Tricks:

Tricks are named by several factors you need to know:

-Stance

-Frontside or Backside

-How many spins

-Whether it is a flip, grab, grind, air, manual tricks and/or combination of all 5.

-Flip or Grabs tricks included

-And in some cases, late tricks applied

STANCE:

What you have to know first is the skater's stance, that being you or anyone else. It is determined by whether you put your right or left foot first. Take a look at this diagram to help you.

Now that you have a concept of what stance you are, you have to know another important factor with knowing stances. If you go opposite to your initial stance, it's called Switch stance. If you are not familiar with the idea, picture yourself writing left handed, same idea. Basically it's you riding backwards on a skateboard, but it's not that simple.

There's another addition to knowing your stance. If you ride Regular, or Goofy, and you go Switch and pop off the front, or nose, of the board, your doing Fakie. It's the same as riding in your initial stance, but now your board's path of direction is backwards, regardless of being in your usual comfortable position.

Likewise, picture yourself riding your initial stance, that being Regular or Goofy, and now you pop off the nose, that is called Nollie. It's like riding Switch, but now your board is going your usual forward direction, as if you were still riding your initial stance.

Unlike Regular and Goofy, Fakie and Nollie is not determined by what foot is forward, but instead determined by whether you are initially Goofy or Regular. Hard to explain, but maybe this video will help you.

Video coming soon...

Frontside or Backside:

There are MANY sub factors for this category of tricks, for example: what stance you are, and how you are approaching an object, or which way you are spinning.

If you approach a rail like this, it is Frontside.

Assuming this man came from the road and ollied onto this rail, he would've had to approach it Drontside, or abbreviated FS. What Frontside is in grind terms is when you approach an object with the rail, ledge, or bank in front of you. Backside, or abbreviated BS, is the opposite.

Learning about FS and BS when it comes to spinning during a trick is a little more complicated and not as straight forward, but here's a chart.

Even if your in Fakie or Nollie stance, this chart still applies.

Spins:

I promise this is the easiest part. The spins are labeled by how many degrees you've spun. Fortunately in skateboarding, we don't become accurate. Instead, we generalize by 180, 360, 540 etc. In some cases, you might do a BS Tailslide, and because you've already spun 90 degrees, if you were to do a 360, it might also be labeled a 270. Here's a chart for spins.

1/2 Spin = 180

1 Spin = 360

1 1/2 Spins = 540

2 Spins = 720

2 1/2 = 900

3 = 1080

Name of Basic Tricks:

It is hard to name every trick, so in that case, I will name a few of every kind, and maybe explain them.

Flip Tricks:

Kickflip

Heelflip

360 Flip

Pop Shove-it

Grab Tricks:

Melon

Tuck Knee

Tail Grab

Nose Grab

Manual:

Manual

Nose Manual

Primo

Space Walk

Grinds:

Nose Grind

5-0

50-50

Boardslide

Late Tricks:

Late tricks are not a hard concept. It's a trick that is done NOT immediately after the pop of an ollie. You can do tricks before Late tricks, such as a Kickflip late Heelflip. An Underflip is a late flip that is done halfway through another flip. Such as you doing a kickflip, and halfway through, you flip it the other way back, and now you have an Underflip.

Now for the purpose of this entire page...

At this point you should be able to name a few tricks together, or separate. Like if you do a kickflip (Goofy footed) and spin clockwise, land into a grind with your front truck on the rail, with the other one lifted; you can assume it is a FS Kickflip switch 5-0 (BS or FS wasn't specified).