RELATED SEARCHES
Sponsored Skateboard Trick Results:
Skateboard Tricks: Kickflip, Ollie And Grinds
By:
Published: November 14, 2006
Perhaps one of the most difficult steps in all of sports, skateboarding tricks have plagued and elated skaters along their way to becoming seasoned veterans. Cuts, skins, scrapes, breaks, and certainly bruises in the oddest of places are just a common side effect of undertaking this showy side of the sport, but often a must have experience for those attempting to move from traditional street skating to the more extreme face of pushing.
Skateboard tricks, such as the most well known ollie or kickflip, are made through a combination of foot and board manipulations along with the force of gravity acting on the deck. Riders can deliver a force onto the board which is then reacted against by the ground pushing back. In this way, the board begins to take flight; however, it is the maneuvering of the feet after this point which determines in what way the board can be controlled.
The range of street skating tricks is quite extreme. From the basics of unmoving and moving ollies, to rail grinds and step jumping, most skaters must undergo lengthy practice sessions, repetitive attempts, and countless failures (falling hard) before convincingly mastering these tricks.
Skateboard tricks were not the norm in the early days of boarding and did not surface until twenty years after their birth. Even then, however, the style of street skating is not comparable to the level of possibility today. Since the late eighties and early nineties, skateboarding's evolution, both its physical shape and usage, have stretched the boundaries of possible tricks that can be successfully landed. Skaters are now doing things never once thought possible.
The attractiveness of extreme skating has caused cities and towns to begin opening up both skateparks and streetparks alike. The typical skatepark consists of one or more halfpipes/quarterpipes where skaters drop into what resembles the bottom half of a sawed-off pipe. Inside, the skater moves back and forth from the top of each side attempting a trick at mid-pause before momentum turns and he heads back across the pipe. Tricks consist of grabs, fakies, getting air, and the traditional grind along the metal rail. Considering the high risks and difficulty of skating inside the pipe, most skaters wait until they are well practiced, and even then, usually wear an ample amount of protection while engaged.
A step in a new direction is the rise in development of streetparks, which are meant to simulate the realistic conditions and obstacles of a city setting, but in a condensed and architected area. Within these streetparks one can find stairs, handrails, and an array of platforms for any skateboard trick desired.
Just as in any discipline, skateboarding has taken on a lingo all its' own. To those outside the sport, many of the descriptions would leave readers lost. Tricks are named according to where a riders feet are originally placed on the board, the degrees of rotation the board/rider experiences, and more often then not, either a combination of basic lingo and creative naming by those who first perfect a new trick. Something simple like a bank would merely be using an elevated street surface as a ramp, while something difficult as a K-grind would mean to grind a rail using only your front trucks, but not riding with the back end of the board directly following.
Whatever the name may be (Mctwist, darkside, or acid drop) the risks are usually pretty high, but the payoff, even higher. In a sport where the rush is half the fix, skaters show no signs of running out of creativity. New moves are being worked on and perfected each day, making other skaters out there work that much harder to keep up with the concrete wave. But most don't mind. Any chance to get out and grind more ollies and skateboard tricks on the pavement is all the more welcomed.
Dr. Skateboard. 3 March 2003. Robertson Inc. 27 September 2006..
Tesler, Pearl. "Frontside Forces and Fakie Flight." Science Exploratorium. 2006. 28 September 2006..
Skateboard tricks, such as the most well known ollie or kickflip, are made through a combination of foot and board manipulations along with the force of gravity acting on the deck. Riders can deliver a force onto the board which is then reacted against by the ground pushing back. In this way, the board begins to take flight; however, it is the maneuvering of the feet after this point which determines in what way the board can be controlled.
The range of street skating tricks is quite extreme. From the basics of unmoving and moving ollies, to rail grinds and step jumping, most skaters must undergo lengthy practice sessions, repetitive attempts, and countless failures (falling hard) before convincingly mastering these tricks.
Skateboard tricks were not the norm in the early days of boarding and did not surface until twenty years after their birth. Even then, however, the style of street skating is not comparable to the level of possibility today. Since the late eighties and early nineties, skateboarding's evolution, both its physical shape and usage, have stretched the boundaries of possible tricks that can be successfully landed. Skaters are now doing things never once thought possible.
The attractiveness of extreme skating has caused cities and towns to begin opening up both skateparks and streetparks alike. The typical skatepark consists of one or more halfpipes/quarterpipes where skaters drop into what resembles the bottom half of a sawed-off pipe. Inside, the skater moves back and forth from the top of each side attempting a trick at mid-pause before momentum turns and he heads back across the pipe. Tricks consist of grabs, fakies, getting air, and the traditional grind along the metal rail. Considering the high risks and difficulty of skating inside the pipe, most skaters wait until they are well practiced, and even then, usually wear an ample amount of protection while engaged.
A step in a new direction is the rise in development of streetparks, which are meant to simulate the realistic conditions and obstacles of a city setting, but in a condensed and architected area. Within these streetparks one can find stairs, handrails, and an array of platforms for any skateboard trick desired.
Just as in any discipline, skateboarding has taken on a lingo all its' own. To those outside the sport, many of the descriptions would leave readers lost. Tricks are named according to where a riders feet are originally placed on the board, the degrees of rotation the board/rider experiences, and more often then not, either a combination of basic lingo and creative naming by those who first perfect a new trick. Something simple like a bank would merely be using an elevated street surface as a ramp, while something difficult as a K-grind would mean to grind a rail using only your front trucks, but not riding with the back end of the board directly following.
Whatever the name may be (Mctwist, darkside, or acid drop) the risks are usually pretty high, but the payoff, even higher. In a sport where the rush is half the fix, skaters show no signs of running out of creativity. New moves are being worked on and perfected each day, making other skaters out there work that much harder to keep up with the concrete wave. But most don't mind. Any chance to get out and grind more ollies and skateboard tricks on the pavement is all the more welcomed.
Dr. Skateboard. 3 March 2003. Robertson Inc. 27 September 2006.
Tesler, Pearl. "Frontside Forces and Fakie Flight." Science Exploratorium. 2006. 28 September 2006.
Featured Skateboard Trick Products:
