Ask a group of skaters what trick changed their skating the most and you'll probably hear a lot of different answers.
Some will say kickflips.
Others will say frontside 180s.
A few will claim learning how to grind properly opened up an entirely new world of possibilities.
Very few people will say manuals.
Which is strange, because manuals might be one of the most important skills in all of skateboarding.
The reason they get overlooked is fairly obvious. Manuals don't have the same glamour as a big stair set trick. They don't generate huge reactions on social media. Nobody gathers around a skatepark shouting for somebody to land a manual on flat ground. Compared to flip tricks, grinds and airs, they can seem almost boring.
Until you start paying attention.
Then you realise manuals are everywhere.
They're hidden inside lines. They're linking tricks together. They're helping skaters control speed, balance and body position. They're turning ordinary obstacles into creative opportunities. Once you begin noticing them, you realise some of the best skateboarders in the world are constantly using manual skills, whether they're performing a manual trick or not.
That's because manuals teach something much bigger than manuals.
They teach board control.
And board control is what separates good skaters from great skaters.
Think back to when you first stepped on a skateboard. Everything felt unstable. Every movement felt exaggerated. The board seemed to have a mind of its own. Over time, that feeling disappeared. Not because skateboarding became easier, but because your body gradually learned how to make thousands of tiny adjustments without conscious thought.
Manuals accelerate that process.
The challenge isn't really balancing on two wheels.
The challenge is learning how your body and skateboard work together.
Every tiny movement matters. Shift your weight too far forward and the front wheels touch down. Lean back too aggressively and the tail scrapes. Stay too rigid and you'll struggle to make adjustments. Stay too loose and you'll never find consistency. Somewhere in the middle is a sweet spot where everything suddenly starts making sense.
That's why manuals are often frustrating at first.
Unlike some tricks, there's no quick shortcut.
You can't muscle your way through them.
You can't simply commit harder.
You have to develop feel.
And that's exactly why they're so valuable.
The funny thing is that most skaters spend years trying to improve board control while largely ignoring one of the best tools for developing it. They'll spend hours learning increasingly technical tricks while avoiding manuals because they seem repetitive or difficult. Meanwhile, the skaters who dedicate time to manuals often find that everything else starts improving too.
Their balance improves.
Their confidence improves.
Their consistency improves.
Even their style improves.
That's because manuals force you to become more aware of what's happening beneath your feet.
You stop reacting to the board and start working with it.
That relationship carries across every aspect of skateboarding.
It becomes obvious when you watch experienced skaters cruising through a city. They don't simply roll from one obstacle to another. They interact with the environment. They pop over cracks. Ride curbs. Shift their weight effortlessly. Adjust speed without thinking. Everything feels smooth and connected.
A huge amount of that comes from the same balance and body awareness developed through manual practice.
Perhaps that's why manual pads have become such a central feature of modern skateparks. They're one of the few obstacles that work for almost every skill level. Beginners can use them to learn balance. Intermediate skaters can build consistency. Advanced skaters can spend entire sessions linking together combinations that would have seemed impossible a few years earlier.
The obstacle remains the same.
The possibilities keep expanding.
That's one of the beautiful things about manuals.
They grow with you.
A beginner sees a balancing exercise.
An experienced skater sees endless creative potential.
You can see that progression throughout skateboarding history. Some of the most memorable video parts ever filmed contain manual tricks that are technically less complicated than many modern flip tricks. Yet people remember them because they look good. They flow. They demonstrate complete control over the board.
Style has always mattered in skateboarding.
Manuals help develop it.
Not in the superficial sense of copying somebody else's stance or movements, but in the deeper sense of becoming comfortable enough on your board that your own style starts emerging naturally.
That's ultimately what makes manuals so important.
They're not really about manuals.
They're about understanding skateboarding.
They're about slowing down and paying attention to the details. The tiny adjustments. The subtle shifts in weight. The relationship between movement and balance. The things that don't always look impressive from the outside but make an enormous difference once they're mastered.
The irony is that many skaters only discover this years into their skateboarding journey.
They spend years chasing bigger tricks before realising they overlooked one of the most valuable skills available.
Which is why we'd argue manuals deserve far more attention than they usually get.
Not because they're flashy.
Not because they're trendy.
Because they make almost everything else better.
So the next time you're at the skatepark or rolling through town looking for something to skate, find a painted line, a curb or a manual pad and spend twenty minutes working on balance.
It probably won't be the most exciting session you've ever had.
But there's a good chance it'll improve your skating more than you expect.
And that's exactly why manuals remain one of the most underrated skills in skateboarding.
