How to Kickflip a Skateboard

Series Summary

The development of skateboarding coincides with the popularization of surfing in California around the 1950's. Since that time, skateboarding has seen many rises and falls in popularity, with several generations of young skaters developing the sport and their own skateboarding tricks and techniques. The current generation of skateboarders is more accepted and less rebellious than previous generations, and often skate on city built skate parks designed for a variety of skateboarding tricks. In this free video series, a sponsored skateboarder provides maintenance and repair tips for skateboarders, as well as tips for performing a variety of skateboarding tricks. Discover how to do a kickflip, a 50/50 grind, an Ollie and a pop shove-it. Watch a demonstration of these tricks and more, including fakie Ollies, solid heelflips and impossibles. With these professional techniques, the ramps and rails will be no match for any skateboarder's bag of tricks.

Video Transcript

"My name is Shawn Connolly, I live in San Fransisco, California. I'm a sponsered skateborder, and I run a program for youth called SF Skateclub. And today I'm here to show you how to do a kick flip on a skateboard. Now, to do a kick flip, you're going to be, have to be able to do good allies. And this is the first flip trick that you'll probably learn how to do. So what you're going to want to do is set up with your feet, one foot on the tip of the tail, using your toe to get as much pop as possible, and then your front foot hanging just off a little bit, with your toe pointed forward. Now, you're going to want to hit the tail, drag your foot up past the length of the nose, and then out past the front, almost like a one footed ollie. And then you allow the board to do a kick flip, and then you catch it with your feet evenly, and then land back on the board, and continue rolling forward. Now, like with any flip trick, it's going to take a lot of patience and a lot of figuring out exactly what will work for you with your foot placement. Now, you'll notice that if you put a little bit of toe on the board, lots of foot hanging off, that the board sometimes flips a little bit faster, but it tends to be a little bit lower. And then sometimes you'll notice that with a lot more foot on the board, it will flip slower, and it'll have a lot more ollie and come a lot higher. Now, you're going to want to start low and quick when you first start doing kick flips, but eventually you're going to want to learn how to keep as much foot on your board so it's closer to an ollie, so it flips quick and then stops, and you catch it, and you have more air time. And that's how you do a kick flip on a skateboard. My name is Shaw Connolly, I'm from San Fransisco, California, and I'm a sponsored skateboarder, and I founded the youth program SF Skateclub. You can learn more about it at sfskateclub.com."