Introduction to Street Skating

• Pros: Cheap to do, you don't need ramps.
• Cons: Skating on public property is often an offence. You may be moved on (or reprimanded) by the police.

Street skating is perhaps the style most associated with modern skate culture. It is a truly urban extreme sport in that it does not require any apparatus other than a skateboard and a street.

The idea in street skating is to use the real world as your skatepark and interact with the built-up environment in original and interesting ways. Generally, street skaters do not use ramps and, unlike freestyle skaters, they perform their tricks while on the move. Ollies are used not just to perform tricks on flat ground but also to navigate the street environment in such a way as to perform a satisfying unbroken run of tricks.

Park benches, stairs, railings and virtually anything that is made of concrete are known as street furniture by street skaters and there 'to be skated'. As many of these items are public property, street skating is not always the most popular with local councils and law enforcement. The level of tolerance depends on where you live, so try and find out the local situation before you make yourself liable for damaging public property.

Many councils are purposefully building skate-proof street furniture to dissuade skaters from using it as an skate obstacle. Luckily, councils are also increasingly building free to use, outdoor skateparks with custom made street furniture. Private skateparks also usually contain a street section or street course. Here you will find a variety of street furniture such as grind rails, funboxes, quarterpipes and mini-ramps but, of course, the drawback is you have to pay.

Street skating tricks

Street skating tricks can be divided into two main areas.

• Flip Tricks. From the simple ollie, many variations of street trick have been born. Thanks to the marvellous no-hand air, once the skater is in the air, the board can be flipped and spun with the feet or by grabbing and flipping with the fingers. Ollies allow a skater to jump onto and off objects such as benches, railings and even walls (called a Wall Ride)!
• Grinds and slides. By performing an ollie and landing on a hard edge, a street skater can grind or slide along it. Further embellishment may be added as he performs a more complex trick to get onto the object and/or another to dismount.

Flip tricks

Flip tricks are often named after the part of the body that makes the board flip, or by the type of flip the board performs. A combination of flips in a single ollie gives rise to a completely new trick. Street skaters perform ollie tricks while travelling along flat ground or onto, over and off street furniture, sometimes combining them with grinds and slides. Although many flip tricks take weeks to learn and years to perfect, the feeling of landing a new trick successfully will keep you on a high for days!

Bear in mind that many of these ollie flip tricks are also performed by vert skaters airborne at the top of ramps and by freestyle skaters while more or less stationary. We have included them in the street skating section as it is here that they are most popular in today’s skating culture.

• Kickflip. Often the first flip trick a skater will learn, as it looks so great and feels really satisfying to land. At the highest point of the ollie, the board is flipped through its long axis by a quick flick of the front toes downwards. The feet must clear the board to allow it to spin before landing back on it again mid-air. Higher ollies mean more rotations and thus we have the double and triple kickflip, right up to the quadflip.
• Heelflip. The same concept as the Kickflip but trickier as the board spins the other way. The heel does not actually spin the board, but the toes still do.
• Underflip. The skateboard is rotated by pulling the boards upwards with the toe from underneath the board.
• Kickback. This is half Kickflip and half Heelflip. A Kickflip is initiated but, as soon as the board has made half a rotation, it is reversed to its original position with a Heelflip.
• Nollie. A kind of reverse ollie where the board is jumped up with the nose-end leaving the ground last as opposed to the tail.
• Fingerflip. Once airborne the skater quickly grabs the nose of his board and flips it through its long axis.
• Ollie sex-change. During the ollie the skater switches his foot stance without the boards itself moving. It can still be classed as a flip trick because, although the board does not flip, the skater does (kind of).
• Sal Flip. During the ollie the nose of the skateboard is caught and the board is spun 360 degrees horizontally.
• Big Spin. Both skateboard and skater spin in this trick. While the board is spun 360 degrees under the feet, the skater spins 180 degrees.
• Big Flip. A Big Flip is a Big Spin with a kickflip added in.
• Shove-it. The board is rotated horizontally (rather than flipped) with the feet. A basic Shove-it consists of a 180 degree rotation and can be done backside or frontside. A 360 degree Shove-it requires a full rotation.
• 360 kickflip. Also known as a 360 flip this extremely popular skate trick requires the board to rotate on two axis. It is basically a backside 360 Shove-it combined with a Kickflip in a single movement.
• Laser flip. Also known as a 360 heel flip this is the opposite of the above 360 kickflip. A frontside 360 Shove-it is combined with a Heelflip in a single movement. It is considered much more difficult than a 360 kickflip.

Grind Tricks

Performing ollies onto and grinding metal skate trucks along the edges of public property can leave it marked or permanently damaged, but this remains one of the most popular areas of modern day skateboarding. Grinds are mainly what gets street skaters in trouble, earning street skating a bad name as an anti-social pastime favoured by wayward, destructive youth.

This description may be true in some isolated cases but, for the most part, skaters are inspired young people looking for a challenge and a worthwhile activity. If property was inadvertently damaged by skating, it was more a reflection of the lack of facilities than an example of intentional vandalism.

Grinding is also popular with vert skaters who grind along the coping at the top of a ramps or along a specially mounted grind rail. Grinds are classified by the position of the board and whichever truck is in contact with the grinding surface. Further variations are brought by positioning the board in a skewed or awkward position while grinding. Hand rails, street curbs, steps and benches are favourite street grinding spots:

• 50-50 Grind. This is the most basic of all grinds, invented way back in the 70s by the likes of the Z-boys. Both trucks are squarely positioned on the grind surface for maximum stability.
• Nosegrind. As the name suggests, this is a grind where only the front truck connects, the back truck remains balanced in the air.
• 5-0 Grind. In the 5-0, only the back truck grinds while the nose of the board is maintained in the air.
• Crooked Grind. Like a nose grind but with the back end of the board pointing diagonally away from the grinding surface. This causes the nose of the board to be ground too.
• Smith Grind. Like a 5-0 grind but with the front truck suspended over the near side of the grinding surface. This means that the edge of the board also makes contact.
• Salad Grind. The opposite of the Smith grind, where the front truck is held over the far side of the grinding surface.

Slide Tricks

Slide tricks are where a hard surface is slid along by means of the actual wooden skateboard deck. Some surfaces are more suitable for sliding, such as benches where wood makes contact with wood. Due to the varnished finish on a board, greater distances can be achieved sliding along an object than grinding.

Perhaps the most famous of all slide objects is the infamous hand-rail. A skater approaches a set of stairs and ollying up onto the hand rail, he descends the entire length of it balanced on his board. It is as dangerous as it is impressive, as a bail (fall) from this position means tumbling, possibly face first onto concrete steps, often hitting the a hard metal rail on the way down. Watch this skate video of bails to see the meaning of perseverance.

Slides are also very popular with vert skaters as they transform their upwards energy to achieve lengthy board slides right along the top of ramps. Like other tricks, boardslides are mostly defined by the portion of the skateboard in contact with the sliding surface. Here are the most popular board slides around:

• Boardslide. The standard slide where the center of the board in between the trucks is in contact.
• Caveman Slide. Instead of doing an ollie, a skater approaches the obstacle on foot and leaps into the air, landing on his board on the obstacle and thus initiating the slide. A boardslide is the most common choice of slide but a caveman can be done into a grind or other type of slide trick.
• Darkslide. This is a nifty little variation on the standard boardslide, where the skateboard is flipped over so that the grip-tape side (normally used for standing on) is the surface slid on. The board must be righted again at the end of the slide for a successful landing.
• Tailslide'. The board is slid with only the tail portion in contact. The skateboard thus projects at a 90 degree angle away from the sliding surface.
• Noseslide. Like the tailslide but this time only the tail of the skateboard makes contact.
• Crailslide. Just the same as a tailslide but the skater grabs the nose of the board during the trick.
• Bluntslide. This is just like a tailslide but the sliding surface must be first cleared with the board so that the skater lands on his tail on the far side of the rail. The bluntside is usually angled higher up to stop the tail end wheels from making contact with the sliding surface.
• Nosebluntside. The same as a bluntside but the sliding is done on the nose and not the tail of the skateboard.