I get asked from time to time about how to hire a skater or a skateboarding demo team for an event, a party, a festival, or even up to a film! Hiring skaters is a great idea, but there is a wide range of what that means - you could spend tens of thousands of dollars and hire Tony Hawk, or you could spend ten dollars and hire your neighbors kid. But, where do you start? To help you out, I've put together an article, Hire a Skateboard Team to help you out. This article will walk you through the options, and give you an idea of what's out there.

If you know of other resources for hiring pro skaters, leave a comment and let us know, and I'll add them to the article!

I just updated some of our articles on opening up your own skateshop, written by guest writer and skate shop expert Marc Fuentes!

Opening up your own skateboard shop is a lot of skater's dream, but getting that shop succeed can be a nightmare. To help, we have a whole series of articles to walk you through the process:

• Opening Your Own Skateshop - this general article gives you all kinds of tips and tricks, and behind the scenes secrets to opening up your own successful skateboard shop
• The Question of Customer Care - how you deal with customers, and how much they feel cared for, is a MAJOR key to the success of any small business! In this article, Marc explains what goes into customer care, why it's so important, and gives some clues about how to make it happen
• Brick and Mortar VS E-Tailers - are you thinking about opening up an online skate shop? What are the benefits and risks of each? This article will give you insight into the question!
• Other skate shop business articles - Marc has written several more articles - follow this link to see them all.

If you watched the Super Bowl, then hopefully you caught the Chevy Sonic commercial, where Rob Dyrdek drives the new Chevy Sonic car off a ramp and does a sort of barrel roll with it, landing it perfectly! See the Chevy Sonic commercial for yourself. The commercial calls it a kickflip, and it's awesome! The carflip was performed at Magic Mountain. You'll also see them do several over ridiculous things with the car, but seeing Rob Dyrdek represent for skateboarding just warms my heart.

According to ESPN, Dyrdek "launched from a wave-shaped takeoff ramp that pitched the car into a barrel roll, the vehicle's spiraling motion essentially duplicating the look of one of skateboarding's staple tricks, the kickflip. He touched down on the landing ramp with some impact, corrected his steering, burned some rubber and rolled away."

"I don't know if you can prepare for something like this," Dyrdek told ESPN. "I did a bunch of random stunt training, like jumping out of windows and jumping off a roof. And I did jump the car and flipped it into [a landing pit of] boxes to get the feel of it. That in itself was scary." Read more on this story and watch an awesome behind-the-scenes video at ESPN.com.

For many skaters, the kickflip is the trick that tells the world that you don't just skate - you're good at skateboarding! But kickflips are HARD! You need to know how to ollie, and be able to do it consistently, and high. Plus, you need to have great balance and board control. And finally, you need to be OK with falling and getting hurt. And maybe, if you're lucky, the board will hit you in the crotch. A lot.

So, ready to learn to kickflip? You bet you are. First, watch this video on how to kickflip. Next, read my step by step instructions on how to kickflip. The video will show you, but the step by step instructions will give you detailed directions. They work well together. And, if you're trying and trying, but just can't get he height you need, take a look at How do I kickflip higher? It should help.

Once last piece of advice - make sure you're ready to learn the kickflip, before you charge in and crack yourself in the groin. If you can barely ollie, then go learn to ollie first. Get that dialed in. Then learn some other basic skateboarding tricks. Get comfortable skating first. However, you can totally ignore this and charge right in if you want to! As long as you're having fun, I'll be cheering you on!