Hey readers! Thank you for checking out my week number 4 flatground trick; the backside flip! This trick is super fun to do, and after you get it down you can backside flip over stairs, gaps, and even off rails. The backside flip is essentially a mix between a backside 180 and a kickflip. I chose this trick because I was surfing through the internet and saw this trick in a ton of street skate videos. It’s honestly a sick looking trick, and the higher you get off the ground the smoother it looks. I was so excited to land this trick for the first time, here is my tell all experience with landing the backside flip.

To begin, I surprisingly had a lot of difficulty with this trick. I say surprising because it really is just a mix of a backside 180, and a kickflip. Two tricks which I have been landing consistently for some time now. In the beginning, every time I tried to land the trick the board would fly out from below my feet, or I would just fall on my back. Regardless, when learning this trick I really had to practice my perseverance. Moving along, I worked on this trick for around 2 hours straight, landing the trick off and on. A couple times I’d get a decent landing then a foot would fall off, other times I’d land but slip off the board. Overall, I think it was the turning of my body in the air that made the trick so difficult to land. I would say that after 2 hours of consistent practice I was getting better and better landing the trick more consistently. But even as of now I really can’t say I’m 100% I’ll land the trick every time. I’m sitting at more of a 75-80% chance that I’ll land the trick.

As you can see in the first photo, I kept my feet lined up in the exact same position as I would a kickflip (left/back foot on the tail of the board, and right/front foot slightly off the top right side of the board). With this trick I did the exact same feet motions I would do if I were trying to land a varial kickflip. Back foot would sorta scoop the board, while the front foot would kick out like I would for a kickflip. The only new thing I had to do hear was turn my body 180 degrees while in the air, and then re land the flip. This is what made the trick so difficult, because while turning in the area it easy to get uncoordinated an loose sight of the board and your feet placement. Although after a few tries the motion of turning my body started getting more and more natural. And landing the trick was beginning to get easier and easier.

Now that I am somewhat comfortable hitting the backside flip I am trying new things such as doing it off stairs and gaps. I’ll take photos and videos and post them on here soon so you can see what it looks like, and how the trick comes together that way!

To wrap up week 4 the backside flip is dope! And I have included below a pretty good compilation of the trick, and also a tutorial on how to do it. With that being said, I hope you all have a great sunday, and thanks for tuning in. See ya next week with a surprise new trick!

Good Afternoon everyone, and wow are my elbows really scrapped up! This week I’m super excited to tell all about my journey landing the varial kickflip. The reason why I chose to do this trick week 3 is because I already had my kickflips down, and my pop shuvits. For my readers that I don’t know yet, varial kickflips are essentially just a kickflip and a pop shuvit mixed into one trip. Although I don’t cover it in my blog, pop shuvits are super easy to learn, and I have included a link below to my favorite tutorial video on how to do them. But without further ado, let’s jump right into this varial kickflip!

The varial kickflip is a super dope trick that actually looks WAY more complicated than it actually is to do. As mentioned above, if you really do have your kickflips and shuvits down, the trick should take you no more than 30 minutes to learn. But if it does take you longer than 30 minutes to learn, there is absolutely no shame in that! :).

For starters, before I jumped into learning the trick I practiced landing 5 kickflips in a row, and then five pop shuvits in a row. After feeling confident about these tricks, I then decided to give varial kickflips a go. I went online and found a video by one of my favorite skateboarders; Aaron Kyro. Initially I was struggling the most with how to place my feet on on the board, and which way to kick out on the board. After watching the video all my questions were answered, and I was ready to start practicing the trick.

Instead of holding onto rails, or a protective structure as I had done when trying to learn other new tricks. I decided to just go all out and give it my best go with the varial kickflip. I also found that practicing the trick stationary made it harder for me to land, it was easier, and looked much cooler when I was in motion landing the trick.

I found the trick was easiest to land when I placed my feet in the same position as if I was trying to land a kickflip (front foot hanging off top right side of the board, back foot on the tail of the board). But my back foot would be doing a slightly different motion than just the usual pop back. Instead, I would use my back foot to kick back and sorta scoop the board, all while kicking out with my front foot the same exact way if I was kicking out for a kickflip. You can see all this in the photos above. And then lastly, when coming down and landing the trick I quickly realign my feet in the air, and then land down on the screws of the skateboard, all can be seen in the photos above.

In the end, this trick is super fun to land, and whether you’re playing a game of S.K.A.T.E., trying to show off a cool trick to your friends, or just chilling and skating, I highly recommend the varial kickflip!

Thanks for reading, and feel free to tune in next week as I take on the backside flip. Have a great rest of your day!

Welcome back! This week I’m super excited because as you might have guessed, I landed a kickflip for the first time. This is a trick I have been practicing since my middle school skating days, but I could never seem to get the hang of it. It took a couple of hours of practicing before I was consistently landing the trick. As of right now, I can only do the trick stationary, or in little motion. I’m not at the point yet where I can kickflip off stairs or ledges, but with practice, I’m sure that time will come soon!

Jumping right into it. My journey landing the kickflip wasn’t an easy one. I fell a couple of times, bruised my arms up, and even went through a pair of skate shoes :(. Nonetheless, I’m here to tell you the journey was necessary, and absolutely worth it. In the beginning, I found I was really far off from coming anywhere near to landing the trick, so I decided to watch a few youtube tutorials. Below I have attached the links to videos I found super helpful. Anyways, I started off the trick finding my sweet spot. This was different from my sweet spot to landing the ollie because with the kickflip, my right foot was hanging off the top right of the board. This made it especially difficult to keep my balance on the board. I made sure the board was stationary, and I was holding onto something to keep my balance.

It took me a REALLY long time to finally get the kick of the board down, so that it would spin. I found what really helped here was getting a lot of pop on the board and kick UP and OUT. Practicing this over time made it become more and more second nature. At this point, I was finally letting go of the rail, and getting the board off the ground and turning. Next, the landing of this trick was definitely the hardest! As mentioned above, it did take a few nasty falls before I even got a foot to land on the board, but what I found most helpful was once again making sure the board wasn’t in motion, and that I was holding onto something for balance. Also, landing the kickflip was harder than the ollie because I had to get my back left foot out and up in the air, so it wouldn’t interfere with the spinning of the board. When practicing, I made sure to kick hard with my back foot for good pop, then immediately move it high up and out the way. Then by the time the spin was complete, I lead the landing with my back foot on the board first, then following with my front foot. Once again, here I was aiming to land my left foot on the back screws, while my front foot was landing on the screws up top.

In the end, landing this trip was one of the happiest feelings of my life. When you work so hard for something and finally get it, truly it’s one of the best feelings in the world! Here are a couple of the links to helpful kickflip tutorials…

I look forward to next week, and this time I’ll be showing you guys how to land a varial kickflip!

Getting back into skating consistently has definitely been awesome so far! I love breaking a sweat riding around, and trying to land new tricks. This week in particular, I decided to master a pretty simple flatground trick called an ollie.

Now, before elaborating on my experience mastering the ollie, it’s worthy sharing the set up I have for my board. I use a 7 inch wide deck, with bullet trucks, red bearings, and santa cruz wheels. Truly the set up is all up to the rider’s preference. However, I would recommend when mastering flat ground tricks (which is what this blog is about), to use a skinnier board width, approximately between 7-8 inches. This is because skinnier boards have better pop to get off the ground, and they flip faster.

My board!

Her name is Stephen.

Alrighty. Now that we’ve gone over the set up, let’s jump right into my experience landing the ollie. Firstly, it only took about half an hour before I was consistently landing the trick. Personally, once I got my foot placement correct and generated enough pop into the back of the board, landing the trick became easier and easier. I am a goofy rider (left foot at back of board and right foot at front), and found that my sweet spot was when my back left foot was at the tail of the board, and my right foot was right behind screws at the front of the board. Once getting comfortable with my footing, my next challenge was committing to popping the back of the board, and kicking up. This is a challenging part for not only myself, but many other beginners as well. If you half commit on a trick, you can risk messing up and hurt yourself. I made sure I was stationary at all times, and practiced popping and kicking out a few times before actually trying to land the trick. In a short time I was ready to complete the trick by focusing on the next challenge; the landing. It was easiest for me to focus on ending with my left foot on the back screws of the board, and my right foot on the screws at the front of the board. Once again, I practiced a number of times on the landing and found it super difficult. Therefore, I decided to hold onto a rail, make sure the board was stationary, then try landing again. I found this was much simpler, and once I was comfortable landing this way, I tried letting go of the rail, then trying while the skateboard was in emotion. As mentioned above it took about half an hour before I was consistently landing an ollie, and man it feels great now knowing I can land this dope trick!

Overall, the ollie is a super dope trick! Now that I feel pretty confident about it, I’ll go ahead and try to get some cool clips of me clearing staircases, or jumping over my friends. I’ll see you guys next week! This time focusing on kickflips :).

Yooo! Super stoked you found us. My name is Anthony, I’m 18 years old, and I am a freshman at a large California State University. I love skating, and have been doing it on and off since middle school. Although I’m not an expert, I decided to start the blog to save my Journalism grade, and to get better at skating. Each week I’ll upload a new post of me trying to land a new flat ground trick. There will be 8 posts, and in these, I’ll keep you guys updated on the journey of me trying to land the trick, and offer some advice on how you too can land the trick. Overall, skating is a sport I’m super passionate about, and I look forward to shredding, and teaching you guys some sweet tricks along the way.

My name: More about me is that my full name is Anthony Cornelio. “Anthony” is the first name my parents decided on, although my dad did put up a good argument for the name Richard! Then “Cornelio”, is the family’s last name passed down from my dad’s side.

Each week I’ll go ahead and add on to this “About Me” page, and share more about myself. It’s all a secret what I’ll unfold! See ya next week.

Misunderstood: Guess who’s back? Your’s truly! This week I’ll be talking about about what people most often misunderstand about me. I find a common misconception is that I am quiet and more introverted. However, this really isn’t the case. In a classroom setting I will admit I do tend to be quieter, and more conservative. But this is only because I try my best to give my 100% attention to the instructor, and avoid all distractions. Outside of the classroom however, I love spending time with family and friends, and playing sports! I truly do enjoy playing all sports and am always up for some pick up soccer, basketball, or football, you name it! When I’m with family and friends I love traveling, chatting while grabbing food, or just simply hanging out. In addition, I love making people laugh, and I guess I’d consider myself a “funny guy”. Something about making sure everyone is smiling, having a good time, and feeling comfortable at a party, family event, or game, brings me joy. As you can see, outside of the classroom I’m definitely very different; a more social and outgoing guy. Although, it is a goal of mine to involve myself more in the classroom volunteering, and sharing out my ideas. Thanks for reading so far, and I will see you all next week!

My student identity: Today it’s October 3, and I’m back and better than ever. This week I’ll be talking about my identity in the classroom, and what I wish my teachers knew about me. To begin, I am still currently a freshman student in college. I’m 18 years old and still got a few more years of school ahead of me. And throughout all my years of elementary school, middle school, and high school. I found that in the classroom I am sorta lazy. What I mean by this is that in a class I find I am easily distracted, I talk to others, and often fall behind. For the most part I have done well academically keeping a GPA over 3.0 all of high school, and challenging myself with a number of AP courses. But I succeed most in the classes were activities are hands on, and teachers develop personal connections with me and other students creating an inclusive and friendly environment for all students. When lectures are filled with laughs, relevant examples to my life, and frequently engaging the audience. I truly find this makes a significant difference in my intake of the material. However, as a college student now I understand that this really isn’t possible a lot of the time. In classes with over hundreds of kids, it’s important to develop new practices outside of the class and in class to understand the material just as well. Therefore, nowadays in class I practice sitting close to the front of class, and attentively listening to what the instructor is saying. I find that I don’t always volunteer, but that is something I will work on as classes continue. Thank you for reading, and I look forward to posting blog 3 this week. Have a great day!

Family: Welcome back! Thanks for tuning in this week, and for my “about me” prompt I’ll be elaborating on what family is for me, and the importance of it in my life. To begin, I don’t define family as blood related. I consider someone as part of my family if they have experienced serious struggle with me, and/or if they have been there for me in times of extreme lows. Someone is family to me if they never judged me, but rather offered insight on how to help me. Right now, I can’t even count how many people are in my life that I consider family. There are so many friends, teachers, and even pets that I consider family. In addition, I extremely value those apart of my family, as they are one of the biggest driving forces behind my motivation. I want to be the best I can be so I never let my family down, and I’m always setting a good example to my younger family members that may look up to me. Family gets me through times of doubt in myself, or lack of confidence that I will succeed in what I’m trying to do. I’m always real with my family, and they keep it real back with me as well. A lot of my personal life goals, and morals are heavily influenced by my family. Truly, I wouldn’t be the person I am today without the constant support, and love I receive from my family. I’m looking forward to one day settling down and having a family of my own. I will always be there for my family, as that truly is the number one priority in my life! That wraps up this week’s about me post, thank you for reading.

Thanks for joining me, and WELCOME to Skateboarding for Dummies.

Life is a lot like skateboarding — Lil Wayne

As rapper Lil Wayne, aka Young Tuneche said in the quote above; “Life is a lot like skateboarding”. Personally, I very much identify with this quote, skating has truly helped me grow in life. I invite all readers to join me as I blog my journey advancing my skate skills. And share with others tips how they can grow as a skateboarder as well. See ya in the comments!