Essential learning - this is the one you simply have got to have sorted before riding a hill. Though sliding and carving can be more stylish, and sometimes more effective at slowing you down, footbraking is still the one for speed control in tight situations, so really useful in traffic and racing where you don't always have room to slide. If you want to ride hills, learn this before you do anything.

Click here for a sequence (requires flash)

The Next Step: Go faster and brake harder! Racers at the top of the game can brake so hard their shoes smoke, and griptape melts as the braking foot is put back on the board again. Speaking of shoes, if you're going to footbrake a lot it's worth finding a source of very cheap shoes, or finding someone who skates the opposite stance to you with to swap shoes with (a "shoe buddy"). If you're getting into some major speed, it might be worth sticking some replaceable rubber to the sole of your shoes - go kart tyres are ideal, but there's lots of alternatives out there.