21 Levels of Skateboarding: Easy to Complex

Hey, I'm Tony Hawk, pro skater,

and I have been challenged to go through levels

of complexity in skateboard tricks.

[bright upbeat electronic music]

In the interest of time,

we are only covering flat-ground tricks

and ramp tricks, no grinds, no slides.

There are so many variations here

that I'm trying to give you the foundation

from which the other ones are built.

And just remember this is my personal interpretation

of this challenge, so let's hit the floor.

Level one would be the flat-ground ollie.

[skateboard hitting floor]

Ollies are the foundation to almost every skate trick.

There's hardly any tricks you can think of

that don't start with an ollie first,

so if you're gonna start skating,

that's gonna be the first trick that you actually learn.

The motion of an ollie is using one foot

to snap the tail of the board downward,

and then you have the board aiming up

and then sliding your front foot at the right time

in order to bring that board up and level it out in the air.

It's a simple technique, but it's all about timing.

There are a lot of subtleties to it.

There are all kinds of different ways to ollie,

but the bottom line is you're trying

to get the board up in the air only using your feet.

People who first try to learn ollies,

the number one mistake is they won't commit to it,

so you see kids trying ollies,

and they land with their foot off to the side.

People do that for years, and it's just all

about committing to actually landing on top of the board.

Level two is a 180 front-side ollie.

[skateboard hitting floor]

Front side refers to the way that you're turning,

and it all stems from surfing.

So if you're front side to the wave,

you're turning literally with your front facing the wave.

That translates down to skateboarding

where that same motion is front side.

On a front-side ollie 180, you can actually see

where you're going, you can see the landing.

The motion of it is basically an ollie,

and as you ollie, you're moving your shoulders,

and you're turning your upper body 180

and making your lower body follow.

It's a little bit of finesse with your feet

because your feet have to move a little bit differently

in order to make that board come around.

And it's very easy to have your back foot move too far,

which I did plenty of times during this demonstration.

Once you land, you're riding backwards.

That makes it more complex as well

because you're starting the trick forward,

you're landing backwards, and a lot of people

are not comfortable going backwards.

So level three, I say, is a back-side 180 ollie.

[skateboard hitting floor]

It's not that it's more complex than a front-side 180 ollie.

It's just a little bit more difficult

because you can't see your landing zone.

So you're going literally on blind faith

that you're going to be landing straight

and going the right direction,

and then your head catches up at the end.

So it's almost like you're going with the force. [chuckles]

You're using the force to land properly

and then using your other senses

to figure out where you are and how to adjust.

It takes a little bit different technique, too,

with the snap on the ollie because on the front-side ollie,

where you hit your tail is a little bit different

than on the back-side one.

Your feet will move a little more on back side, generally,

and, depending on how late you turn the 180

is really how much risk you're willing to put out there.

My level four is a back-side pop shove-it.

[skateboard hitting floor]

What that means is turning the board a 180

under your feet while keeping your body

in the same position.

When I say back-side direction,

that means your board is going the back-side direction

but your body stays forward.

I would start with a back-side pop shove-it first

because I feel like that's the easier way to do it.

So 180 is the opposite, but when you're doing shove-its,

it's actually easier to go back side

because you can see the board come around.

The idea is that you snap it, and as you snap the board,

you're giving it a little nudge in that direction,

and then you keep your feet out

of the way as it comes around.

And as you see it come around,

you put your feet back on the grip tape

where it needs to be and then push it down on the ground.

It's very easy to spin it too far.

It's very easy to spin it not enough.

As a reference, the first couple that I tried today,

I overturned it so you can see

where my board goes a little bit too far.

I caught it with my feet, but my feet kept going with it,

and it's just not suitable for landing straight.

And it just takes a little bit of finesse

because it really doesn't take a whole lot of effort

on your tail when you push it to make it turn.

In fact, some people that learn how

to ollie accidentally do pop shove-its

because they can't keep their board straight.

My level five would be a front-side pop shove-it.

[skateboard hitting floor]

It's the same idea, in theory, as a back-side pop shove-it,

but you're pushing the board the other direction.

You're pushing it more of a unnatural way

because you have to kick it in front of you

yet the board stays so far under your feet it's hard to see.

So this trick is more based on feeling than sight.

You'll see that when my feet are set up,

my feet are very exaggerated off from one side

of the tail and off from one side of the nose.

I need that in order to keep the board flat

as I kick it around.

If you keep your feet in the the general ollie position

and try a front-side pop shove-it,

it's very likely the board will flip

and not flip in a good way. [laughs]

You're gonna land either upside down

or what we call primo, which is on your wheels sideways,

and that usually doesn't turn out very well, either.

I feel like some people find a trick

that they're comfortable, and that becomes their go-to,

even though it might be a few levels above what's basic.

Perfect example is my son, Spencer,

he doesn't skate regularly, but when he does skate,

he can do front-side pop shove-its easily,

clean, catches them high,

and it's just like this muscle memory he has,

which is fascinating to me because mine are terrible.

[laughs]

Level six, in my eyes, is a kickflip.

[skateboard hitting floor]

It's crazy to think that many people understand

what a kickflip is these days

because when we first saw Rodney Mullen do it,

we didn't understand how he made his board flip.

We called it a magic flip.

That was literally the name of it at first.

He called it an ollie flip because he did ollie first

and then flipped the board.

And that is the technique, and the baseline

of it is an ollie.

But as your ollieing and as your foot

is sliding forward to level out the board,

it actually slides out to the side and starts it flipping.

It's all one fluid motion.

It's a foundation of skating, but it also can be one

of the hardest things to learn.

The whole idea is that you're doing an ollie,

and you're making the board flip under your feet.

A lot can go wrong like that.

Usually, it doesn't flip enough.

I did that plenty of times when doing this segment.

And the whole reason for that is

that you either didn't flick it fast enough

or you didn't ollie high enough.

You can always improve your kickflips.

The idea is that you wanna catch 'em high,

you want it to get to your feet so you're still

under control of the board as you're in the air.

If we had levels of kickflips,

the first level is just doing it,

the second level is catching it,

and the third level is doing it over stuff,

over stairs, over fire hydrants, flipping into tricks.

Level seven, for me, would be a heel flip.

[skateboard hitting floor]

It's a little bit misleading

to say it's a actual heel flip

'cause you're not using your heel to flip it.

So you see that the kickflip turns this one direction,

and when you see a heel flip,

it turns the opposite direction.

You're not actually flipping it with your heel,

but that's the only way to [laughs]

to separate those two terms.

And as you see, my foot is set up, actually,

with my heel off the to other side of the board.

I'm actually scraping the side of my foot diagonally,

the other direction, of a kickflip,

but I'm not using my heel.

I'm still using the toes on my shoe to make it happen

and sliding it that way and then making it flop over.

Number one mistake of heel flips is not getting it around,

of landing primo, and falling backwards.

Some people find it easier to flip heel flips,

including one of my kids.

All of this can be [laughs] can be debated.

It's really more personal preference,

but in my head, and I learned kickflips first.

I learned heel flips much later.

Ironically for me, heel flips are easier

on vert, but I'll get to that later.

Level eight is what is commonly known

as a varial flip, which is actually a misnomer

because to do a varial, you have to grab your board

and turn it with your hand.

So it's actually a shove-it kickflip.

That is what it should be called,

but I'm gonna go with the [laughs]

general population and say okay, it's a varial flip.

[skateboard hitting floor]

Basically, it's a shove-it and a kickflip all at once.

What happens is you flick the board.

You actually position your foot

so that you're kicking it and giving it a little twist

at the same time so that, when it does come around,

a kickflip ends up landing like a heel flip.

Sometimes, that's easier than a heel flip

because you get to see the board come around,

and you can decide when you wanna actually put your feet

down on it, like when it's gonna be safe to land.

It's a building block to other tricks.

So this level with the varial flip or the shove-it kickflip

is a little bit more complicated

because any shove-it kickflip could be considered

on the same level, which is a varial heel flip,

an inward heel flip, or a hard flip.

And all of those are the board spinning different directions

and doing different types of flips.

And then you get into spinning the body more.

You can do big flips, you can do 360 flips, laser flips.

There's all kinds of other ways to do this,

so I'm just gonna leave that all

on the same level and for other people

to decide which ones are more difficult.

In the interest of time and being concise,

I'm excluding a lot of other ways to do these tricks,

including going backwards, going fakie, doing them switched,

doing them your unnatural stance.

There's a whole sea of different ways to do this,

and I'm not ignoring them.

I'm just trying to focus on the basis

and the foundation of what these tricks are.

So in order to go to the next level of complexity,

I need to get more air time, and I do that

by using my vertical half pipe

because it actually propels me into the air six

to 10 feet, and that way I can show you

what it's like to ollie and start spinning

and doing more complex maneuvers.

So let's go hit the vert.

[upbeat bright electronic music]

Here we are on the ramp.

This is where I'm gonna be able

to show you more aerial-type maneuvers,

spinning maneuvers, 180, 360, 540.

This level of complexity is a little more dangerous

because more air time, you're going a lot faster.

There is very little room for error.

You can come crashing down from 20 feet very easily.

But this is what I grew up skating,

and this is where I feel most comfortable, so here we go.

Level nine would be a 180 aerial.

[skateboard hits surface]

And what that means is going up the ramp,

going to the top, getting in the air,

turning 180 degrees, and coming back down the same side

of the ramp, so I am always going forward.

And I'm gonna show it to you backside

because I think that's one of the easiest ones to learn,

and when you do a back-side aerial,

that's usually a way to gain speed

for a harder trick going up the next wall.

So level 10 is a 360 aerial.

[skateboard hits surface]

That can be done a number of ways.

You can go up backwards and do it,

you can go up forwards and land backwards.

I'm going to show you what I think

is the most basic 360 aerial, and that is a front-side 360.

So I'm going up the ramp, I'm turning

in the front-side direction, a full 360,

and I'm coming down backwards.

So you may think the next level

of complexity is a 540 aerial.

For some people, that might be true,

but I believe that, before we get into a 540 aerial,

I wanna get into a flip trick,

flipping the board in the air and catching it

under my feet while doing a 180.

For me, that would be a front-side 180 heel flip.

[skateboard hits surface]

So you remember level seven on the flat ground,

which was the heel flip?

This is what it looks like when you take heel flip

onto a vert ramp in the air and turn a 180 at the same time.

So this is where we start adding levels

of complexity, danger, and difficulty.

So the next level would be a 540 spin.

[skateboard hits surface]

I would choose to do a back-side 540 spin,

more commonly known as a McTwist.

The way that I grab it, it was the first back-side 540

ever done on a vert ramp, which was done by Mike McGill.

This can turn into more of a flip sometimes,

but the level of complexity and difficulty

is much greater because you are blind

to the ramp for half the spin.

That means you cannot see your landing zone

until you're just coming around,

and it's almost too late to try to worry about it.

So going forward, I'm gonna use existing videos

of tricks because, in the interest of time

and my own personal safety, these tricks

are much more complex and will require a lot more effort

and a lot more attempts.

Luckily, I have some on video, and we can refer to those.

Level 13 is a 720 spin.

[skateboard hits surface] It's a trick I created

in 1985 because I had a ramp that

was giving me plenty of air time.

At some point, I realized I could probably spin more

than a 540 on this ramp, and it worked out pretty well.

You come up backwards, spin around,

almost do two somersaults, and then come down forward.

720s

are

especially difficult because you are blind

to the ramp for an uncomfortably long time.

The idea that you're coming up backwards

and starting a spin makes it extra difficult

because it's hard to snap off the wall

to get enough air time.

In the world of skateboarding,

that snap is what it's all about,

especially on a vert ramp.

Level 14 is a varial McTwist.

[skateboard hits surface]

So you remember the pop shove-it on flat ground

and the McTwist maneuver?

This is combining those two things

in a much more complicated and complex way. [laughing]

You're spinning the board an extra 180 under your feet

as you spin this one and a half somersault in the air.

The board does two full rotations.

You do one and a half.

You've gotta meet it with your feet

before you're ready to land, and a lot

of that is just based on feeling.

Level 15, in going with this pattern,

to me, would be a kickflip McTwist.

[skateboard hits surface] [men shouting and cheering]

I can't explain how much more difficult that is

than these other tricks.

Let's put it this way.

The McTwist was created in 1984,

the varial McTwist was created in 1989,

and the kickflip McTwist didn't happen until 1995.

It's that much harder because you're flipping your board,

you're trying to set it into the same trajectory of spin

that you're doing with your body,

and, at the same, time, you've gotta catch it

as it kickflips one rotation.

So all of that's happening without you being able

to see your board or your landing zone.

It all happens almost in a vacuum

while you're flipping and you're spinning,

and all these things have to come together,

and it's all based on feeling.

Once I flip it and I feel the board in my hand

and I feel my hand near my feet, all systems go.

It doesn't always work, but that's the only way

that I can gauge if it's gonna happen at all.

This was my very first kickflip McTwist.

It happened in 1995 on one of the few vert ramps

in the world that was in Tampa, Florida,

at the skate park in Tampa.

Vert skating was relatively dead.

There was only a handful of hardcore vert skaters left

in the world, and we all happened to be there that night.

I just made it happen.

This trick I had been testing and testing and testing,

and I knew that if I was ever gonna make it,

it was gonna be this time with my contemporaries.

So if you see where I'm landing on the ramp,

that's not the ideal landing zone, but I managed

to absorb that impact just based on experience.

In hindsight, I needed to land that low

because I needed all that time

to make all the other things happen.

I made it a few times since then,

maybe a little bit cleaner, but I'm hugely proud of this one

because it was the first one, and you can tell the elation

on my face and just how excited everybody else was.

[skateboard hits surface] [men shouting and cheering]

It's weird to think that that kind of progression

was happening in this very small scene of skateboarding.

That wasn't gonna make an ESPN highlight or anything.

It was just more of a cool thing

that happened in the skateboard world.

Level 16 would be doing a 720 spin

and adding a board variation to that.

[skateboard hitting surface]

My board variation of choice for the first time doing it

was a varial 720.

The board does a full 900 rotation,

and my body does a 720 rotation.

Spinning around twice and trying

to get your board to your feet

during that double spin is extra hard

because, basically, once you leave your board,

you leave it behind.

And so you've gotta rely on your feet kicking the board

into an extra spin as you catch it and guide it around.

If that sounds difficult, it is.

If you ever see someone trying varial 720s,

you'll see them lagging with their board behind

and never get back to their feet correctly.

And the key to it is getting that snap,

kicking your feet extra hard and getting the board

to start spinning before you even start spinning your body.

We're talking about fractions of a second to make that work,

and even then, it might not work. [laughs]

Level 17 of spinning aerial maneuvers,

for me, would be a 900.

[crowd cheering]

To give that some perspective,

I learned varial 720s in 1998

and then learned 900s

after that in 1999.

Basically, a 900 is extra tricky

because twice, you're blind to your landing zone.

You need plenty of air time.

As you come around, you've gotta shift your weight mid spin

in order to not fall too far forward.

I'd say that's the first mistake of anyone learning 900s.

Once they actually try to land it on the wall,

you end up falling forward into the bottom of the ramp.

And a McTwist, you don't have

to shift your weight like that.

But once you're coming around

and you're spinning another 360 on the way down,

you've gotta make sure that you balance your weight evenly.

It's a very nuanced shift into your back foot,

and it can't be too much.

And even then, you don't know if it's gonna work.

The complexity of a 900 is not necessarily higher

than any of these other tricks.

The danger factor is much higher

because if you miss any part of that spin

or if you open up during that spin,

you find yourself in midair way over the ramp

and falling on your back, and it happens all the time.

Even if I miss the grab, I have to commit my body

to that spin just to land safely.

And I know that just sounds bizarre,

the idea that you already know you're falling,

but you've gotta commit to the whole trick

because, otherwise, you're gonna land

on your back in the flat bottom.

I've broken my rib on it.

I've broken my ego many a times trying to make it happen.

I had been trying 900s for about 10 years

before I actually made one.

When I finally made one, it just felt like a huge relief.

It was more like oh, I can just put that one to rest.

No more [laughing] getting hurt on that.

So to leave level 17 and go into level 18,

when we just add one more 180 spin,

we need to leave this realm of size of ramps

because it requires much more air time.

Shaun White almost got 1080s on ramps this size,

but truly, you need something where you're gonna get

at least 10 to 15 feet of air just to spin that fast.

The next level of difficulty would be a 1080 spin.

[mid-tempo bass-heavy music]

You come up backwards, three full somersault rotations,

and then come back down forward.

I honestly have never even tried one

because you need a much bigger ramp

to get that kind of air time, and you have to be going

at that ramp going backwards, and those two things just

were not [laughs] in my wheelhouse.

The guy who did it first was Tom Schaar.

He was known for his spinning maneuvers on ramps.

He was much smaller, so he could ball up tightly,

and he was very comfortable on what we now know

as the mega ramp.

The mega ramp is usually one big, long jump,

and then after you land that jump,

you go into this giant quarter pipe.

They covered that jump for Tom for this

so he could just focus on the one trick.

So he would come in backwards, roll over what used

to be the jump, and then he had the right amount

of speed for this 1080.

It was hugely monumental when it happened.

Only one other person has done it since then.

It's still one of the most difficult, biggest milestones

in skateboarding, as far as I'm concerned,

especially in ramps.

This could be argued, but I believe the next level

of complexity would be a flip trick with a 720.

[skateboard hitting surface] [crowd cheering and clapping]

We're gonna remove a full 360 from this trick

of a 1080 and add another board variation flip into it.

Instead of three spins, it's two spins but add a heel flip.

Way harder, as far as I'm concerned,

the reason being is that you're coming up backwards.

And to make a snap coming up backwards

and get the board flipping and your body spinning all

on the same plane requires an intense level of focus,

an intense level of air time,

and everything has to come together perfectly.

I'm telling you this because I've never done it,

but our team writer, Elliot Sloan,

has done it a couple times,

and it is hugely impressive when he does it.

I watched him try this trick for almost three hours straight

and make it once, and it was worth it.

Basically, what you see in the beginning

is that snap that I've been talking about

where you're snapping it off the wall,

trying to get enough air time and distance

away from the coping to make the full rotation.

As he's snapping,

you see his foot do this very quick motion,

sending the board into a heel flip.

And as that's happening, he makes sure that's it's

also not just flipping but spinning with his body,

and his hand is just in the position to catch it.

He hopes that it comes around back into his hand,

and that is the key to this whole trick

is the flip and the catch.

And when it actually happens and he feels it

in his hand under his feet, he just throws it on the wall.

And he doesn't even know if it's gonna work.

When you get to this level of ramp skating,

that's what it takes is sometimes just a Hail Mary.

So for these next levels of complexities,

I think that we're gonna go into the realm of unreality

because these are NBDs, which means they've never been done.

But we know, as skaters of this ilk, that they are possible.

Level 20 would be something that has never been done,

an NBD, and it would be an ollie 720,

which means you go up the ramp

and do a full double rotation without grabbing the board.

NBD.

And so the last final level to end this list

is something that has not only never been done

but I've never seen it attempted.

Although with the size of ramps

and with the experience level of some of these skaters

that are growing up riding these ramps,

doing it at age 10, I feel like is on the horizon,

and that would be a 1260 spin, three and a half rotations.

Going up the ramp forward, 900,

add a 360 to the 900, come back down forward.

I know that there are people that have been discussing it.

It's very possible that we'll see one in our lifetime.

[upbeat electronic music]

[tape rewind squealing]

What can I say, it actually got done recently

by Mitchie Brusco.

He was the only one to even try it.

In fact, I don't think he ever practiced it

before he made the one he did.

That's where it lies. [laughs]

That is the absolute apex of spinning maneuvers on ramps.

You're lucky to see it in your lifetime.

It's hard to say that, even though a ollie 720

hasn't been done, that that's somehow harder

than a 1260 has been done,

the 1260 is just the danger factor

and the difficulty and the spinning.

There's so many things that could go horribly wrong,

tragically wrong on that trick that I still would keep it

as the top level of complexity and difficulty,

even though ollie 720 is still an NBD.

So I'm choosing to end this list here

because I feel like it's a pretty good summary

of different aerial-type maneuvers or ollie-type maneuvers.

There are so many variations of these tricks

that you could go to exponential levels

of complexity and difficulty.

Skateboarding can be as complex as you want it to be.

I think skateboarding, at its base, is a form of expression.

And for me, it is my art form.

It's also a sport, it's also a lifestyle,

but at its very core, it's your voice,

and you can do it in any style and any form you choose.

The possibilities are endless,

and I hope that this gives you a glimpse

into the difficulties, the complexities

of skateboarding, especially through my eyes.

Okay, thanks, WIRED; hope it helped.

[upbeat electronic music]