Monday, August 20, 2007

Let me teach you how to do a kickflip.

I've been skateboarding for years and whenever someone wants to learn how to do a kickflip I explain these simple steps.

1. To begin with, you need the toes of your back foot on the tail of the skateboard ready to pop, and the ball of your front foot just behind the front bolts.

2. Angle your front foot out slightly, so you feet make a V shape.

3. Bend your knees and pop the back of the board, just like you would in an ollie.

4. Now with your front foot, move your foot up the board like you would for an ollie, but also flick it to the side. This will cause the board to spin.

5. Pull your legs back directly above the board and catch the rotation, keeping your feet over the bolts (I once broke a board landing in the middle)

6. Land it like you would with an Ollie, and keep skating.

With these simple steps you will find it very easy to learn how to do a kickflip. Just remember to wear safety gear on your first couple of tries.


I mentioned in the steps above that I once tried to do a kickflip, but I snapped my board. The board was a couple of years old and I had grown up a bit, you need to make sure you have a good board when you move into tricks like the kickflip. Soon you will want to do stairs, and rails, and then you really need a better board.


You also need to make sure you have the right shoes and stuff. As a joke I once tried to do a kickflip with bare feet, man it rashed my foot up pretty badly!


Cheers guys - rock on!

Youtube videos teaching you how to do a kickflip.

If you want to know how to do a kickflip, these youtube videos are a quick and easy way to learn.

I've collected this list of movies, just to show you how its done.

This is an excellent video which shows you in detail, how to do a kickflip. It shows you easy ways to practice and has a kickflip in slow motion so you can see whats happening. http://youtube.com/watch?v=ubTl3iPPi2o#

A short little video which shows you foot placement - the kickflip featured isn't very clean, but its still a good video to watch. http://youtube.com/watch?v=CnwEBsGFw0E

Here is a very detailed video. It will show you all the ways you can do things right and wrong. http://youtube.com/watch?v=e0T8goB7wSQ

So when learning how to do a kickflip, make sure you check out those videos as I found them very helpful.

You can now learn how to do a kickflip at the Seattle Center

Skaters now have a place to learn how to do a kickflip, rail slide, ollie and all those awesome tricks. The council has approved a new skate park near KeyArena to be completed in 2009.

This is great news for local skaters, following the last skate park in the area being sold off in 2005. The unanimous decision by the council board comes after two years of discussions with other tenants at the Seattle Center. The council displayed disapointment in the stereotypes surround skateparks and plans to send a message to the public with this recent discision, and plans to support this youth dominated sport, giving street skaters a place to skate without endangering the public.

Unfortunately the plans required the demolition of the Seattle Center Pavilion, causing problems for future events at the Seattle Center. The council has given the Seattle Center until october 15th to report back on the skate park, and where to movie the pavilion tenants.

All in all I think this is fantastic for Seattle Skaters - I can't wait to see the plans!

The full story can be found here. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003824805_skatepark07m.html

Sk8 on guys!

I wish Chris Cole would teach me how to do a kickflip.

Chris cole did it again, earning a second gold medal in Men's Skateboard Street at the X Games. Great news for him, and now I just want him to teach me how to do a kickflip!

With a total score of 94.33, Chris beat out his competition! He also won best trick, with a massive 360 double kickflip, decided by fan vote online and by text messaging.

Following his win, Chris said "I feel good, I was just trying to make as much stuff as I could. I realized it didn't have to be the best stuff in the world, 'cause it wasn't a best trick contest, it was a jam." and this is a key lesson for new skaters - you don't always have to go for the biggest trick, you will learn a lot more, a lot faster if you try to go for consitency, before you start chucking yourself off stair sets.

The X Games saw some other amazing moments, BMXer Mat Hoffman bailed and took a 15 foot fall, standing up and bowing to the audience. and Marissa Del Santo pulled off a perfect backside in the Women's Skateboard Street competition getting her first ever X-Games win!

Congratulations guys, go big!

Learn how to do a kickflip and the madness of wakeskating.

Once you've learn't how to do a kickflip on a skateboard, you might like to chuck a wetsuit on and try the crazy sport of wakeskating.

Wakeskating is like wakeboarding, but instead of having you feet strapped to the board, you have grip tape, just like on a skateboard. This means you can kickflip, pop-shovit, pull grabs and a whole bunch of other skating tricks.

A trailer of the dvd filmed by a couple of 19yr old wake skaters, titled esoteric, can be found here and I would strongly recommend you take a look.

Even if your still learning how to do a kickflip, this movie trailer is hugely inspiring. Everything you learn on a skateboard can be taken over to wakeskating. Ofcourse you need a jetski, some water and preferably a wetsuit, but I suspect it could be a lot more fun that your average skateboard.

Learning how to do a kickflip and you need some inspiration?

Let me give you some inspiration to learn how to do a kickflip.

The kickflip, which is very similar to an Ollie, is one of the more difficult tricks to learn. Some skaters never learn how to do it, and even pro skaters stuff it up sometimes.

But when you learn how to do a kickflip, the tricks you can do from then on are really amazing, here are some examples.

Rodney Mullen does a 540 DOUBLE kickflip. http://youtube.com/watch?v=e5Tm9mjWA_w

One guy does 99 kickflips in a row before falling off. Then the lads head to a stair set and throw some tricks. http://youtube.com/watch?v=oG5Ri9l4ffs

Dave Bachinski throws a MASSIVE 20 stair kickflip! He has a big spill on the first try, but gets back on and pulls off this amazing trick! http://youtube.com/watch?v=daP1MJGlVX8&mode=related&search=

A perfect triple kickflip. Which is really very very cool! http://youtube.com/watch?v=aZxAcOhTJjc&mode=related&search=#

Some different variations on a kickflip, including a couple of funny stacks. http://youtube.com/watch?v=YvF0PpTitJI&mode=related&search=

Christopher hoffman does a perfect triple kickflip. http://youtube.com/watch?v=GRazXdxMHMY&mode=related&search=

Using a trampoline for practice, this guy gets a QUADRUPLE (thats four spins) kickflip! But I don't recommend you skate on a trampoline because you will put holes in it. http://youtube.com/watch?v=TGjwEazIl6A

Best saved till last, Ryan Green pulls some massive tricks - Triple kickflips, double kickflips up steps, and a CLEAN! FLATGROUND! QUADRUPLE!!! kickflip http://youtube.com/watch?v=gUFL3vgNgzg#

This stuff is skating madness and I hope it inspires you to learn how to do a kickflip, then a double kickflip and then a tripple kickflip. A quadruple kickflip is a little harder.