Skateboarding
I have been in the skateboarding subculture since I was just five years old. I still remember when I got my first skateboard, it was a World Industries Board with the two characters Wet Willy and Flameboy on the back.

Once I got a little older I tried to get into it more and start trying new tricks and skate new places. But at first, I was afraid of going new places to skate around other people. People used to say how bad skateboarders are and how they are just such a menace to everyone and don’t care either. I always thought someone would maybe beat me up or just mess around with me if I went to a skatepark with other older skaters. All the accusations are for the most part inaccurate. In all my years of skating I have learned to realize that skaters are some of the nicest, most generous people out there. No matter if they are older or younger everyone has treated me with kindness and respect wherever I skate and I have skated all over Ohio and more. One of the people I met a few years ago actually gave me a pair of 60 dollar shoes and a 75 dollar skateboard that he didn’t use for free because he just wanted me to be able to skate after my other board broke and my shoes were a mess. I have rarely met a skater who will not talk to you and/or not be nice when they talk to you.
There are a lot of terms and lingo that skateboarders use with eachother that others might not know what they are talking about. Most of the terms deal with different tricks with the board.


The two pictures shown above are showing how to move your front foot on a skateboard to make it flip into either a kickflip or heelflip. There are more complicated tricks than just those too.


The two tricks above are a pop shuv, which the board just does a 180 degree spin with no flip. But then you can do a 360 pop shuv where the board does a full 360 degree spin with no flip. But now it gets a little trickier, combine the 360 pop shuv with the kickflip to do a 360 flip shown above. A 360 flip is hard because you have to pop and shuv with the back foot first then as the board comes up in the air and start spinning you have to slide your front foot up off the side of the board as it spins so it can flip and do a full 360 spin. Think that one is complicated? Well, we are just getting started.
There are a few terms that tell how the skater is standing on the board. If your right foot is in the back and left foot in front you are regular. If your left foot is in the back and your right foot in front then you are goofy. Since I am goofy, I will use being goofy as an example. So just standing normal on the board I am goofy, but when I go switch that means I turn myself around on the board and ride like I am regular(but I am not). Back to normal goofy, if I say I am going nollie, that means my front foot is actually going to pop instead of my back foot and my back foot is going to spin or flip the board while my front foot pops the board up. Again back to normal goofy, if I go fakie, then I still have my feet set up like goofy but ride backwards so my left back foot is still popping the board but my left foot is actaully up front.

Now there are terms that tell how many spins you plus the board together do. It can be as simple as a 180 or even 360. Or it can get more complex like the cabillerials. Cabillerial is actually a person who skated back in the day and actually invented a few tricks like the cabillarial and the cab flip. A cabillarial is just when someone is skating fakie and they do a 180 to get back to normal. A full cab is when someone skating fakie does a full 360 and lands on the board fakie again. A cab flip is when someone fakie does a 180 with a kickflip or heelflip. Spinning has its own two terms as well. Bs and Fs which stand for back side and front side. The way you can tell whether you are spinning front side or back side is if your front or back side face the direction in which you are moving to make the full 180 spin. The same actually goes for pop shuv its too. You can do a front side and back side shut it, one spinning towards your toes (back side) and one spinning towards your heels (front side). You can do a back side and front side flip as well as a back side or front side bigspin/ bigflip. A back side flip is when you and the board do a 180 towards your toes so that your back is facing the direction you are moving while you do a kick flip or heelflip. A frontside bigspin is when you do a front side shuv it then once the board does the 180 towards your heels and you and the board together do another 180 the same way before it lands on the grounds so now you are backwards and the board has done a full 360. A bigflip is the same exact thing as a bigspin but you just add a kickflip or heelflip in with it.


Now that most of the flip tricks have been explained there are now just a few more grab terms to learn other than a manual and nose manual. Manuals are just wheelies but since we have two back wheels and two front wheels a wheelie on the two back wheels are called a manual while a wheelie on the front two wheels is called a nose manual. There are a decent list of grabs that can be done on a skateboard. There are a few normal grabs then there are grabs that can be tweaked out which means just move your body so the board is no longer directly under you but you still have control of how the board moves and where it goes. Some of the normal grabs consist of Grab which you grab the side of the board your toes face, Nose grab where you grab the top nose of the board, tail grab is when you grab the back tailside of the board, tailbone grab when you grab the side of the board your heels face. Then grabs are tweaked after that. The Method is my favorite grab there is.

Other tweaked grabs are air walk, benihana, cannonball, double grab, indy grab, rocket air, seatbelt grab, stalefish, stiffy, and tuck knee. There are more grabs than just those but not only are most of them harder than most grabs but only few people can actually do some of these grabs. One thing about landing on skateboards is that it cant get sketchy or dangerous. Getting the board to do the flip tricks is the easy part. Landing on the board after it flips and spins is the hard part. You have to try to flip the board and catch it in the air which means after it does say a kick flip, you put you feet on the board like you want to ride it while the you and the board are still in the are so you can stomp it down to land it. Landing bolts is the cleanest way to land. As easy as it is said is not the case for actually landing bolts. Landing bolts is just saying when you land on the board and on the ground both of your feet are on top of the screws and bolts that hold the trucks onto the board which is the most stable, safest place to land.

As there is much more to learn about the subculture of skateboarding, that is for you to learn for yourself maybe even in a skating subculture around you. Skating has been a passion of mine for years and I hope this gives people knowledge about skating and maybe some of the people in the subculture.
