Skateboard Tricks

1. Frontside Air: You want to be comfortable grinding or kickturning frontside before you huck your first frontside air. As with backside airs, early grabs are not recommended. You'll naturally tend to reach AROUND your knees for your board, or BETWEEN them. Reach around them if possible, because habits can be hard to break and you don't want a stink bug habit to start in the first place. Go up the wall at a slight angle, with your shoulders facing the coping. You should have enough speed going to do an air, but don't go so fast that you lose control every time you get in the air. As you approach the lip, you should have your knees bent, be a little tucked, and have your trailing hand starting to reach towards your board. Let your weight shift to your back foot a little bit as you come off of the coping, and your board should pop right into your waiting hand. Stay tucked and look for your landing spot. Land with your knees bent. Try to get your board to trace a smooth arc from start to finish. The higher you go, the slower you will turn in the air.

2. Sweeper: Roll up the transition until you hit coping. Drop your back foot on the coping while simultaneously raising your front foot with the board into a position that enables you to grab your nose. Looking over your shoulder, place the tail on the coping as you hop off your back foot to get it back onto the board as you drop back in. It should all be done in one smooth motion.

3. Backside Bluntslide : Approach the obstacle with your back facing it with a good amount a speed to hook up a long slide. Make sure you are going almost parallel to the obstacle and just barely towards it. Get into a blunt slide by popping a high ollie like you want to get on top of the obstacle. During your ollie, turn your board frontside 90 degrees with your back foot and lock in your tail to blunt. Slide it for as long as you can balancing yourself by putting more or less pressure on your front or back front. Pop out by putting a small amount of pressure on your back foot and turning back 90 degrees backside directing your board with your front foot. Land it with no toe touch and roll away clean.

4. Backside Air: Forget about early grabs. You'll never go big, and people might laugh. Start by trying some backside kickturns up near the coping and grabbing your board just in front of your front foot. You should be compressed with your knees bent, so it should not require much effort to reach your board. Once you get the feel for grabbing your board, you can start trying airs. Go up the wall at a very slight angle. Don't carve too much at first because your board will tend to fly away from you. As you approach the coping, your front wheels should start coming off of the wall at the same time as your hand reaches down for your board, which is the same as the kickturn. As your back wheels hit the coping, put the slightest pressure on your back foot, almost scooping it upward. This will help bring your board into your hand, as well as sending you in the right direction, which is up. You are in the air now with your body facing the coping. Stay calm, stay compressed. Your back foot should steer your board in a nice arc facing you back into the ramp. As you come back in, suck your legs back under you to land nice and smooth on the vert. Go bigger on the next wall.

5. Backside 180: This trick can be tough to learn, but it's a great trick to take over gaps, or just to switch your stance during a run. Set your feet up the same as you would for an ollie. When you're first starting it helps to put your foot closer to the nose for a little more control. Pop your ollie and start turning backside… as with any body rotation, your shoulders lead and everything follows. You should reach the peak of your ollie as you are 90 degrees through your rotation. This is where you spot your landing, making sure to keep your weight directly over your board. When doing this trick over a long gap, a skater will usually ollie as far out as he/she can, then rotate really late. When doing this trick down a big drop, or stairs, it's better to rotate nice and smoothly throughout. For a solid landing, all four wheels should land at once, and you shouldn't have to slide the last part of the 180 around right when you land. Plus, sliding around like that will put flat spots on your wheels.

6. Backside Feeble Grind: First learn backside 50-50s and 5-0s. Ride at the object with a good amount of speed. Ollie on to the object like you're doing a backside 50-50, but right before both trucks make contact, push the front one over the bar by straightening your front leg. Lean back with all your weight on the back truck (the weight placement is very similar to a 5-0, but with your foot pointing the nose down) and hold that position while powering through the grind. At the end, let your nose come up so your board is parallel with the ground right as you come off. Ride away with both feet over the truck bolts, clean as a whistle. Feeble grinds can be taken to all kinds of obstacles, and is a popular handrail trick. Once you learn how to lock in to them, they're easier to control than boardslides. Now get to feeblin!.

7. Frontside Nose Bluntslide: You're going to want to gather some decent speed for this one. It's not the kinda trick you can just get onto and hang out until you come off. You've got to earn it. Your front foot should be close enough to your nose that you can stick it on the ledge, but far enough back to let you pop a good ollie. Come at the ledge parellel. As you pop, you should shift your momentum so you're ollieng towards the ledge to get your nose locked in. It's almost like you're nose sliding the side of the ledge. Once you're on there, keep your front foot pushing that nose down and forward. If you stay balanced on the ledge, the dismount isn't too tricky. You kinda nollie out, and use your back foot to control the tail so you land riding straight. Make sure the ledge has a good coating of wax, especially on top where your wheels are sliding.

8.Backside Tailslide: Go fast and get ready! You want to approach the obstacle at a little bit of an angle but mainly parallel. Ollie and turn the lower half of your body to get your tail on the ledge, keeping your shoulders parallel to the ledge at all times. Now there are two ways to come out… forward or fakie. To come out forward, just let the lower half of your body turn back to parallel with your shouders as you drop off of the ledge. To come out fakie, turn the upper half of your body so you start facing backwards right before you want to come off. Keep rotating that torso so that by the time you come off and land, you are now facing the ledge. The plan is that your legs and feet and board follow your shoulders around and you land parallel to the ledge.

9. Kickflip Nose Wheelie: This trick is sure to impress folks no matter where you go, but in order to pull it off you'd better have a decent and consistent kickflip, since that is only the beginning of the trick. Roll up to the curb or obstacle just as if you were going to kickflip up it. When you flip your flip, let your front foot just hang there above the nose as your board flips around. When you see the grip tape again, stop the spin with your back foot, then get your front foot on that nose and bring it down before the back wheels touch. Now that you're in the nose manual position, just ride it on out. And remember, you didn't really land it if your back wheels hit the obstacle when you came off, so try it again.

10. Backside 50-50: This is a great trick to learn as it will open doors to a bunch of other coping tricks. You might want to try stalling up there before you try the grind; it will get you used to your weight placement. Roll up to the transition with a decent amount of speed. Charge straight up the transition, and as your back truck gets right near the coping, you want to turn so that your heel edge wheel rolls on top of the coping. As you do this, you want to put your weight over that heel edge to get you up on top of the coping. Once you're standing pretty much on top of the coping, set your front truck down. All that's left to do to finish off the stall is drop back in by lifting up your front truck and kickturning into the tranny. In order not to hang up, make sure you put enough weight on the toe edge of your tail so that your heel edge wheel can roll back over the coping without any trouble. Once you have the stall down, the grinding part is pretty basic. You just need a little more speed, and as you approach the coping, you want to be at an angle rather than rolling straight up to it. That way your momentum will pull you along the coping. Once you're grinding, just ride it as far as you can, then drop back in as you did with the stall.

11. Backside 5-0: If you've got the backside 50-50 on transition, you shouldn't have too much trouble with the 5-0. Cruise towards the coping just like you would for the fiddy-fiddy. Get your back truck on top of the coping, again, just like you were doing a 50-50. Since you're initially on your back truck for the 50-50, all you've got to do is keep your weight on that tail instead of setting down your front truck. You most likely won't be able to grind 5-0 as long as you'd be able to grind 50-50, so you're just gonna have to go faster, bro. As you get comfortable in the 5-0 position, try shifting it like a salad grind as you grind along the coping. This will set you up for dropping back in fakie. This can be tough, but it is a very smooth looking trick when done right.

12. Frontside 50-50: For some, the frontside 50-50 is easier than backside, but for most it's more intimidating having your back face down the transition. Once you get over this fear, though, a whole new world of frontside coping tricks is opened up to you. Doesn't that sound appealing? Now that you're anxious to expand your ramp skating, let's get started. Just as with the backside 50-50, learning the stall first will help. Cruise straight up the transition, but as you get right near the coping you want to turn to get your toe edge wheel of the back truck over the coping rather than the heel edge wheel. With the frontside stall, it's important to get that toe edge wheel as far over the coping as possible to allow yourself some stability while your up on the lip. Just like with the backside stall, get on your back truck first then set down the front truck, placing your weight predominantly on the toe side of the board. To drop back in, just do a little kick turn into the tranny. Remember, don't let your toe edge wheels hang up. Now, to grind rather than stall you're going to need more speed and remember to approach the coping at an angle so your momentum will take you along the coping instead of just straight up and out.

13. Frontside 5-0: Don't fool yourself, kids, a frontside 5-0 does not consist of a kickturn on the coping. You have to get up on top of that thing and scrape some metal off your trucks. To do this, or even attempt this, see that you can do a frontside 50-50 so you're comfortable with the feeling of the transition being behind you. When you've gathered your courage, pump towards the tranny going all fast. Start to turn and throw your body weight frontside, to get you momentum going that way, about a foot below the lip. Then, just lock your back truck onto the copes like you would for a 5-0 on a ledge. Once you get comfortable with balancing in that position, you can grind frontside 5-0 for days. Going down escalators is the best (no, not the kind in the mall). 13. Backside Lipslide: First get comfortable with ollies and backside ollies. Approach the obstacle going fast, real fast, and almost parallel to the thingy your going to lipslide. Ollie ! ! Enough to get your back wheels over what you are lipsliding. Touch down on the thing you're sliding, keeping your shoulders parallel and your legs in a shifty position, sliding and lookin' sick. As you approach the end of the obstacle, put a little bounce in your knees and come flying off the end as you shift your legs back to parallel.

14. Ollie: With both your feet on the board, lift up the heel of your back foot so your weight is on the ball of your foot and your toes. That part of your foot should be centered at the tip of the tail. Your front foot should be about 2/3 of the way up the board, angled slightly forward. Your toes should be near the toe edge of the board and, depending on shoe size, your heel may be hanging off of the heel edge. Smack the tail to the ground with your back foot and jump off of that back foot--getting the timing down is probably the hardest part. As you jump, your front foot slides up to your nose, pulling the board into the air. At the peak of your ollie, level out your board, then wait for the landing. Always land with your knees bent. When ollieing a gap, try not to think about clearing it; instead, think about popping a nice big ollie. The hardest part about ollieing most gaps is getting in the committed mindset. When you're in the air, spot your landing and keep those shoes on that grip tape until you roll away.

15. 360 Flip: The 360 flipcombines two tricks, the kickflip and the 360 shove-it. Even if you can't do a 360 pop shuvit, don't fret. You should, however be familiar with the plain ol' backside pop shuvit. To do a 360 flip, you should position your front foot like you would for a kickflip, with your foot slid back toward the heel-edge of the board and also further back lengthwise. Your rear foot should be positioned with your toe on the toe-edge of the tail. Rolling at a moderate to slow speed for learning, sweep your back foot behind you, pushing down just enough to get the tail to smack against the ground as you sweep. This will rotate the board around 360 shuvit style. Within the same motion as the sweep, make your front foot do a kickflip. The whole thing should take about the same amount of time a kickflip does, so you won't have to "hang" in the air any longer. When the nose comes back around and the griptape side shows upward, stick your feet back on and land it.

16. Frontside Ollie 180: Needless to say, it is necessary to learn to ollie first. The frontside 180 ollie is basically an ollie with a 180 turn in mid-air. Setting up for it is essentially the same as for an ollie, but as you crouch down for the "pop"", wind up your body a little by turning your torso backside (your leading hand should "reach" across your stomach). As you hop into the ollie, unwind by twisting your torso frontside. By the time your tail smacks the ground, your torso should be "ahead" of your legs; when the board lifts into the air, your body is already turning frontside, pulling your legs along. Your legs, in turn, are pulling your feet along, which are guiding your board around. Voila! You're on your way. The board should remain directly beneath you the entire time. When you've turned all the way around and the board is lined up and drifting fakie, extend your legs and land. You will now be rolling backwards. It may seem strange to land this way, but get used to it. You will soon learn many tricks that will require landing backwards or switch-stance. One way to learn to land backwards is to try a rolling 180 body varial (jump and turn your body 180 degrees, landing on the board switch-stance). You will find that the frontside 180 ollie is a good set-up trick and that many variations are possible.

17. Ollie Manual: The ollie manual is a good trick to help develop your balance and ollie control. The idea is to ollie and land on your back wheels, riding a "wheelie" for a distance before setting the front wheels down. It can be done on the flat ground or over an object, but is most commonly done up onto an element, like a curb or block. It requires a fair sense of balance, and you should be comfortable ollieing. It might be good to get accustomed to manualling on flat ground before ollieing onto something, but a curb is a good element on which to learn the ollie manual. Ride at the curb at a normal ollie speed - you'll want to go fast enough to get up onto the curb and still have momentum for the manual. Pop into an ollie and get up over the curb. Instead of levelling the board in the air beneath you, keep your leading foot up and your weight centered over the back wheels. The lower you pop your ollie, still clearing the element of course, the smoother you will land on your back wheels and the easier it will be to gain balance once on those wheels. Once on them there back wheels, you'll notice your body arched forward over your board as you ride the manual. This is how you keep your weight balanced on the back wheels. It is useful to try and manual a set distance, like to a line on the sidewalk or off the curb again. This will give you something specific to strive for until you've got the ollie manual so wired that you can just ride it for days. Then you can try variations like the ollie manual to kickflip off of an element, or even the ollie flip to manual. The options are endless.

18. Kickflip: Set up your feet in the ollie position. Your front foot, though, should be adjusted back towards the heel edge a bit and your toes (or rather the front of your shoe) should be just behind the centermost mounting bolts of the front truck. Do an ollie, but rather than only sliding your front foot upward and forward, you must also slide your foot (again, probably your shoe) to the heel side enough to start your board in a spin. This action requires you to actually kick your front foot off of your board; the last point of contact between the front of your shoe and the board should be in that little concaved dip just before the nose. The spinning board then hovers for a second between your sprawling legs. When you see the grip again, stop the rotation with your back foot, then put that front foot back on, right on top of them bolts, and land.

19. Frontside Tailslide: The frontside tailslide is a trick that, although difficult, can be learned in stages and worked up to. It is useful to be comfortable with the frontside 180 ollie, though you won't need to turn around all the way. Practice landing in the tailslide position by riding at the curb slowly and ollieing frontside. Get just your tail over the curb and put your weight on that tail as you plant it on that curb, leaving your trucks and wheels hanging off the edge. Once you're comfortable landing in that position, try it with a little more speed and roll at the curb almost parallel to it. The faster you go and the more parallel you are to the curb, the longer you'll slide. Once you do get the hang of sliding, get a feel for how long you can push it before the tail slows down and locks in place. You'll want to begin shifting your weight back over the board as it slows down so that you can come off the curb with at least some speed, before it stops completely. Once you have the frontside ollie tailslide wired on curbs, take it to a ledge or something a little taller. Also, try swinging your torso frontside as you ollie into the tailside position, and instead of shifting your weight back over the nose to come off the object, push the tail ahead of you to finish the frontside 180 motion initiated at the start of the trick.

20. Drop In: This entails starting from the top of a transition and "dropping in." Before trying the tail drop, you should be comfortable rolling all the way up and down the transition. Set your board on the coping with the nose and trucks out over the coping and the tail resting flat on top of it. Do the following all in one motion: with your back foot in position on the tail, step out over the board, set your front foot in place, and crouch over the board as it and your body simultaneously tilt downward into the transition. Be sure to lean plenty forward and "commit" because any hesitation will send the board shooting out from under you. In the same way, if you just plunge forward ahead of the board, you will find yourself racing down the transition headfirst with the board coming down behind and independently of you. This is not desireable. It is sometimes useful to learn the tail drop by grabbing the nose as you step out onto the board and guiding it downward with your body until you're actually rolling down the transition, at which point you let go of the nose and allow your front foot to set it down as you extend your legs and pump. It is crucial that you keep your body centered over the board or else it will shoot out from under you. That's why grabbing the nose is helpful, it keeps you and the board in synch.

21. Roll to Manual: This little trick helps to build balance, and gives you something to do while you're skating down the sidewalk to the corner store, or to the next spot. Your back foot should be on the tail, but very close if not covering one or two of the rearing mounting bolts. Your front foot should be somewhere around the front mounting trucks. This wide stance will enable you to control the manual with both your front and back feet. Try turning while doing a manual to really test your skills.

22. Roll to Manual: This little trick helps to build balance, and gives you something to do while you're skating down the sidewalk to the corner store, or to the next spot. Your back foot should be on the tail, but very close if not covering one or two of the rearing mounting bolts. Your front foot should be somewhere around the front mounting trucks. This wide stance will enable you to control the manual with both your front and back feet. Try turning while doing a manual to really test your skills.

23. Backside Boardslide: This is the easiest of the slide tricks and will get you used to the feeling of how your board slides on different obstacles. It also serves as a good warm-up trick on an obstacle for more advanced skaters, in order to gauge how that particular obstacle slides. Approach the object at a very mellow angle. Pop an ollie and get your nose and front truck up and over the object, landing on the deck between the trucks. Center your weight over the board and slide until the end of the obstacle. When nearing departure from the object, start to turn yourself and your board 90 degrees, but don't be too anxious or your wheels will hit the object before you come off. A slight bounce off of the end of the object allows you to fly off the end instead of dropping straight down to the ground. Depending on the obstacle, this trick sometimes requires you to lift your front truck over the obstacle while coming off. To do this, put pressure on your tail as you turn off the object, as if you're doing a kickturn in the air.

24. Frontside Boardslide: This trick can be intimidating, especially since it's the first blindside trick that a skater usually learns. Approach the obstacle frontside at a mellow angle. Pop an ollie and get your nose and front truck up and over the object, landing on the deck between the trucks. If you plan on landing in your regular stance, keep your shoulders facing the same direction the whole time and let your hips do the turning. If you plan on landing fakie, your shoulders should be facing backside with the board while sliding. Come off the object using the same method as you would for a backside boardslide.

25. Kickflip Backside Tailslide: Can you guess what two tricks you should learn before trying this? Yup, kickflips and backside tailslides. Approach the obstacle just like you were going to do a backside tailslide. Your front foot should be in the same position as for a b/s tailslide, only a little more towards your heel edge so you can get a nice flip. Snap your ollie and do a kickflip while turning your hips backside. In the same motion that you catch the flip with your back foot, you should be planting that back foot over the edge of the obstacle. Once you're on there, keep your hips 90 degrees to the object and your torso parallel with it. Slide as long as possible and drop off as you shift your hips back to forward. Now do it again.

26. Rock & Roll: Before attempting this trick on a transition, you should be comfortable with kick turns and you should be able to already drop in on said transition. Approach the tranny with enough speed to get up to the coping. When you get up there, get your front truck over the coping and put pressure on your nose so you "rock" on the coping on the middle of your board. Now here's the tough part. Get your weight back onto the tail and perform a kick turn, making sure (and this is important) that your front truck is high enough to clear the coping as you swing it around. Once you've got that covered, just touch your front wheels back onto the transition and cruise on down to the flats. For some, rocks to fakie are easier to attempt first. There's no kick turn involved, but you do have be comfortable with coming back into the transition moving fakie.

27. Frontside 5-0: You ought to be comfortable with the 50-50 and the manual before taking on the 5-0. Approach the object as if you were going to do a 50-50. Pop an ollie and get your back truck on the ledge (again, like you were going to do a 50-50). Instead of putting your front truck down, you want to try to stay in the manual position. This requires more forward momentum and backward lean than a manual, depending of course on the butter factor of the obstacle in question. Just hold on to that grind as long as you can or until the end of the object and come off as if you were coming out of a manual on a curb. A good way to lock into 5-0 grinds is to angle the board out like a smith grind, only pointing up instead of down. This will let you apply more pressure towards the obstacle to keep that back truck in position, and don't be afraid to let your tail drag along the surface.

28. Frontside Lipslide: In order to execute the very popular and attractive lipslide, learn boardslides and frontside 180s first. Approach the obstacle as you would for a 50-50. Pop your ollie and start turning yourself (and your board) frontside, making sure your back truck is high enough to go over the obstacle. Once you are hovering above the object, perpendicular to it, land in the boardslide position. From here on out, it's just like the ol' boardslide; just cruise along that rail or ledge as long as you can and come off like you would a boardslide. No, wait, scratch that. If you're bustin' this lipslide on a ledge, then your back wheels should be sliding along on top of the ledge. When it comes time to come off the ledge, put pressure on your tail so that all your weight is on your back two wheels. Then turn your board forward and roll off of the end of the ledge. There, that's better.

29. Backside 50-50: You should be comfortable with ollieing up curbs backside before having a go at the 50-50. Once you're able to control your board that way, the backside 50-50 is a cinch. And since your heels are over the ledge rather than your toes (as is the case with frontside 50-50s) you can center your weight easier and ride these things for days. Learning 50-50s on newly painted curbs is choice. Cruise up to the curb with a mellow angle, as if you were going to ollie onto the sidewalk backside. Pop your ollie and stick your back truck on the curb (try to lock your toe edge wheel up against the curb. Next, place the front truck down and get some weight on those heels so you can ride it out to the end of the paint, and turn off. Piece o' cake.

30. Backside 5-0: Once you've got the backside 50-50 down to a t, the backside 5-0 is the next step. Approach the obstacle the same as you would for the b/s 50-50. Ollie and lock that back truck in, keeping the nose and front truck up off the curb so you're in a manual position. When you're learning, it helps to drag your tail along the curb for support, but you should eventually learn to grind on just the hanger. Once you've got it, try 180s out or shuvits out.

Credit to skateboard.com