QU,
Pumping may seem impossible if you have never seen it done in person.
But it can be learned without having seen it done.
First off. Pumping is a twisting motion- a motion where twisting motion and lateral force is converted into forward motion.
Very important to remember this while learning pumping.
For some tips- here's a good one. Take some knowledge from another sport you already know and transfer it to skateboard pumping.
So lets say you can Inline skate or ice skate. If you skate with your legs steering together and swivel your hips while applying extra lateral force to the outside skate in a turn you can propel yourself in Inline or ice skates without lifting your skates from the ground. You'll see this in competitive figure skating all the time. You could even just pump a single side to go around in a circle (this is seen the most in figure skating).
In swimming there is stroke called the Dolphin stroke. If you ever saw the ultra cheesey show "The Man from Atlantis" on re-runs- you'll see that he is using a motion similar to side surf pumping to propel himself through water.
http://epguides.com/ManfromAtlantis/
Patrick Duffy is one giant cheese ball- perfectly type cast for this role which probably had its best ratings in the East Village.
Here is one newbies account of learning to pump- and his tips
On 11/30/2001 señor Loco wrote in from 172.180.xxx.xxx:
Got my landyachtz chief yesterday, first longboard. Randall II's 180mm, 70 mm 78a (hardness) Kryptonics Classics wheels. No risers. Straight from landyachtz, they were great but the Canada/US customs took a couple of days. It took 8 business days from Vancouver Canada, to San Diego, California. $159 complete, came out to $170 even with shipping.
It was raining (damn you satan!) and I skated in an underground parking lot so no hill experience yet. First things first, the randall trucks are amazing. I have experiences on the pivots on my friends sector 9 and those things feel like they didn't move at all compared to the randall IIs. TIGHT toe-side and heel-side turns inspire awe in their stability. The Chief has 2" of camber and is pretty much flat when I stand on it (about 185 pounds).
My friend and I (check out the grammar!) learned how to pump, on flatland. I was pumping within a few minutes! If you want to learn how to pump, DO NOT emphasize carving. Pumping is not about applying force vertically into your board, to make it turn left or right. Pumping is all about lateral movement. It's about pushing to the sides, through your toes and through your heels...in those directions! Not up and down or leaning left and right, these things come naturally as a by product of the lateral movement. Second, although you can isolate different body parts, the motion should travel through your body, it is very easy to learn if you generate the energy in your body, not by leaning and turning with feet.
It's not about turning left and right fast! It's about generating twisting motions in your hips that travel down your quads (femur muscles, legs, lots of work done here!) and the end result pushing your feet laterally. By doing this, your weight will shift and the board will turn by itself...but I found the motion to be predominately a twisting motion (and I found it easiest to initiate in the hips and abs). Damn that made no sense.
All that nonsense being said, it seriously is like a snake. Snakes don't push down (too much), they push to the sides. And, it is a phase shifted motion meaning your front foot will pull to one side while your back pushes in the other direction, then both smoothly transitioning to the opposite, ad infinitum, or until you get tired, or hit a wall.
I also happen to like the "swiss style" that someone posted here, which is delegating most of the pushing power to the back foot, and also pushing to the sides with the front but mostly letting the front melt into the turns of the pumps while the back foot/leg does most of the power generation.
Oh and once you get the motion down and you can generate speed, try to do it as chilled out as you can, and become more efficient, that helped me a lot I was really over pushing and straining my muscles when I first learned, wasting lots of energy.
oh and pushing out with your back heel in the toeside direction is the easiest and most natural way to generate energy in the pump, but remember not to neglect the other direction, pulling with your back toeside inwards towards you heelside, in a nice smooth motion - to generate more power.
hope that helps
the chief says "Tonga tonga"