1. Stance

Put your back foot flat across the tail of your skateboard, and put the ball of your front foot right behind your front trucks. Get rolling at a comfortable speed, and then move your feet into this position.

2. The Pop

At this point, ollie as high as you can. The technique is basically the same, except for what your feet do while in the air…

3. The Flick

When you launch up into the air, slide the side of your foot up the board like you do in a regular ollie. However, you’ll want to slide it up toward the edge of the nose of the board and flick the nose of your skateboard with your front foot.

As you ollie, you drag your front foot up the board, right? Well, instead of stopping, you want to continue the drag towards the heel edge corner of your deck. Using the top of your toes, flick the board. The motion of your foot should be out, and a little down. Be careful not to just kick the skateboard down – your foot will be underneath the skateboard, making it impossible to land right. Instead, you want the motion to be both down and out back behind you.

5. The Nose

Your target is the corner of the nose of your skateboard. Flick your skateboard there, and you will have the most control.

6. Get out of the Way

After flicking the board with your front foot, get your feet out of the way so that the board can flip in the air. This is important. Don’t let your front foot end up underneath the board. After flicking the skateboard, pull your front foot out and up.

7. Stay Level During Flip

While the skateboard is flipping underneath you, it can be easy to lose your level. By that I mean, keeping your shoulders level with the ground, and pointed in the direction you are going. Try not to turn to the side, and try not to tilt your upper body, so that one shoulder is higher than the other. Staying level will help you when you land.

8. Catch the Skateboard

Once the skateboard has spun around completely one time, put your back foot on it to catch it. This means that you’ll need to be watching your skateboard, to see when it has made one complete flip. This can be tricky – keep practicing. Some day when you are awesome, you’ll have a stronger board sense and be able to kickflip without watching the board, but even pros look down when they do tricks, so keep an eye on that board.

Once you catch the skateboard with your back foot, you’ll want to put your front foot on the skateboard too.

9. Land and Roll Away

Next, as you fall back toward the ground and land, bend your knees again. This is important! Bending your knees will help absorb the shock of landing on your skateboard, it will keep your knees from getting hurt from the impact, and keep you in control of your skateboard. bend your knees deeply as you land.

Finally, just roll away. If this sounds simple, then great – get out there and practice! If this sounds too complicated, don’t worry. Just go slow, and take your time.

Take a look back at the 10 Most Influential Tricks of All Time, compiled by Transworld Skateboarding.

1. The Frontside Air

2. The Ollie

3. The Kickflip

Check out the rest of the list and videos at Transworld Skateboarding. Planning to try out a new trick? Slap some GOO on your shoes to patch them up first, or just add a little extra protection.

-To avoid breaking your board, teach yourself to start landing with your feet over your trucks- knees bent as much as you can. This will help lessen the amount of pressure distributed over the deck and will make your decks last much longer!

- On that note, your weight isn’t going to be carried by a cheaply-made board. You’ll need to buy a nice deck if you don’t want it to break on you the first time you land kind of hard.

- If you’re tall, your center of gravity won’t be the same as shorter people. If someone much shorter than yourself is trying to teach you something, don’t take it 100% to heart, because you’ll need to make adjustments for your height.

- Extra pads are always a good idea, but especially so if you’re big and/or tall. Your size will be a benefit in some things (like gaining super-speed down a hill), but it also makes you land much harder- whether it’s on your board or not. Don’t be afraid of padding!

These are just a few tips we’ve come up with, feel free to share your own!

- Wood absorbs water. If your deck gets too wet it will start to warp and be a pain to correct. If you’ve been skating in the rain make sure you completely dry your board with towels when you get home. Make sure you get the bearings too, maybe even with a hair dryer, to make sure rust doesn’t develop.

- Don’t skate through puddles! If ever there was a way to make sure your whole board will get wet, this is it.

- Try to avoid very heavy rain. Same reason as puddles.

- Make sure your shoes have a good amount of grip on the bottom. This might seem like a no-brainer, but it’s an easy thing to overlook.

- Stick to areas you’ve skated before and are comfortable at. Rain blocks your vision.

- If it’s cold outside your deck will be much less pliable and there is an increased chance it will break/snap.

For a video of this years Skate Jam and Best Trick click here.

July 1999- Tony Hawk at the I-Games in San Francisco, California

April 2004- Giorgio Zattoni, Marianna HC, Ravenna (Italy)

May 2004- Sandro Dias at the Latin X-Games, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)

July 2009- Alex Perelson at the maloof Money Cup, Costa Mesa, California

watch?v=k4RPk6mChh8

August 2010- Bob Burnquist, first to fakie 900, Mega Ramp

bob-mega-900

July 2011- Mitchie Brusco, Nescau MegaRamp Invitational, Sao Paul (Brazil)

watch?v=EP0YRWTyAh0

October 2011- Elliot Sloan, Maloof Money Cup South Africa

elliot+sloan+stuns+skateboarding+universe+with+first-ever+tailgrab+900

Did you know the Tony Hawk Foundation has a program to help at-risk kids get helmets and skateboards? The foundation has helped create more than 400 skateparks, but realizes not everyone can buy their own helmet or skateboard. Despite stereotypes, skateboarding is an amazing sport that does a lot of good for all kinds of kids. What to help a kid get a solid start? Take a look at what the foundation has done, and how you can help.

Founded by 20-year professional skateboarder and entrepreneur, Rob Dyrdek, Street League is the biggest contest in skateboarding history and features 24 of the world’s top street skateboarders competing exclusively for a $1.6 million prize purse.

Street League utilizes the ISX (instant scoring experience) format where a single trick can have a major impact on the final outcome. Five Street League judges each have an ISX dial where they enter scores for each trick done in each section. If you missed the Street League competition, here’s a breakdown of the competition format:

Street League has each skater going one at a time in a line-up. Each skater does their trick one after another in the same section for seven attempts. Key in the Street League format is the fact that every trick counts with tricks that are not landed given a zero. Landed tricks are judged on a 0.0 to 10.0 scale for a cumulative point total that determines ranking. Each trick can fall into a separate range of points according to difficulty (0 – 2, 2- 4, 3- 5). Combinations of these tricks, innovations, special circumstance (special style, doing tricks the “hard way,” switch, nollie, etc.) add additional points to each score. Maximum possible trick score is 10.0. (from Street League)

This year, Street League Skateboarding broadcast the event with live programming on ESPN, espn2, and an international webcast onwww.streetleague.com. After kicking off its second season in Seattle, the nationwide tour ended with the Championship event in Newark, NJ on August 28.

After winning the first three stops of the tour, it looked like Street League’s youngest pro, Nyjah Huston would come out on top. But in the end, pro skateboarder Sean Malto took home the $200,000 prize and the championship title.

FINAL RESULTS:

1. Sean Malto
2. Nyjah Huston
3. Chris Cole
4. Chaz Ortiz
5. Paul Rodriguez
6. Mikey Taylor
7. Billy Marks
8. Shane O’Neill
9. Ryan Sheckler

If you missed the live broadcast or want to see it again, check out the rebroadcast at ESPN.

Photo credit: ESPN

The typical Dew Tour has five main disciplines: skateboard street and vert, as well as BMX dirt, park, and vert – all of which determine a winner based on cumulative points, who takes home a coveted Dew Cup at the end of the season.  The Portland stop featured BMX park, dirt, and skate street and bowl.

August 13: Skateboard Street

Plan B’s Paul Rodriguez won the Skate Street competition, with “effortless switch back lips down the rail, switch kickflip backside 50-50s on the hubba, and kept it more consistent than any other competitor in the super finals,” according to Adam Salo of ESPN.com

Skate Street Finals
1.    Paul Rodriguez – Tarzana, CA – 88.18
2.    Ryan Decenzo - Vancouver, CAN – 85.20
3.    Manny Santiago – Lowell, MA – 82.73
4.    Kelvin Hoefler - Sao Paulo, BRA – 81.10
5.    Danilo De Rosario – Curitiba, BRA – 75.65

For complete details of the Skate Street competition, check out Yahoo! Contributor, Killeen Gonzalez’s article.

August 14: Skate Bowl

The Skate Bowl final on Sunday featured a battle between 38-year-old Bucky Lasek and 16-year-old Pedro Barros. In the end, it was Lasek’s final run — backside lipslide off the deep end hip to a backside tailslide into the deep end — that won out over Barros’.

Photo of Bucky Lasek courtesy of BNQT.com. For more photos, check out this slideshow.

Here is a video highlight from the Skate Bowl finals. Be sure to head over to the Dew Tour site for more photos and videos.

Skate Bowl Finals:

1.    Bucky Lasek — 87.26
2.    Pedro Barros — 85.26
3.    Andy Macdonald — 83.13
4.    Ben Hatchell — 81.51
5.    Willis Kimbel — 76.38

“It feels awesome to win in Portland because this is the home of concrete parks and what better place to win on the portable bowl at Dew Tour,” Lasek said. “It’s pretty exciting making the run that I made and making it three times is a great accomplishment for me. I think lately I’ve had the heart of a tiger, just attacking it, going for it, living life and skateboarding. That’s what it’s all about.”