Grinderz

An ollie followed by a nosegrab in such a way that the board can then be flipped with the palm of the hand whilst in the air.

A reverse elguerial, meaning this is another fakie 360° invert. The difference (and the reason I said reverse) is that on an elguerial, your body is facing the coping as you start the trick. On a Phillips 66, you're coming at the coping backside, meaning it's completely blind. As such, it's a bloody hard trick, and, to my knowledge, very few people can do it.

The easier (though still not easy) version of an inward heelflip, where the skateboard does half a backflip and half a heelflip between the riders legs. To achieve this, the skateboarder starts to pop a varial heelflip with the varial done backside, but turns 90° backside himself as he does the heelflip. Because the heel flicks off the leading edge of the skateboard as it turns, it interrupts the lateral motion of the varial, causing the board to flip vertically between the riders parted legs. The rider turns frontside again to catch the skateboard and ride away.

Turning on the back or front skateboard wheels. Can be done 180°, 360° or any other increment of 180°. A common use is to pivot mid way through a manual into a nosemanual, or vise versa.

Bouncing up and down as if the board were a pogo stick whilst in a 50-50 truckstand position (standing on the truck with the board vertically balanced on the tip of a kicktail). Can be done with one or two hands holding the nose of the skateboard, or no handed (from a regular truckstand or "no handed" 50-50 position). Can also be done with one, or two feet on the truck and in a crossfooted position.

The art of skating empty swimming pools that have transitioned (curved) sides. Was the forerunner of modern day vert skating, and enjoying a bit of a resurgence of late, although often in specially made pools found in skateparks instead of illegally draining backyard pools as was done originally.

An often used term in skateboarding, most often when describing how to do tricks, for example an ollie, as in "jumping off the back foot causes the board to pop". Most modern tricks require you to pop the board, basically referring to 'bouncing' the board off the ground by jumping off either the nose or tail in order to gain air. It's the pop that makes the characteristic sound of a skateboarding session, though I wouldn't exactly call it a pop myself (more of a loud distorted click, when done cleanly on a decent skateboard).

Pop is also used to describe the properties of a skateboard as in "my new board has way more pop than the last one", or to describe a trick - "did you see how much pop I got then?". Pop may finally be used as a verb, as in "I popped an ollie over that trash can the other day".

A shuvit that is performed much higher than normal, by virtue of the fact that the board is popped as the skater does the shuvit. See this article on shuvits for more information on shuvit variants.

A 90° slide on flat ground usually done frontside in order to slow down. When perfected, power slides are the most effective form of braking a skateboarder has. The board is pivoted 90° on its front wheels as the rider pushes the back wheels into the ground. As the skateboard is now perpendicular to the direction of travel, the friction of the wheels with the ground quickly slows the skateboard to a screeching halt. Warning - excessive power sliding will destroy wheels very quickly!

Any flip trick where the board is flipped solely as a result of the pop - unlike in a conventional flip trick such as a heelflip the foot that doesn't pop (your front foot unless in nollie or fakie) doesn't do anything except get out of the way. The skateboarder jumps very powerfully off of his popping foot and changes the location and direction of the pop in order to manipulate the resulting pressure flip. By doing this a range of pressure flips are possible including flips in either direction and varial flips.

A kickflip where the skateboarder lands with his legs crossed, in x-foot. The front foot lands where the back foot normally would and vice versa. Pretzels of course have an X in the middle so that's where this trick got it's name from, since the skaters legs make an X.

Any trick can be landed cross footed, however 'pretzel flip' has come to mean specifically a kickflip to x-foot.

Another name for a calf wrap, often used when it's done as a lip trick on ramps.

Pumping is a technique used to gain speed on transitions (the curved part of ramps), most often in a half pipe in order to get more air out of the top of the half pipe. Pumping uses the principals of centripetal force to gain speed and therefore height despite gravity.

It's a simple case of compressing the knees while on the transition and uncompressing them when you hit the flat bottom of the halfpipe - the key is to get your timing right.

The act of pushing the ground with one foot while the other guides the board. Used to accelerate on a skateboard. See skateboarding for beginners, part 1 for more information on pushing off and the basics of riding a skateboard.

2. The very edges of a skateboard deck which can be used in a number of tricks which are then described using the term 'rail' as in 'rail flip' or 'rail slide' below.

3. A shortened version of 'rail stand' which is used in describing tricks, for example 'kickflip to rail' would describe a kickflip which is landed in a rail stand.

Any flip trick performed out of a rail stand. These are usually monstrous double varials and the like because the rail position, once mastered, is condusive to getting incredible amounts of spin on the board. Any number of rail flip variations exist and are best described using other terms, for example varial, 540°, toeside etc...

Rail flips are usually performed as a transition between a rail stand and a regular skateboarding stance, but can also be landed back in a rail stand.

Sliding across an obstacle (usually a flat and vigorously waxed platform) in a rail stand.

A skateboarding stance where the board rests on its edge (or rail, to use the proper term) with the rider balanced on top. The skateboard wheels provide stability as they take the brunt of the riders weight, so a rail stand isn't particular difficult to balance. However it's getting into and out of a rail stand that is the difficult part. See the cooper stand for a slight variation on a rail stand.

A type of rail flip - a half flip from one rail stand to another rail stand (or indeed one rail slide to another rail slide). Can be performed heelside or toeside.

A 360° shuvit in rail while keeping a foot on the wheel of the board. Jesse Whalen does them a lot in his video on this site.

A sloped obstacle used to gain air off or otherwise trick off. Ramps are flat (usually known as banks or flatbanks) or 'transitioned' - curved as in a kicker, roll in or quarter pipe. Interested in buying a ramp? Urban Ramps are suppliers and builders of skateboard and BMX ramps.

A fair deal of controversy surrounds this one; the term "reemo" or "reemo slide" refers to a primo which itself simply refers to a railslide.

It's likely that the name "reemo" was introduced in the Tony Hawks games and many skaters don't like the fact that it's coming into common usage (and will hate the fact I even dared to put it in the tricktionary!). But who knows, like "pretzel flips" and the "yeah right manual" it may be one of those things that catches on -- the important thing is what it actually means; a railslide.

A skateboarder whose natural stance is left foot forward. The opposite of a goofy footed skater.

A 180° turn with all wheels on the ground. Creates a distinctive screeching sound and is a common way for skaters to get into fakie. This 'trick' (more of a 'utility' than a trick) is often used in the Tony Hawks games to string vast runs of vert tricks together, but is rarely used on ramps in real life.

If you look at some skateboards, you'll see coloured plastic pads between the trucks and the deck. These pads are risers, and are used for a variety of reasons:

1. To make the board higher. Some people (myself included) prefer a taller board for whatever reason. 2. To prevent the deck from cracking. Having the metal trucks next to the wooden deck can increase the chance of cracks running down the board from the truck mounting holes, and risers can help reduce the chance of that happening. 3. To absorb shock. Soft riser pads can reduce vibrations from rough surfaces, giving you a smoother ride.

Note that you can also get wedge pads which also change the angle the trucks are mounted at.

A grab trick where the back hand reaches between the skateboarders legs and grips the heelside of the deck.

A rock to fakie, where the skater does a kickturn to re-enter the ramp rolling forwards instead of rocking back in fakie.

A basic lip trick where the skateboard is stalled in a boardslide position on the obstacle (almost always the coping of a half pipe or mini pipe). The board is rocked forwards into this position before the skater rocks it back, lifting the front wheels up by applying a small amount of pressure on the tail so that he can roll back into the ramp backwards (hence the "to fakie" part of the name).

A trick where the skater in mid air has both feet on the tail of the skateboard and both hands gripping the nose. The board is held as vertically as possible in this position.

As discussed in this article about ollies a rocket ollie is a badly executed ollie caused by not bringing your back foot high enough, limiting the amount the tail of your skateboard can rise and causing an overly vertical ollie.

In a few cases, notably when trying to land in a bluntstall or bluntslide, doing a rocket ollie can be useful.

A rodeo flip is an inverted 540° frontside air (generally performed in a half pipe). Because it's inverted (that is, upside down) it often appears that the skateboarder is doing a backflip, leading to some contradictory definitions around the web.

Rodeo flips are also popular in snowboarding where it's common to do them on straight jumps (instead of in a half pipe) in which case it "feels like doing a backflip and landing riding fakie".

A pro skater. There are many pro skaters in the world but nobody has been so consistently inventive as Rodney Mullen. Rodneys list of invented tricks is huge, most people have no idea how much he has done for the sport, so here is a condensed list. Remember, these are just some of the tricks he either invented or landed first (from around 1980 to the early 1990's).

Ollie
Kickflip
Heelflip
Helipop
Impossible
360° Flip
360° Pressure Flip
Varial Heelflip
Switch 360° Flip
Kickflip Underflip
Casper Slide
Darkslide

My source only goes up to 1992, so who knows what other amazing tricks he may have come up with since? You only need to watch some of his recent stuff, which is a sort of flatland/street skating hybrid, to know how incredible Rodney Mullen is, and in those videos you will see all kinds of ridiculous tricks which you have no idea how to do or even what they are called. No one can match him for pure technical ability. Some people don't really like his technical style, but regardless of this you have to respect the so called 'godfather of street skating' who created all the stuff that is the foundation of what most skaters do now.

See also this book review, this site about Rodney for videos, pictures and forum talk, and this skate movie review.

Geoff Rowley is an English skateboarder who has landed a few darkslides in a slightly different way than they are traditionally done: Instead of balancing the slide with a foot on the underside of each kicktail, he has one foot inside the truck nearer the centre of the deck.

Neversoft introduced this as a trick in TH:PS 3, although whether it deserves to be accredited solely to Geoff, or even needs a seperate name at all, is likely to be disputed by more than a few people.

Although the trick appears in the Tony Hawk's games (and appears to be some kind of coconut wheelie/railslide combo), it, like so many tricks in Tony Hawk's, is purely fictional. Although the combo can be done, it doesn't really have, nor need, a specific name.