Tricks and Tips
On this page we will be giving you tips on how to do a few tricks.
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.
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.
180
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.
The 360 flip combines 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.
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 (Watch Rick McCrank's 5-0s for a good lesson on this method).
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.
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