You should DEFINITELY know how to ollie before even trying this one out.

First thing to think about is your foot placement on the skateboard. You want to have your back foot set up like an ollie, but your front foot should hang off a little more to the side and point up a little, towards the bolts. Having your foot pointed will make it easier to flick and make the kickflip happen.

Alright, once your feet are set up you can begin the trick. Pop the board like youre doing an ollie, and when you go to slide your front foot up like an ollie you want to kick it off to the side and flick DOWN, this will make the spin happen. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO KEEP YOUR SHOULDERS STRAIGHT DURING THE TRICK. If you turn your shoulders at all, you wont stay on top of the board during the trick and it will make it harder to land.

Once you pop the board and get the kickflip started, watch the board spin underneath you and watch for it to turn all the way over so you can know when to stomp down on it to land. You want to aim for landing both feet on top of the bolts…this is the best way to land so as not to break your board.

Like i said, this is a very difficult trick to learn, but once you do it, you can use it to learn all sorts of other related tricks such as backside flips, frontside flips, fakie flips, etc. Check out the video below for more help with this trick.

There are 2 different ways to do a pop shuvit, frontside and backside. Backside is when you kick the board back with your back foot, and frontside is the other way…you kick it in front of you with your back foot. Backside shuvits are a bit easier to learn, so we will concentrate on those for now. See picture to the left for example.

So, when you do this trick you want to have your back foot on the edge of the tail, and your front foot in the middle or close to the front bolts. Your front foot doesn’t really do that much during this trick, it just sort of gets out of the way. When you have your feet set up, bend down like you are going to do an ollie, pop the board but sort of scoop it and kick your back foot behind you…don’t do anything with your front foot, just try to keep it out of the way. Hopefully your board will turn 180, when it does try to catch it with your front foot to stop it from spinning and land back on your board on top of the bolts. This is a bit easier when you can have it explained visually, so watch the video below for more explanation of this trick.

This is how you want to set up your feet for the trick. Your back foot on the tail and your front foot right on top of the front bolts of the board.

In order to start the manual, you need to push down slightly on your back foot to make the front two wheels come off the ground. Once they come off of the ground, you need to hold your balance by keeping your weight centered over the back two wheels.

Keep your arms spread out so that you can more easily adjust your weight and keep your balance. This trick is much harder if your arms aren’t spread.

Once you learn how to ollie, you can ollie into manuals, but for now since we are just starting out, just perform the manual on flat ground and get used to the feeling and keeping your balance.

Check out the video below for more information and tips on learning this trick.

Once you have your trucks tightened to your comfort, all you have to do to turn is simply lean and distribute your weight in the direction you want to go…either lean over your toes, or back on your heels depending on what direction you’re turning. Lean harder to increase the sharpness of the turn. Check out this video below, for a visual explanation of turning.