As your balance improves you can loosen them back up, but when you’re learning, a bit more stability helps.

Wheel hardness matters too. Softer wheels (78a-87a durometer) are great for rough UK streets and absorb vibration well, but they can sometimes feel sluggish for tricks. For manual practice on smooth tarmac or a skate plaza, something in the 99a-101a range rolls more freely and gives you better feedback. If you’re buying wheels in the UK, brands like Bones, Ricta, and Spitfire are widely available from shops like Slam City Skates in London, Route One nationwide, or Independent Trucks stockists across the country.

Footwear matters more than people realise. Flat-soled skate shoes – Vans, DC, Emerica, or similar – give you proper board feel. Running shoes with thick, cushioned soles make it genuinely difficult to feel where the balance point is. If you’re serious about skating, a decent pair of skate shoes is one of the best investments you can make.

Finding the Right Spot to Practise

You want somewhere flat, smooth, and reasonably long. A smooth car park after hours is ideal – many retail parks and supermarkets are perfectly usable on evenings and weekends when they’re quiet. Skate plazas like those at Bay Sixty6 in London, Burnside Skatepark, or the outdoor sections at spots like the South Bank area in London are also excellent. The South Bank undercroft, which has been saved and protected as a skateboarding spot, is genuinely one of the best urban skate areas in Europe for practising flat ground tricks.

In terms of legality, skateboarding on public pavements and pedestrian areas in the UK can be complicated. Local councils have varying bylaws, and some areas have skateboarding restrictions. As a general rule, practise in skate parks, skate plazas, or areas where skating is clearly permitted. Causing a nuisance or skating in restricted areas can result in on-the-spot fines in some boroughs, so it’s worth being aware of your local rules. Skate-friendly spots are usually well known in local skate communities – ask at your local skate shop and they’ll point you in the right direction.

Learning the Manual: Step-by-Step

Right, let’s get into the actual technique. Work through these steps progressively rather than trying to skip ahead.

Find your balance point while stationary. Before you even move, stand on your board in your normal stance and practise gently pressing down on your tail to lift the nose. Don’t pop it up aggressively – just ease it up an inch or two. Try to hold that position. You’ll feel the exact point where you’re balanced over the back trucks. This is your target balance point during a rolling manual.
Do it at a slow roll first. Give yourself a gentle push and then, at a comfortable rolling speed, shift your weight back and lift the nose just slightly. Don’t try to go high at first. Even getting the nose a centimetre off the ground and holding it for half a second is progress. Your goal in this stage is just to get comfortable with the feeling.
Work on your arms. Your arms are your counterbalance. Most beginners keep their arms glued to their sides out of self-consciousness, which makes balancing much harder. Spread your arms out naturally – think of a tightrope walker. When you feel yourself going too far back (about to sit on your tail), bring your arms forward slightly and push your hips forward. When you feel yourself tipping forward, lean back gently and let your arms come back.
Focus on your front foot. The most common mistake beginners make is thinking about pushing down on the tail. Instead, think about what your front foot is doing. Your front foot is what controls the balance – pressing it down slightly brings the nose back to the ground, taking pressure off it lets the nose stay up. Subtle pressure changes through your front foot are how you maintain the manual.
Use your knees as shock absorbers. Keep a slight bend in your knees throughout. Straight, locked knees make you rigid and any small imperfection in the ground will knock you off balance. Bent knees let you absorb minor irregularities and make micro-adjustments much more easily.
Increase your speed gradually. Counter-intuitively, a bit more speed actually makes manuals easier to hold. At very slow speeds the board wobbles more and you have less time to correct. Practise at a comfortable cruising speed rather than barely moving.
Set a distance goal. Use cracks in the pavement, painted lines in a car park, or markers you place yourself. Start with a target of manualling between two points about two metres apart. Once you can do that consistently, extend it to four metres, then six, and so on. Having a concrete goal to aim for keeps you focused and makes your progress measurable.
Record yourself. This is enormously helpful and completely underused by beginners. Prop your phone up or get a friend to film you. Watching your own footage reveals things you simply cannot feel while skating – maybe your weight is too far back, maybe your arms are too low, maybe you’re leaning to one side. A ten-second clip will teach you more than ten minutes of frustrated guesswork.

Common Mistakes and How to Fix Them

The tail drag is probably the most common issue. This is when instead of balancing on the wheels, you let the tail scrape along the ground. It happens when you push the tail down too aggressively rather than gently shifting weight back. The fix is to think less about pushing the tail and more about pulling your front foot back slightly while keeping your centre of gravity over the rear trucks. A dragging tail also wears your board down quickly, which is an expensive habit to keep.

Falling backward is the flip side of this problem. If you keep toppling off the back of the board, you’re shifting your weight too far back too quickly. Try leaning your shoulders slightly forward even as your hips shift back –
this counterbalance is what keeps you in control. Your upper body and lower body are working against each other in a productive way, and once you feel that tension, you will recognise it every time.

Another common issue is wobbling side to side, which usually points to a truck tension problem rather than a technique failure. If your trucks are very loose, the board will hunt around underneath you and become almost impossible to hold steady. Try tightening your kingpin nuts slightly before practising manuals, then loosen them again gradually as your balance improves. It is also worth checking that your feet are centred symmetrically on the board rather than favouring your heel or toe edge, as even a small amount of uneven pressure will cause the board to roll out from under you.

Consistency comes from repetition on flat ground before you attempt to manual over any distance. Set yourself a marker, even just a crack in the pavement, and try to hold the manual from one point to another. Shorten the distance if you need to and build it up slowly. There is no shortcut to the muscle memory required, and anyone who tells you otherwise has forgotten how many times they fell off learning it themselves.

The manual is one of those tricks that looks deceptively simple from the pavement but demands a genuine understanding of your own balance and your board’s behaviour. Stick with it, practise on smooth, flat surfaces, and focus on the position of your centre of gravity rather than your feet. Once it clicks, it opens up a huge amount of creative potential in your skating, linking tricks together in ways that were not possible before.