Switch, Fakie or What?

Dateline: 26 September 2000

Stance is the way your feet once fit the board before you ever thought to ask which way they should go. It's the way you learned to ride in the first place, the way you felt most comfortable on the board. It is what your body knew by direct intuition that put you at one with cosmic forces, aimed your soul toward enlightenment and begged you come aboard.

This is fun. There is a lot of question as to what stance is which and which is what and where and how. I think if you'll just settle in and follow along we can have it all figured out in a jiff.

Stance:

Goofy means not that you are weak in intellect or that you're being crazy, ridiculous, or even mildly ludicrous... Some people ride regular. This means that when they're cruisin' along they put their left foot forward over the trucks. It doesn't matter if you're left handed or right handed or even left footed or right footed, your foward foot is whichever feels most comfortable. If it happens to be the left, you're regular.

Other people ride goofy. This means not that you are weak in intellect or that you're being crazy, ridiculous, or even mildly ludicrous, but that you ride with your right foot forward. Some people think that's weird which is how I guess it got its name.

Fakie:

Riding fakie is riding backward but facing forward. It's a vector thing. If you're facing forward but moving backward you are riding in the aforementioned fakie manner which is not to be confused with riding switch. If you ride goofy, for example, you would continue with your right foot forward but proceed in a backward direction.

Switch:

If you skate goofy, tricks performed in switch stance would then be done in regular stance and vice versa. Switch stance is the art of riding with your opposite foot forward. That is to say, the foot you didn't want to put forward in the first place now goes there for the purpose of progression. Learning how to do things this way is like learning how to skate all over again. If you skate goofy, tricks performed in switch stance would then be done in regular stance and vice versa.

Once you figure all this out you will truly be a master of the art.

The Tricks: (Pay attention)

Ollie: The ollie is performed in your normal stance. Roll forward, kick with your back foot, jump and continue rolling forward.

Fakie Ollie: The fakie ollie is performed in your normal stance. Roll backward, kick with your back foot, jump and continue rolling backward.

Switch Ollie: The switch ollie is performed in switch stance. Roll foward in switch, kick with your new back foot, jump and continue rolling forward.

Nollie: This is not an ollie at all. Performed in normal stance. Roll forward, kick with the front foot, jump and continue rolling forward.

Fakie Nollie: Performed in normal stance. Roll backward, kick with front foot, jump and continue rolling backward.

Switch Nollie: Performed in switch stance. Roll forward in switch, kick with new front foot, jump then continue rolling forward.

There you have it. Six tricks to which no layman will be able to tell the difference. But you'll know and that's all that matters.