Skateboarding is just one of many sports that require skill and knowledge. If you want to be taken seriously as a skateboarder, you have to know at least one trick. Over the years that people have been skateboarding, they have come up with a lot of tricks. Here are a few of the most common ones:
Aerials, which are also called "airs," are general types of tricks that are usually done on quarter pipes, pools, or half pipes with vertical walls and transitions. Most of the time, tricks like grabs and spins are done with aerials. The 540, 720, 900, Benihana, Body Jar, Caballerial, Christ Air, Finger Flip air, Gay Twist, Gnar Jar, Judo Air, Lien Air, Madonna, McTwist, Samba Flip, Sean Penn, Sloth Air, Stalefish, Rocket Air, and Method Air are some of the most popular subtypes of aerials.
- The Ollie is known as the "father" of skateboarding tricks because it is where most tricks come from. Alan "Ollie" Gelfand came up with this trick and gave it his name. To do it, you don't hold onto the skateboard but instead stomp or pop the back end of the board. The Nollie, the switch Ollie, the Fakie Ollie, the Power Ollie, the Boned Ollie, the Ollie North, and the Pressure are all different ways to do the Ollie.
The Turnaround The flip is a skateboarding trick in which the board is flipped or spun in the air, as the name suggests. Rodney Mullen came up with this trick, which he called the Magic Flip at the time. The heelflip, kickflip, Casper Flip, Anti-Casper Flip, Backside Flip, Big Spin, Cab Flip, Disco Kickflip, Ghetto Bird, Hardflip, Hospital Flip, Impossible, Late Flip, Mother Flip, Pop Shove-it, Sal Flip, Salabanzi, Sex Change, and Scissor Flip are some of the most popular flip variations.
The Grab: These tricks are called "grabs" because you have to hold the skateboard while doing them, usually during an aerial. Grabs are a good way to keep a skateboarder on the board while they are in the air. The Airwalk grab, the Backside grab, the cannonball grab, the Crail grab, the Christ Air, the Early grab, the Frontside grab, the Gorilla grab, the Indy grab, the Japan grab, the Melon grab, the Mosquito grab, the Nose grab, the Roast Beef, the Seatbelt grab, the Tail grab, and the Tucknee are all examples of grabs.
- Mouth Games This skateboarding move is done on mini ramps, quarterpipes, and half pipes. They are called "balancers" because they have to stand on the lips of ramps. Some famous lip tricks are the Andrecht Invert, Axle stall, Blunt, Disaster, Egg Plant, Fakie-Bonk-off, Frontside Invert, Good Buddy, Ho-Ho, New Deal, Nose pick, Nose stall, Pivot, Pogo, Rock and Roll, Smithvert, Tail Stall, Staple Gun, Stelmasky Plant, Sweeper, Tail Block, Tucknee Invert, and Woolly Mammoth
- The Slide sliding is similar to the grind, but instead of gliding through the trick, you use the board itself to glide. Some important slides are the Bertlemann slide, Bluntslide, Boardslide, Booger slide, Crail slide, Ces slide, Darkslide, Lipslide, Noselide, Powerslide, and the Tailslide.
- The Work A skateboarder would do this kind of trick by hiding on the hangers of the skateboard truck. You can do this trick on any smooth surface where the truck can slide. Some variations of the grind are the Barley grind, Crooked grind, Darkslide, Fandangle, Freeble grind, Gurl grind, Hurricane, Losi grind, Nosegrind, Novacaine, Overcrook grind, Pole Jam, Salad grind, Smith grind, Sugarcane, Suski grind, Willy Grind, and Csmit grind.
There are a lot of other skateboarding tricks, and more are being made all the time. You can read the best skateboarding magazines or talk to a skateboarding pro to learn more about skateboarding tricks.
