My name is Justin Lauria, and today I'm going to show you how to do 5 tricks on your skateboard
that look difficult but are actually really easy to learn.
Alright, so first up on the list is the nollie shuvit.
This trick is similar to a pop shuvit in that the board is going to rotate underneath you
without you having to put either of your feet on the ground, but since you're able to stay
in your normal, forward stance the entire time and because of the forward momentum of
the board and the fact that you're popping the trick off of the nose, this trick is actually
extremely easy to pick up, even for someone who's just getting into skateboarding.
To do this trick, start out riding slowly and transition your feet into nollie position
with your front foot on the nose of the board and your back foot just in front of your back
set of wheels.
Now, very lightly, hop up off of the board, pressing evenly off of both feet, and just
as your front foot is leaving the nose, pull it back toward your heel slightly to get the
board spinning in a frontside rotation.
If you don't feel comfortable landing with both feet on the board at first, you can start
out by landing with one of your feet on the ground after the board has finished rotating,
and then once you feel confident that you can spin the board in a consistent manner,
progress to landing on it with both feet.
Once you get really comfortable with it, you can try spinning the board backside or doing
nollie 360 shuvits.
Now let's take a look at the second trick on the list: the caveman finger flip.
Before you start learning this trick, make sure you're already able to do the nosegrab
caveman and the indy grab caveman on flat ground first.
Once you've got both of those maneuvers down, you can start practicing the fingerflip version
while standing still, preferably on a softer surface like grass when you're starting out.
The easiest version of a caveman fingerflip that I've found is to hold your board in an
indy grab and flip the board one time while simultaneously jumping off of your usual back
foot, timing your jump so that you land with your feet on top of the board just as it completes
its rotation.
Once you can do this move standing still, progress to doing it with a little bit of
a running start.
The lower you're holding the board when you flip it, the easier it will be to overcome
the fear of committing to jumping on it.
My favorite approach is to take three running steps total, starting with my back foot, and
then jumping on my third step.
After you get good at the indy grab version, you can try out some of these variations,
or better yet, make up some of your own.
On that note, if you do come up with any interesting caveman fingerflip variations or any other interesting
skateboard tricks, for that matter, the rest of the community and I would love to see them.
Tag your clips with the hashtag #nsiskateboarding and follow @nsiskateboarding on Instagram
where I'm sharing a new clip from the community every single day.
OK, so now let's move on to the third trick on the list: the slappy noseslide.
In skateboarding, a slappy refers to a trick that's usually done on a curb or a short ledge,
and involves a grind or a slide but doesn't involve popping the board off of the ground
in order to get into the maneuver.
So to do a slappy noseslide, you're just going to ride right up to the curb or short ledge
at an angle and start the slide just by lifting up the front part of your board like you would
for a manual, letting your momentum carry you along as you slide on the nose of the
board.
To learn this trick, you can start by learning the stationary version of it.
Ride straight toward the ledge slowly and position your front foot onto the nose of
the board.
As you reach the ledge, lift up your front wheels and set the nose of the board on the
ledge.
At this point, make sure to practice pressing all of your weight down onto your front foot
to get the board fully locked into the stall, and also make sure that you bend your back
knee to help keep you centered over the board.
Now, once you feel like you're properly and fully locking into the nose stall, you can
start to approach the ledge at an angle and work your way from small slides up to larger
ones.
To dismount a noseslide, before you come to a complete stop on the ledge, unweight your
front foot and twist your hips by counter-rotating your shoulders so that you'll drop down onto
the landing in your normal stance.
Alright, so now it's time to move on to trick number four, which is called the railstand
flip, or more commonly, just a rail flip.
To perform this trick, first you're going to need to be able to get into railstand position.
For a full tutorial on that topic, which includes three separate ways to get into railstand,
you can click the link that I'll put right at the end of this video.
OK, so to get started with this trick, first I would recommend learning the standing rail
flip.
Learning that maneuver will help you get a feel for how to pop the board with your back
foot to get it to spin properly before you try it with both of your feet on top of the
board.
Once you're ready to move on to trying it from railstand positioning, you can ease into
it by flipping the board and then landing with one of your feet on the ground again,
and then progress to landing it with both feet on the board once you feel confident that
you're able to consistently flip the board so that it lands on its wheels.
As you pop this trick, have your feet positioned so that the ball of your front foot is directly
over top of the front set of wheels, and the toes of your back foot are over the tail,
and as you jump into the air, flick your back foot down at the ankle and pull it back slightly.
Now there are plenty of variations to the type of flips you can do from railstand, but
I've found that the easiest and most consistent one is to flip the board in a varial double
kickflip motion, which is also known as a nightmare flip.
With that, let's move on to the final trick on our list, which is the
called a firecracker.
Now, I know this trick might seem a little daunting at first, but once you start trying
it, you're going to be delightfully surprised at how easy it actually is to get all the
way to the bottom of the stairs without falling off of your board.
Alright, so before you start trying this trick, first I would recommend that you spend some
time practicing your manuals on flat ground until you are able to hold them for at least
3 to 5 seconds each time.
Once you're feeling pretty confident with your manuals, you can start practicing a very
important stepping stone trick, which just involves riding off of a curb and landing
in a manual.
When you do a firecracker, you'll simply be repeating this exact motion over and over
for every step that you go down.
Once you're ready to try this move down stairs, start with the smallest stair set you can
find and try to hold a manual while riding down the set of stairs, while focusing on
keeping your body weight centered over the board and trying to ignore the fact that the
board is rattling around underneath your feet.
If you start to feel like you're losing your balance, you should be able to bail the maneuver
safely by taking your back foot off first and walking or running the rest of the way
down the stairs.
Once you get to the bottom, you can set down your front wheels again and ride away like
it was no big deal.
Alright guys, so I hope this video gave you some really good ideas for some tricks that
you can go out and learn later this week, make sure to follow my new account "@nsiskateboarding"
on Instagram, and as always, never stop improving.