Backside Air
Performed by Greg Witt - filmed by Dorian Tucker - Words By Dean Randall
Forget about early grabs. You'll never go big, and people might laugh. Start by trying some backside kickturns up near the coping and grabbing your board just in front of your front foot. You should be compressed with your knees bent, so it should not require much effort to reach your board. Once you get the feel for grabbing your board, you can start trying airs. Go up the wall at a very slight angle. Don't carve too much at first because your board will tend to fly away from you. As you approach the coping, your front wheels should start coming off of the wall at the same time as your hand reaches down for your board, which is the same as the kickturn. As your back wheels hit the coping, put the slightest pressure on your back foot, almost scooping it upward. This will help bring your board into your hand, as well as sending you in the right direction, which is up. You are in the air now with your body facing the coping. Stay calm, stay compressed. Your back foot should steer your board in a nice arc facing you back into the ramp. As you come back in, suck your legs back under you to land nice and smooth on the vert. Go bigger on the next wall.
P.S. This is definitely a "less is more" type of trick. Don't try to ollie grab into it or go huge at first. Land some small, mellow ones, then work your way up.
You should be comfortable with ollieing up curbs backside before having a go at the 50-50. Once you're able to control your board that way, the backside 50-50 is a cinch. And since your heels are over the ledge rather than your toes (as is the case with frontside 50-50s) you can center your weight easier and ride these things for days. Learning 50-50s on newly painted curbs is choice. Cruise up to the curb with a mellow angle, as if you were going to ollie onto the sidewalk backside. Pop your ollie and stick your back truck on the curb (try to lock your toe edge wheel up against the curb. Next, place the front truck down and get some weight on those heels so you can ride it out to the end of the paint, and turn off. Piece o' cake.
This trick can be tough to learn, but it's a great trick to take over gaps, or just to switch your stance during a run. Set your feet up the same as you would for an ollie. When you're first starting it helps to put your foot closer to the nose for a little more control. Pop your ollie and start turning backside� as with any body rotation, your shoulders lead and everything follows. You should reach the peak of your ollie as you are 90 degrees through your rotation. This is where you spot your landing, making sure to keep your weight directly over your board. When doing this trick over a long gap, a skater will usually ollie as far out as he/she can, then rotate really late. When doing this trick down a big drop, or stairs, it's better to rotate nice and smoothly throughout. For a solid landing, all four wheels should land at once, and you shouldn't have to slide the last part of the 180 around right when you land. Plus, sliding around like that will put flat spots on your wheels.
This is a great trick to learn as it will open doors to a bunch of other coping tricks. You might want to try stalling up there before you try the grind; it will get you used to your weight placement. Roll up to the transition with a decent amount of speed. Charge straight up the transition, and as your back truck gets right near the coping, you want to turn so that your heel edge wheel rolls on top of the coping. As you do this, you want to put your weight over that heel edge to get you up on top of the coping. Once you're standing pretty much on top of the coping, set your front truck down. All that's left to do to finish off the stall is drop back in by lifting up your front truck and kickturning into the tranny. In order not to hang up, make sure you put enough weight on the toe edge of your tail so that your heel edge wheel can roll back over the coping without any trouble. Once you have the stall down, the grinding part is pretty basic. You just need a little more speed, and as you approach the coping, you want to be at an angle rather than rolling straight up to it. That way your momentum will pull you along the coping. Once you're grinding, just ride it as far as you can, then drop back in as you did with the stall.
