Flip trick

A flip trick in skateboarding is any trick in which the skateboard does a flip. In many tricks, the skateboard flips upside down and/or end over end. Many simple tricks, such as a kickflip and heelfip, as well as a pop shove it, can be combined to form more complex flip tricks.

Flip Tricks

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360 Flip

The 360 flip is a classic street trick first invented by the father of street skating, Rodney Mullen, and originally was made popular as a street trick by pro-skater turned actor Jason Lee. This is the combination of a 360 Pop Shove-it with an Ollie Kickflip. It is also known as Ollie 360 kickflip, 3 flip or tré flip.

360 Heelflip

The 360 Heelflip is simply a Heelflip merged with a 360 Shove-it. Lesser known than its opposite trick, the tréflip, many skaters consider the 360 Heelflip to be much harder—though much nicer— than the tréflip. It is also known as a 360 heel, Ballerina flip and Laser flip.

360 Pop Shove-it

Also known as an Ollie 360 Varial, this trick is simply a pop shove-it except that the board is rotated 360 degrees instead of 180.

Backside 180 Ollie

Turning in the direction of the rider's toes, the rider and the board spin 180 degrees in the same direction and at the same time. It is sometimes shortened to "B/S 180".

Backside Flip

A kickflip plus a backside 180 ollie, or a varial kickflip with a body varial in the same direction.

Big Spin

The board spins 360 degrees, much like a 360 shove-it. At the same time, the performer does a body varial in the same direction, which is simply spinning 180 degrees in the air. This trick can be executed in many different ways: Nollie, fakie, frontside, backside. However, the trick is not known as a Big Spin because it "spins big", it has nothing to do with the way the trick acts at all. It was named after Brian Lotti. His last name sounds like the word "Lottery", and the "Big Spin" was the name of a Californian lottery going on at the time.

A "perfect" Big Spin execution would be as follows: The rider executes a 270-degree shove-it, spinning his/her body 90 degrees. At this point, the rider catches the board in midair with their feet and rotates the remaining 90 degrees with the board. This perfection of the Big Spin is rarely seen.

Big Spin Flip

Like a Big Spin, only instead of doing a 360 Shove-it, the skateboarder does an Ollie 360 Flip (usually an Ollie is also required to complete the flip element). When done frontside, usually a 360 Heelflip is done, this becomes a Big Spin Heelflip. However, the Frontside Bigspin Kickflip is not unknown, and Kareem Campbell's Ghetto Bird can be regarded as the nollie version of this particular trick. It can be done frontside (with Ollie Heelflip), fakie, nollie, and backside.

Cab Flip

A kickflip combined with a 360 fakie ollie (a Caballerial, hence the name). This is a 360 flip with a 360 body varial in the same direction the board is spinning.

Casper Flip

A casper stall done in mid-air. The skateboarder ollies, does half of a kickflip, then shoves the board 180 degrees back under the feet, all while he or she is in the air. This name is often used to incorrectly refer to a half-kickflip done to get into casper position.

Disco Kickflip

A variation of the kickflip where the board completes the flip while the tail is still touching the ground, making the board appear as if it is spinning on its tail.

Frontside 180 Ollie

Turning in the direction of the rider's heels, the rider and the board spin 180 degrees in the same direction and at the same time during an Ollie. It is often shortened to "F/S 180".

Frontside Flip

The Frontside Flip is the act of performing a kickflip and turning the body 180 degrees at the some time. Goofy-footed skateboarders turn to the right and regular-footed skateboarders turn to the left left.

Hardflip

A Hardflip combines a Frontside Pop Shove-it with an Ollie Kickflip. Due to the difficulty of this trick, a similar looking variation has been popularised which is similar to the pop shove-it, in which the board rotates as it would with a pop shove-it only at a higher angle, so the board rotates 180 degrees vertically rather than horizontally, like a pirouette. The former version was the original version, but the latter has become popular enough that it is performed by several professionals (e.g. Chet Thomas, Ryan Gallant and Kris Markovich), and appears in this form in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.

Heelflip

An Ollie Heelflip is the same as an Kickflip, only the board spins outwards away from the rider's body and under their feet before they land. Again, there is a kick as part of the ollie but unlike the kickflip it is directed forwards, so that the last part of the foot to leave the board is the heel, hence the name.

Inward Heelflip

An Inward Heelflip combines a backside Pop Shove-it with a Heelflip. The name comes from the rider's point of view, because while doing an Inward Heelflip, the 180 degree rotation of flip moves the board inward instead of outwards as in a Varial Heelflip.

Kickflip

Invented by Rodney Mullen, this trick came about as a failed attempt at the new trick he had created, the flatland Ollie. He noticed that if he ollied and dragged his feet off the board by accident, it would flip. When a skateboarder ollies and kicks out and off of the board, the board is free of gravity and suspended in the air. Kicking or flicking out imparts enough force to flip or spin the board on an imaginary axis running from the nose to the tail. The original name for this trick after conception was the "Magic Flip" because no one understood how it worked or flipped. The Kickflip is a trick in which the rider does an Ollie, but while dragging their foot up the board to level out the Ollie, flicks their front foot off of the board to the heel side to create enough force to spin the board one full 360 rotation along the imaginary axis described above. If flicked harder, two or three full flips can be imparted on that axis. These are called Double or Triple Kickflips.

Late flip

A kickflip performed after the highest peak of an ollie. This also refers to a kickflip done after any other trick but still in the same arial. Example: The skateboarder does a pop shove-it and kickflip while still in the air.

Impossible

An Ollie Impossible, commonly known as an Impossible, is a combination of an ollie and a spinning maneuver. This involves the rider taking their front foot off of the board and using their back foot to create a midair scooping motion that wraps the board around the rider's foot. The rider then catches the board with their front foot and lands.

Nollie

A name for a stance or the single trick itself. Nollie stance is standing on the board in Switch Fakie, or moving the front foot up to the nose of the board with the back foot in the middle of the board. Any trick done in this position is labeled a Nollie trick. To do a Nollie, the skateboarder rides in Nollie stance and pops the board with the front foot on the nose, dragging the back foot to the back. The name is derived from either Natas Ollie after Natas Kaupas, or Nose Ollie.

Ollie One Foot

Ollie One Foot is an ollie during which the skateboarder kicks his foot forward. During the trick the skateboarder hovers in mid air with his front foot pointing "forward". The trick was invented by Rodney Mullen. It is also known by various other names such as "One Foot Ollie" or in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater: the "Ollie North"

Pop Shove-it

A Pop Shove-it is a combination of the Ollie and the Shove-it. During a pop shove-it, the rider initiates an Ollie, but shifts the weight of their back foot so that the board spins 180 degrees vertically. Pop Shove-its were also known as Ollie Varials (the original Varial is a trick performed by grabbing the board), but nowadays the term Varial is used only with "combined" tricks such as Ollie Heelflip Varial, or to refer to the original Varial.

Pressure Flip

Any flip trick that is done without any pop. This is accomplished by applying pressure to different spots on the board to make it do flips. The most common pressure flip spins like an inward heelflip There are also ones that spin like a hardflip, varial flip, varial heelflip, and many others.

Salabanzi Flip

This is a normal kickflip but the skateboarder lands with his or her legs crossed. Also called a pretzel flip.

Semi-Flip

This trick looks similar to a hardflip, and is often confused with it. It is mainly done by Rodney Mullen. The board is flipped about one quarter of a kickflip rotation and then pushed into a varial heelflip motion with the back foot. This can be seen clearly in the DVD version of Rodney Mullen vs Daewon Song Round 2, in the early part of Rodney's part that is in a blue tint. Rodney also does the trick to manual in the Globe video Opinion.

Sex Change

This trick is a combination of a heelflip or a kickflip and a body varial. The heelflip variant of a sex change is also known as a Disco Flip.

Twisted Flip

A varial flip with a body varial going the opposite direction the board is spinning.

Varial Kickflip

A Varial Kickflip is a trick which is a combination of a Pop Shove-it and Kickflip. The board spins 180 degrees while flipping.

Varial Heelflip

A Varial Heelflip combines a Frontside Pop Shove-it with an Heelflip. The name of this trick is not very logical though, since the name includes 'Varial' instead of 'Frontside Varial'.