Backside – tricks that cause your back side to face the direction of travel or obstacle.
Frontside – tricks that cause your front side to face the direction of travel or obstacle.
A frontside skateboard trick and a backside skateboard trick how to tell which is which.
I find flatland and transition tricks to be easier backside.
I used to get confused by the difference between what I thought tricks were and what the magazines said. It didn’t always match. I realized the direction that the skater is travelling is the factor deciding the name of the trick.
Most skaters give different answers.
This works for nollie tricks too. The direction of travel of the skaters body determines the front or back side name of the trick.
This is true even though some tricks are identical when you look at how they are done. They may have different names due to the skaters stance and the way they are facing during the trick.
Since the Tony Hawk video games came out Trick naming at the skatepark has become laughable.
The game labels the tricks as you do them. The game uses short forms like:
FS for frontside and
BS for backside.
I have heard kids yelling out: “Do a BS Boardslide!”
BS all right!
Naming tricks is a mess but here is what I use to get it straight.
Try it out when looking at captions for tricks.
If there are some exceptions to these rules. Maybe there are some weird named tricks or something that just won’t fit the description. Then drop me a line and we can figure it out.
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