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!
Skateboard Tricks for Dummies 
Overall, A, I think you got a good thing going here. First, I’m going to try to not take it personally that you’ve named your female board Stephen. JK. Truly, I enjoy the humorous aspect to this blog; I want you all to have fun with it and you definitely are. I’m also excited to hear that because I’m forcing you to do this blog you finally landed a kick-flip (but seriously, what took you so long? My mom kick-flips on the reg.) Anyway, love the photos (doing most of the tricks in your dorm room, eh? Interesting.) and embedded videos, but suggestions for moving forward: try crafting shorter, more focused paragraphs. These HUGE blocks of text are quite uninviting. Otherwise, keep it up!
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Right on G! I appreciate the feedback, and I’m glad you enjoy the content in my blog. I have noted your suggestions, and I’ll definitely focus on keeping my paragraphs shorter and more concise. In addition, although my dorm room does offer a wonderful setting for skateboarding, I will also include photos of me riding outside and around campus. Thanks again for your comment, and if your mom has any tips on how to land kickflips on the reg, let me know!
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