trick reading basics: Because they're not all kickflips

The kickflip...

Probably the most renowned trick in not just skateboarding, but extreme sport culture overall. Created by the deity of skateboarding himself, Rodney Mullen, the kickflip has helped to shape the very essence of skateboarding we see today. For it was the kickflip that helped to birth the vast number of tricks you may see. Time and time again, we've seen citations and variations of this trick across boardsports. Zolton Torkos won the Volcom Surfing Contest with a kickflip, which is a rarity turning commonality on surfboards.

Sufficed to say, of course it makes sense that people most often ask of this trick, especially when there is no real prior knowledge of skateboarding. Now as skateboarders we've all been there. Either you're cruising down the street, or hanging out at your local spot and someone heckles or literally spawns in front of you asking for a kickflip. Or even better, you bust out one of your best tricks you've been working on for months only to be lackadaisically congratulated on your kickflip. Everything is a fucking kickflip. And while it can be slightly annoying, it's always best to remember that most people don't know any better. They don't know that there are hundreds of tricks and variations of tricks to be combined in different ways to make new tricks. They don't know that there are tricks we still can barely put a name to because they're so intricate. And bro, that's totally fine. But for those people, this is your opportunity to exit your shell of assumptions and learn How to Read Skateboarding Tricks.

Now, having said all this, particularly the last bit about the vast number of tricks that exist, you might be ever so slightly intimidated. "How in God's name can y'all name and identify hundred of flippy flips on a shitty piece of wood." First off, relax. If we can do it, so can you. Looking at tricks from a grand scale like that, duh it's hard to learn, remember, and read them all. Which is why when observing any trick you must understand the base level of tricks, the stances on a skateboard, and grinds. It's basic arithmetic. Can you do quick maffs?

Litty fucking titty, you are already on your way to being a trick reading connoisseur.

Before you get into it here are the parts of a skateboard so you're not confused as shit:

Know your Stances and positioning

You can't know tricks if you don't know how to get on the board, or how the person got on a board. Like everything else in life ever, you can't really understand something if you don't know how the shit starts. Stances, and stance comprehension are key elements of learning how to skate and understanding tricks. It's like language, you can't fully understand a sentence if the subject of the sentence is missing, ya know? Sure you can piece the sentence together and use context clues, but who wants to do all of that when there's a correct way to vocalize. Stances are key for understanding how someone approaches a trick and different stances call for different levels of technique which effects the difficulty of a trick.

There's "regular" and there's "goofy".

These are you main stances of skateboarding, as you may have seen skaters pushing around in either of these stances. In regular stance, as you can see with your own eyeballs, is riding your skateboard with your left foot towards the front end of your board. Your right foot is pushing you forward and will be placed on the back end of your board as you cruise. In goofy stance however, you're doing the exact opposite, with your right foot in front, and your left doing all the pushing and placed in back. It is important to note that preference of either goofy or regular is totally subjective, so don't get all shook if you realize you're goofy instead of regular, its just a name. Think of stance like hand dominance. You're either left or right handed, or even ambidextrous (which happens in skateboarding too!).

And then there's bum ass mongo...

It would behoove you to not push like this. And if you find yourself doing it, stahp. Pushing mongo is essentially pushing all fucked up. Your foot (either left or right) that typically belongs in the front is instead in the back and the foot you push with shoots to front. If that's confusing to you, it's ok, we're usually confused too. It's extra, and it just looks ugly. While some people still do it, I'd avoid it. If you catch feelings on that, oh well, fight me. Don't push mongo.

The stances are pretty simple, but can become slightly complex depending on the context, particularly where you "pop" (jump) on your board for your trick, which is also necessary for understanding a trick. Meaning after you know what you know what a persons stance may be, you gotta know what position they're set up in. These other positions "Fakie" "Nollie" and "Switch", are alterations in foot positioning that change the significance of a trick. "Fakie" is riding and popping backwards. "Nollie" is when you pop your trick using the nose (front) of you board instead of the tail (back). "Switch" is riding and popping your trick in the reverse fashion of your stance. So say you do a kickflip in a goofy stance, but your normal stance is regular, you just did a "switch" kickflip. Learn and love these stances because they are the beginning of every skate trick "sentence".

The Ollie

This probably the most crucial maneuver you will ever hear of, next to knowing and understanding how pushes to and from point A to B. Learning this maneuver is more important than learning any trick anywhere. It is hands down the most fundamental individual skateboarding. Any skater will tell you, if you can't ollie, you ain't got shit. This technique, created by Alan Galfand and later brought to from transition to flatground by Rodney Mullen, is the essence and pop of any and every trick. It is essentially jump on your skateboard. The ollie is what gets us up and over sidewalk curbs, manholes, and roadkill alike. It's what get's us down stairs and on rails, in the air period. And most of all, it is the starting motion of many tricks within skateboarding.

It's pretty simple really. While jumping, you "pop" your board with you back foot so that you hear the snap from the ground. Then you drag your front foot towards the nose (front) of your board, leveling your board while in the air so that you can land evenly on the bolts of your skateboard. The most basic of basic trick, though of course, subjective in ease. You know it when you see it because it does not involve the board leaving your feet in any way. No flips, no spins, just ups. The best ollies stick to your feet like glue, from when you first pop, to when you touch the ground again.

There are variations of ollies, but the most fundamental to know of in these variations are your 180 ollies. Now if you know basic geometry you can guess what a 180 is, unless you were completely ass at geometry. No shade though, fuck math. Regardless, I'm sure someone has used the term "180 degree turn", and that is exactly what it is. An ollie where you turn 180 degrees in the air and land fakie.

Like so

In the gif that is what's called a frontside 180, where the skater turns facing forward to land fakie. There are also backside 180s which is where you turn with your back facing forwards to land fakie. Sorta like what you see here.

This same rule of frontside and backside applies to 360 ollies as well, which, you guessed it, it a full turn around in the air, landing in your orginal stance, rather than fakie. What makes this trick so important is that these are are pretty common in trick variation. You may see someone coming out a trick or grind using this trick. You may even see this trick within another trick making it a separate trick of its own. Basically it's a fundamental trick which, like the ollie, is the foundation of other tricks, making it important be able to identify.

The Shuv-It

The shuv-it, or the shuv for short, is arguably the most simple trick in the book, though of course this is subjective and depends on what type of skater you are. This trick involves a scooping of your feet on the tail of your board to spin your board 180 or 360 degrees. Like the 180 ollie, frontside and backside rules apply, depending on which direction you send your board to spin, like this backside shuvit right here.

What makes this trick and tricks based around it so distinct is that there's less focus on the pop and more focus on the scoop.The movements of the ollie don't necessarily completely apply. It's all scoop. But you can add pop increasing the height of your shuv significantly, making it a pop shuv like this frontside pop shuv here.

If you're learning to skate, shuvs and pop shuvs are cool because they're really good for learning board coordination and control. They get your feet wet for other tricks. I personally love them as something to warm up with before I try something new. Plus, a good pop shuv can look really good down anything, so don't mistake ease with looking less cool. A shuv can take you a long way. So know your shuvs n shit.

Grinds & slides

Yo, there are so many fuckin grinds my guy. For me to sit here and type all of em and even remotely expect you to read them would be unfair and just plain ass dumb. But what I will do is give y'all examples of the most most common and basic grinds so y'all can see for yourselves. What I will say though is that, Frontside and backside rules apply to grinds too, but not in the ways previously discussed. Unlike before where this was depending on board and body direction, this is more based off of body angle, or which direction you approach whatever it is you're grinding. So for example if someone is approaching a ledge or rail that is angled behind them, then they are approaching it backside. If it is in front of them, then it is frontside. Fairly simple. So for example this 5050, the grind where you simple ollie on to rail or ledge with both trucks (Axels aka: metal parts holding the wheels) down, would be frontside.

This 5-0 (five O) grind would be backside. Unlike a 5050 grind however, a 5-0 grind involves ollieing on to your rail or ledge with your front trucks up.

Then you have your nose grinds, which is a 5-0 with your back trucks up, using the nose of the board to grind.

Your boardslides. Sliding the middle of your board on a rail or ledge.

And your tail and nose slides. Also in the name and kinda self explanatory. Sliding on the tail or nose of your board.

There are many more kinds of grinds and slides but like I said they're a lot so let's stick to the basics for now.

Flip tricks and trick combinations

As daunting as it may seem, learning and understanding flip tricks isn't that hard. Remember when I asked about ya quick maffs? This is where you'll see a lot of that coming into play. This is also where you see a lot of the other topics I talked about really all come into play. Like grinds, there are sooooo many flip trick, and having posting all of them would be a waste of time, but knowing the basics will help you understand others.

Your basic flip tricks will always be your kickflip and your heelflip. As you might've saw in the beginning of this post, a kickflip one of the most basic of flip tricks, where after performing an ollie, a flicking of the side of the foot off the corner pocket of the front of the board causes the board to flip, with the griptape towards your body in direction. See how his toes kinda do the flicking?

Heelflips on the other hand, use a similar motions, but instead of the side of the foot, the heel is used to flip the board away from you in direction. Pay attention to his heel.

Once you know and understand these flip tricks and the other basics I talked about (180s, shuvs, etc.), it's lit. Why? Because most tricks that involve moving and flipping the board under your feet are variations and combinations of these basics. The basics are your prime colors and the rest are your beautiful mixtures on your canvas. The basics are a bunch of 1s and when you add 1+1 you get 2. So for example:

Kickflip+ Pop shuv = Varial kickflip

kickflip+360 shuv it= 360 flip (Tre flip)

Heelflip+Backside 180= Backside Heelflip

360 shuv it + Backside 180= Backside Big spin

If there's one thing I learned in that painfully long ass movie Sound of Music is that "When you know the notes to sing you can sing most anything". These basics are your doe's re's and fa's. They will not only help you break down tricks to understand them but also maybe help you make new ones. So you won't have to be the one person asking if a tre flip was a kickflip, or if a 5-0 was a 50-50. And don't worry, nobody expect you to learn it overnight. Shit, I'm still learning about new tricks every day despite skating for some years now. So go now youngling. You are ready to call out these tricks like a pro. Well not yet, but you on ya way, give it time, I believe in you. Before you go I dare you to guess what he just did. leave your guess in the comments. NON-SKATERS ONLY. Don't spoil it like a lil shit.