The Z-Boys or the Zephyr team invented the Bert Slide, and it was named after Larry Bertleman, who was a famous surfer. For all of you out there that aren’t familiar with the Bert Slide, it is where the skateboarder crouches down very low and he plants a single hand on the ground, while at the same time allowing their board and their feet slide out one hundred and eighty degrees. All-in-all, the Bert Slide is a very smooth, stylish, old school trick which anyone can learn; the best part of it all is that you don’t have to know how to do an Ollie in order to be able to learn how to perform the Bert Slide.

Below, you will find a list of things that you need to know before you learn the Bert Slide:

1) First and foremost, you have to know how to ride a skateboard. All you have to learn is the basics and possess a slight increase in your confidence. As a rider, you want to have the ability to ride comfortably and you want to have the control of the skateboard as well as your body.
2) Secondly, you will need to become comfortable with the lowering and rising while riding the skateboard. Make sure that you allow yourself the time to get up some speed and then crouch yourself down low with your knees bent deep and then touch your skateboard. Once you have completed this, you can straighten back up. Before you move on to the next step, you need to make sure that you are comfortable with doing similar things to this.

Bert Slide Instructions

1) Make sure that you are wearing gloves, this can’t be stressed enough. But you will realize why this is so important yourself, if you don’t listen and you end up with your hand being bloody, scraped and in a heap of pain. You also need to make sure that you take care in the type of gloves that you use. Wool or Cotton gloves probably would be the absolute worst choice because they easily grip the pavement. Leather gloves would be a good choice but they scratch to easy. So, the best choice possible would be work gloves or snowboarding gloves. Both of these are good choices because the material isn’t going to allow them to snag on the concrete’s imperfections. You should also use a little tape, but the real pain will come when you try to get the adhesive off once you are done.
2) Focus on speed, when you perform the Bert Slide, you are going to need to have a descent amount of speed up or otherwise you aren’t going to get the spin that you intended.
3) Practice, as the old saying goes “practice makes perfect”. You are going to have to realize that in order to perform the Bert Slide perfectly you are going to have to keep practicing and after time, you will get smoother and smoother.

This is for the stance:

1) First and foremost, you are going to need to get some speed up.
2) Once you have your speed up, you are going to grab your board with one of your hands which is normally going to be your right hand.
3) Once you have grabbed your board, you are going to put your left hand on the ground and try to keep it controlled as you begin to spin. You shouldn’t be afraid to fall off or to have the skateboard to smack you. All of these things are a part of learning.