The ollie is the trick that made modern skateboarding possible. Florida skater Alan “Ollie” Gelfand first performed it on vert ramps in the late 1970s, and Rodney Mullen adapted it to flat ground in 1982. By snapping the tail down and sliding the front foot up, a rider can pop the board into the air without touching it. Nearly every flip and grind trick starts here.

A heelflip sends the board spinning along its long axis using the heel of the front foot, rotating in the opposite direction of a kickflip. It emerged from the street skating boom of the late 1980s and early 1990s as riders experimented with new ways to manipulate the board mid-air. The trick requires precise foot placement to keep the rotation clean and catch it level.

Rodney Mullen is widely credited with inventing the kickflip in 1983, originally naming it the “magic flip.” The board flips a full 360 degrees along its length while airborne, powered by a flick of the front foot’s toes off the edge of the deck. It remains one of the most recognizable tricks in skateboarding and a benchmark for intermediate riders.

The pop shuvit rotates the board 180 degrees horizontally beneath the rider’s feet without flipping it end over end. It builds on the shuvit, a freestyle trick from the 1970s where riders scooped the board around while standing on it. Adding an ollie’s pop to that rotation created the version skaters use today on flat ground and in combination with flips.

A frontside 180 combines an ollie with a half rotation of the body and board toward the skater’s front side, meaning the rider turns to face the direction their chest was originally pointing. It is one of the first rotational tricks most skaters learn and forms the base for more advanced spins performed on ramps, rails, and flat ground.

The backside 180 mirrors the frontside version but rotates toward the skater’s back, so the rider spins blind to where they are heading for part of the trick. This blind spot makes it more demanding to land consistently, and mastering both directions is considered essential before moving on to more complex spins.

A manual is skateboarding’s version of a wheelie, balancing on the back two wheels while the front of the board stays off the ground. It comes from the freestyle skating era, when balance tricks were a category of their own. Manuals are often linked between other tricks to add technical difficulty and style to a line.

The nose manual flips the balance point to the front two wheels instead of the back, lifting the tail off the ground. It is generally considered harder than a standard manual because the rider has less visibility of what is ahead and less natural leverage to correct their balance, making it a common test of control among street skaters.

A boardslide involves sliding along a rail, ledge, or curb with the middle of the deck making contact, the board turned perpendicular to the obstacle. It is one of the foundational slide tricks in street skating and a required building block before attempting more technical rail and ledge combinations.

In a 50-50 grind, both trucks land and slide along a rail or ledge at the same time, keeping the board parallel to the obstacle. It is considered the most basic grind in skateboarding and is typically the first one taught to new riders working on ledges and rails, forming the base for nearly every other grind variation.

A rock to fakie is a transition trick where the skater rides up a ramp, rocks the front trucks over the coping at the top, and then rolls back down while riding fakie, going backward without turning around. It is often the first trick riders learn on vert ramps and mini ramps because it introduces the coping without requiring a full stall or reverse.

An axle stall is similar to a rock to fakie but the rider pauses with both trucks resting on the coping before dropping back in facing forward. That brief stall requires more balance and control than simply rocking back, making it a key stepping stone toward grinds and more advanced coping tricks on ramps and bowls.