Fundamentals: The Kickflip

Photo courtesy of How2Skate.com

I get asked how to do this one all the time. Kids will approach me at the skatepark, which I give them props for because I can be somewhat intimidating, and ask me how they can do perfect kickflips. I generally ask to see how far they are along with learning it so that I can know whether I am wasting my time. If I decide that I would be wasting my time, I’ll just say go watch a video of Andrew Reynolds or someone with a really good kickflip and learn from them. Otherwise, I will legitimately try to help them out.

The first step is the foot position, if you don’t have this right, you’re not going anywhere. Make sure that you’re the ball and toes of your backfoot are the only part that touches your tail. This will give you the pressure you need to pop. Your front foot should be placed just below the front bolts of your skateboard at about a 30 degree angle. Make sure that only your toes, the ball of your foot, and part of your arch, touch the board. If you have any more foot on your board, the board will not flip. If you have less, your skateboard with probably go vertical when you try the trick.

The next step is the pop and flick. This is one, fluid motion with two steps. The first is to stomp the tail of your board down with your back foot. Be sure that you’re not a victim of lead foot syndrome and release pressure as soon as your tail hits the ground. Regarding the flick, you want to roll you front foot forward and to the side, to get your board rotating. Imagine your foot like it’s a curve ball. It will spin outward and then return inside.

The next step is sucking your legs up and catching the board. Sucking up your legs is pretty self explanatory. Do it like you would if you were trying to jump over a chair or a short fence. Catching the board can be kind of difficult and takes a lot of practice. You’ll need to time your kickflip so that once it is done flipping, you put your feet down to land the trick. This is harder than it sounds, so don’t give up if you can’t do it right away. Skateboarding is about fun and progression, not getting upset.

The final step is landing. After you’ve caught the board, you want to land with your weight evenly distributed between your two legs. You also want to land with your knees bent to avoid falling and looking like a robot.

As hard or as easy as a kickflip sounds to do, I’ve found that there are some easy ways to learn the trick faster, particularly in the sequence of steps I mentioned about.

The first thing I suggest with learning kickflips is to try them while standing in between two chairs and holding on to them to support your body and make yourself feel lighter. This will allow you to get a feel for how you are doing the trick and what you need to change. It will help you perfect your flick and time your catch.

The other tip I have is to try them rolling into the grass. Learning any trick means a lot of falling. Practicing your trick into the grass will help you last longer and sustain more falls.

The final tip I have is to just have fun. It took me well over a year to learn how to do the trick, so don’t expect yourself to learn it overnight. Just enjoy yourself while putting the time and effort into learning something new.