Tricks I Won't Do (And Why) | Freestyle Tricktips

[@lotterwinner6474]

All im tempted to do now is string together all the tricks you think are ugly into some ultimate display of counter counter culture.

[@FreestyleTricktips]

I can already think of a couple of people who are doing exactly that without my influence, to be fair.

[@SarahParkMatott]

This was an interesting video Tony. I love concepts that make me critically reflect on my own opinions. I've definitely done tricks that I looked back on and thought "wow...why did I think that was a good idea?" or "why did I waste my time on something that looks so bad??" The "value" angle particularly interested me. Can ugly tricks be valuable?...🤷‍♀ When I couldn't do many staple freestyle tricks, I definitely found myself "exploring," and I do think "ugly" tricks helped keep me engaged on on my board when I didn't know what to try or felt absolutely frustrated that I couldn't keep my foot off the floor for a casper. But at the time, I was just playing and never considered doing a contest or anything. Was it a waste of my time or energy? Maybe haha but I kept skating And now, I want to move up to the next level (for me) and am looking to improve my trick selections, stability, flow...roll a lot more haha So, I'm definitely more intentional with what tricks I spend my time on. And I do think having someone more experienced like you talk about these concepts is valuable. Individuals can (hopefully) agree to disagree on if something looks good or what is a waste of time, but there is value in nuanced and respectful discourse😃 Didn't mean to write an essay...I do enjoy theory and thinking experiments haha Looking forward to what topics you dive into next. what I really learned from this video...is that I want to learn that English flip...🫣

[@FreestyleTricktips]

Oh, I've been right there with you. I think more often than not I've invented or learned something only to immediately throw it in the trash. Sometimes you can learn a valueable lesson from something irredeemably ugly or dumb, but more often than not they only really come in useful as a way of winding someone up in a Game of Skate (Alex Foster is a master of this particular avenue of thought). Maybe that, in its own form, is a type of "value". I'm not sure it's worth the energy, myself. Yoyo Schulz said on Facebook that he thinks you don't really "understand" freestyle until you've been doing it for at least ten years, and as controversial a take as that may be ("elitist! gatekeeper!"), I think there's some truth in it. Everyone spends their first couple of years learning everything they can and looking at stuff with wide-eyed wonder. After five or six years you get a bit more critical and discerning. But then after a decade or so, a switch seems to get flicked in a lot of people and they realise that doing tricks for the sake of doing tricks is all a bit hollow. You end up looking at a g-turn and *really* appreciating it in a way you haven't before, or exploring how one piece of footwork sets you up perfectly for a specific trick, totally reframing how that trick functions or exists in your mind. It's quite magical, in a way. As for the English flip: if you were coming back to Brandenburg, I'd show you how it worked there. It's a tough one to explain and it tends to involve a lot of flailing into space; it's got all the inconsistency of a late flip with all the instability of a casper trick. Plus, as an added bonus, even when you do it right you tend to smash the top of your back foot up. It may be my little baby, but it's also an absolute bastard of a trick.

[@SarahParkMatott]

@@FreestyleTricktips haha I guess it was the "don't understand" bit that was considered controversial? At the very least experience--and lack thereof--are integral to how we view anything, so it makes sense that we can grow with freestyle in a way. I've probably already been through a few phases. I'd love to skip forward to the magical bit myself, but I suppose I'll be bouncing around until I get there. I do appreciate that though! I'd like to make it back to Brandenburg as soon as I can. Trying to make it to one contest a year. Regardless, hopefully next time we have a chance to chat. And truthfully, it's possible I won't be able to land it by then...so I might have to take you up on the in person break down 🙏

[@FreestyleTricktips]

If it's not too short-notice, Paderborn is celebrating its 25th year in August (24th/25th). That's a lovely town (arguably much nicer than Brandenburg!), and it's a great weekend with a proper grass-roots vibe to it. That would be a good event to pop over for if you had the means and the time. I think part of the problem I have with this sort of discourse is that my degree was 1/3rd Cultural Studies, so I tend to come at freestyle with those frameworks (I just replied to one comment on this video with a critique of postmodernism that loosely hinges on something Adorno wrote, for example). And while (for instance) Monica Tusinean and I can ramble on about this sort of stuff for hours, not many people are willing to discuss skateboarding in the same sort of way, and I sometimes forget that.

[@SarahParkMatott]

@@FreestyleTricktips ah 25 years is exciting! Paderborn is definitely on my list. Unfortunately, I do already have a few trips planned for the next 6 months. Next year, I'll have to do a little better planning and see what I can make it to. The "contest at a skate picnic" vibe certainly sounds fun. 😂I could listen to Monica ramble for hours on anything--especially through academic frameworks. Certainly makes me wish I was a little deeper in that world to participate. But, still fun to listen to and engage with. Which was kind of what was fun about this video. A giving thought to something through a different/specific lens or framework

[@FreestyleTricktips]

@@SarahParkMatott "I could listen to Monica ramble for hours on anything" ...you might be in luck.

[@thommccarthy1139]

I live in philly but can't quite catch the name of the skater you referenced. Would be curious to know who that was!

[@FreestyleTricktips]

Which skater was that? I mentioned Sean Burke a lot in this - was there someone else?

[@thommccarthy1139]

@@FreestyleTricktips Justin Dettle?

[@FreestyleTricktips]

@@thommccarthy1139 Oh, man, Dettle. Yeah. I've not heard or seen anything from him since 2006 or 2007. I hope he's doing okay.

[@patrickthies8683]

Tierlist of Tricks please!

[@frodo3556]

I second that!

[@FreestyleTricktips]

God, can you imagine trying to list every trick in existence to put them all into one of those tierlist generators? We'd be here all year. That said, it could be fun to do a video where you give me a select list, I rank 'em, and then people get (more) angry at me.

[@hayden-qc4fc]

@@FreestyleTricktips do it!

[@TheOne30Three]

I dunno...im not skating infront of anyone and dont care how i look haha I just wanna skate at the end of the day and if I can do something (no matter how "ugly") I'll be sure to do it if it fits into my flow or if I've landed in such a way that it just makes sense to use it here

[@FreestyleTricktips]

And - as I believe I may have said in the video, but I've definitely said in the comments - that's fine. You're perfectly entitled to do whatever you enjoy. The problems really start when people then start engaging with the larger freestyle world or community in some way - whether it's digitally, through something like Instagram, or at competitions. I've seen far too many people have their soul and spirit completely crushed because they've adopted an "anything goes" mindset and the cold wet fish of reality has slapped them in their face when (for instance) they place last at a competition because their tricks all look truly awful or ridiculous. But even if you're not competing or interacting with the world at large, I think you can still get a lot out of thinking more holistically about your skateboarding. I know I get a lot more enjoyment out of freestyle now I'm really looking at how things flow together - it feels a lot more effortless, fluid, and fun now I've thrown out all the janky nonsense I was convinced was "genius" and "original" when I was 15 years old and didn't know any better.

[@TheOne30Three]

@@FreestyleTricktips oh for sure man hahaha and believe me I get exactly where ya coming from haha and as you said you are getting more enjoyment out of it which what I think it's all about, it's just that I personally love when I see a Masahiro pop to pogo and I enjoy it when I see someone doing something I haven't seen every other person do, like even if it doesn't look as good as when some of the ogs did it I still enjoy seeing someone try to mix it up a little haha not a lot just a little haha like down to how someone gets out of a stall and I think hey why didn't I realize the board could do that till now (like when I first saw it the first time like 23 years ago hahaha) like how people used to be all "only 360s matter" haha like when I saw Rodney spin like crazy that's all I wanted to do at age 4 then I discovered all the other tricks that are possible and just didn't care if people thought they were cool or not I just liked them and wanted to try them myself hahaha but trust me dude I get your side completely but I just don't think I've seen a trick I absolutely hated hahahahahaha atleast enough to never see where it could fit depending on the right setting haha but keep up the vids man your tutorials and videos like this do help a lot of people see things in a different way which is always good 😊 cause different can mean better as much as it can mean worse afterall but that's upto the person watching haha and growing up with people telling me freestyle isn't "real" skating most peoples opinions couldn't matter to me if I wanted to skate how I enjoy hahahahahaha also thanks for the reply man you are 👌🏻🔥❤️🔥😊

[@azzamfs]

At 33:10 you mentioned, if there's one thing I can take from this video it's "just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should". Sure, that's a nice sentiment and all, but I think the more proper lesson came at 32:00 . I truly believe that the truest friends are the ones that call out your shit. It's not just a good lesson in skateboarding, it's a good overall life lesson. And with that, I'm gonna leave a feedback: I'm surprised you didn't mention footplant tricks. Considering how you disagree with the execution of the "truck grab" of pogo like in 18:41 , I think footplant tricks also need to be executed correctly. For example, No Complys when done correctly, with your planting foot jumping into the board while the board is still mid-air, is super cool. But doing it while the foot is planted all the way, even after the board has landed, is kind of wack. And from what I know about you, if I'm not mistaken, I think you have a disinclination towards poorly-executed footplant tricks. Since you didn't mention a footplant trick in this "Tricks I Won't Do" video, can we expect future Tony to do No Comply / Boneless / other footplant tricks? 😆

[@FreestyleTricktips]

Hey Azzam! Your feedback is completely accurate in every respect. However, the reason I didn't harp on about footplants is three-fold: 1) people already know that I actively hate footplant tricks. My opinion is that they're dumb, dorky, and childish, and I tried to make this whole video as little about my own opinion as is humanly possible (which is why I included a pogo instead of saying they all belong in the bin. Which footplants do, too... only much more so. You'd have to set the bin on fire after footplants have gone in there). 2) a lot of people who do footplants seemingly cannot see the difference between a proper boneless or no comply and actively standing on the ground for extended periods of time. Yes, there's a difference. But for a lot of people, it just doesn't register. Trying to point this out, I find, is like trying to illustrate the difference between orange and red to a dog. It's a fool's errand, so it's easier to just pretend that colours (well, footplants) don't exist. There's also other issues: one foot down? Maybe tolerable when done right and in the right context. Two feet down, whether at the same time or actively walking? Get in the bin. You might as well be sign-spinning instead of skateboarding. Or what about bonelesses or boneless handflips where people let go of them, let them fall to the floor, and then step back on them? Urgh. It's a whole trick category of badly-executed trash. 3) if the whole video can basically be summed up as "these are tricks I stopped doing because there's better alternatives", the whole video could have been about just footplant tricks in general. There's literally no single footplant trick that is justifiably and demonstrably better than a non-footplant equivalent - I'd always much rather see a frontside ollie instead of a 180 no comply, for instance. For a long time I thought the Joe spin was the exception to the rule, as I couldn't see a way to do the same thing without the footplant... and Yuta Fujii did precisely that and rendered the Joe spin redundant in the process. So, TL:DR? I can't take any footplant trick seriously on flat. They should stay on vert and banks where they belong (a head-high frontside boneless on vert is rad, but on flat? It's a joke).

[@insider2457]

Tricks i won't do: all of them, just let me sidewalk surf :) But i love watching freestyle, much more complelling than street tricks IMO

[@FreestyleTricktips]

Honestly, I'd much rather "sidewalk surf" than do a lot of street tricks and stationary freestyle. Nothing feels better than the simple act of rolling and carving.

[@gustavobol]

Obrigado por voltar com os vídeos.

[@elloofficer]

@16:23 Why not 'Coconut Wheelie + Monkey Flip' :)

[@FreestyleTricktips]

That sounds like a good way to break your hand, to be honest. I was talking about the prospect of something like this with Harry Fisher in Romania, though. He's doing some sort of rail fingerflip and the idea of doing one out a coco is intriguing - it _might_ salvage the coconut grab, but I'm not sure it'd be better than just a regular ol' flip out.

[@jonathannguyen-weaver8138]

Fantastically wonderful criticism, Tony! This vid has given me a lot of useful thoughts to think about. Just what I needed! Thank you, Sir Gale, for the inspiration. And, for what it is worth, I love the new format. Skate well, my brother.

[@FreestyleTricktips]

Glad to hear it, mate. A bit of self-analysis is always a valuable thing, so I'm happy to help spur that process on a bit.

[@forgottenuts]

Look at my boy Tony with a 35 minute video full of useful explanations, i dig it bro. Love this. I've had Tony tell me when stuff I do is dumb in the past and while I still do all my dumb things I actually do take it under advisement when making videos or putting together contest runs, some stuff is too fun not to do at all but that doesn't mean the world needs to see it or even appreciate it. Side note : I think we could all use a casper boneless back to casper tutorial after this. You goddamn madman.

[@FreestyleTricktips]

I knew I shouldn't have included that casper boneless.

[@forgottenuts]

@@FreestyleTricktips I'd argue we need a whole video of Tonys boneless fun time.

[@greschbandicoot8817]

i totally agree with the crossing your feet. it does add something to the trick, especially flips. everything needs to be flicked faster since your feet have to travel to the opposite side of the board for landing. but you also dont just want to flick faster as it affects the rotation. it can become quite tricky sometimes and that is before we even get to the landing with much less control over balance. I think it is so much more then just an addition to landing though. Starting a trick crossfoot can also be lots of fun and kind of transform a trick. crossfoot reintges looks quite different from a normal one. crossfoot railflips can be quite fun. crossfoot shove its are real nasty but cool. Or it can be done doing certain tricks to add a bit of style like crossfoot hang ten. I explored this stuff a lot and there is loads of possibilities as most tricks can be crossfooted even in many different ways. With the one footed landing I never found any use besides the few rail combos you mentioned. I am pretty sure you have seen a hangten 540 shove it to crossfoot though. xD

[@FreestyleTricktips]

Ah, I forgot about that, you absolute madman. Did you ever see my crossfoot hang ten wheelie to 360 shuvit out? That shouldn't work and still scares the crap out of me 9 times out of 10. One thing I always found interesting - but not particularly good, in most cases - is when someone lands a trick to crossfoot and then does a crossfooted trick out of that position. I remember Ryan Fitzpatrick, a British skater from the mid-2000s, used to do _something_ into a crossfooted ollie impossible. It was impressive, but he always looked really uncomfortable doing it. I think that has potential if you could make the transition seamless enough.

[@pedrojosedelgadoantunez5463]

Thanks, Tony! 😊

[@pillusnet]

Thanks! I really like these new videos! Even if i am a lot into weird tricks exploration and silly stuff, i absolutely agree! I think trying weird, "New" or unusual stuff should be a process of exploration in which the goal must be finding something universally good or at least pleasant to see (or why not, also just to make people smile and have fun as i love to do sometimes, but that's another story ;). A main problem, exactly like in art, is that many absolute beginners stuck only on weird stuff to be "original", but in reality they just lack skills and dont have the patience to learn solid basics (and i admit, i falled in that trap many times). Lacking core skill means also that someone could invent something that could be good and fresh, but immediately ruin it doing it sketchy and with ugly body pose and unnecessary arm movements. Another stuff that sometimes is proposed as "Original" and posted on socials are all the trick that are just totally random, like launching the deck on the ground or in the air, make it randomly flip, and hop on it hoping to have luck and catch it. I just dont like that. At least a little amount of consistency should be mandatory :) That said however, i think that many "Ugly" tricks can became good and interesting if done smoothly and flowing during a combo. Kai Tanabe falcon stomps are the best examples. I really think that even that monkey flips could be good in a proper combo, maybe bouncing it immediately after some other flip trick landing for example, so it justify the squat. I absolutely think that trying to be original and thing outside the box is always good, expecially if you have fun doing that! Adding something on the freestyle vocabulary is an awesome goal, even just giving new ideas. But its important to have in mind that this process inevitably produces a LOT of trash (trust me, i have TON of clis on "New" stuff that i dont post because too ugly even for me :D ). Ciao!

[@FreestyleTricktips]

This is a pretty good take. I mean, I love dorking around as much as everyone else does (despite what some of the other people in this comment section seem to think). The key is that you have to be able to take a step back and really analyse what you've just come up with instead of immediately going YES NEW THING AND NEW THING GOOD And believe me - I've seen a lot of people try to "rehabilitate" the monkey flip. It just doesn't really work - it's very much an evolutionary dead end. I mean, it also has the problem of not really being very adaptable; you can do 180/varial ones if you're persistent enough, but that's about it (and they look bloody terrible, too). Sometimes you just have to acknowledge when you're on a losing streak with these things and cut your losses.

[@grosha77]

I actually watched the whole video and I'm very interested in your thoughts. I'm always speechless and deeply impressed when I watch Sean doing his truck transfers, they are so difficult, it's another level. At the same time it almost hurts my eyes because they look so forced. To me it's pure joy to watch someone like Tony or Denham because there's a hidden choreography to everything. I would like to see more freestylers adopting this approach. I wonder what someone like me with only a very basic skill level can apply of those insights to their skating.

[@FreestyleTricktips]

"I wonder what someone like me with only a very basic skill level can apply of those insights to their skating" That's exactly why I did this video. It's easy for someone to get clicks and likes and parasocial followers from just repeatedly making railflip tutorials, but do we (or freestyle) really grow from that? Some of the hardest things I ever learned weren't just "how to land this trick" but the more nuanced and esoteric stuff. It's not easy to explain and it goes down like a lead balloon in certain circles, but I honestly believe people will get more from it than yet another explanation of how to do 360 flips.

[@grosha77]

@@FreestyleTricktips Yes! Fully agree! We don't need more tricktips on how to land flip tricks. We need to know about the "Zen art of freestyle". btw: Ryuogo also keeps impressing me. When she's not doing coconuts she has an effortless style :)

[@grosha77]

@@FreestyleTricktips I've tried to learn "turn-ins" from your tricktip for example. But I don't have enough balance. I actually fell hard with my ribcase on primo and broke a rib (doing footwork, haha!)

[@FreestyleTricktips]

@@grosha77 Footwork is, by far, the hardest thing to learn and the easiest thing to get broken off by. I was doing some sort of spin combination last week, looped out, and promptly took one of the hardest falls I have in years. It really shook me. When things go wrong with footwork, they *really* go wrong.

[@grosha77]

@@FreestyleTricktips that's comforting in a way :-) I already thought I was super untalented because of my struggles with footwork ...

[@frodo3556]

Loved this video, especially the longer format! Even though I don't fully agree with all points, especially pogos and crossfoot landings (which I think look worse than one foot landings, even though I'm not a fan of both), but I feel like style is always extremely subjective in skating, and your style will basically be determined by your own creativity and taste. Couldn't agree more though with the "just because you can, doesn't mean you should do it" statement . That's something I think whenever I see street skaters learn flatground tricks they already can do in switch stance. In my opinion it adds literally nothing to the aesthetic because it's the same trick just mirrored, and nothing to the skill level because it just means you're spending a lot of time learning the same trick from scratch again.

[@FreestyleTricktips]

I think "switch" really came about and got fetishised so heavily because there are so few "approved" tricks in street skating. When all you're really allowed to do is a short list of 10 or 20 tricks before you're labelled a dork, of course you're going to have to start doing them the other way round! As a freestyler, I've always thought I'd rather see two very different tricks (say... a railflip and a fingerflip) instead of the exact same trick done in two different directions, but that is a _highly_ controversial thing to say to a street skater, it seems. Out of interest, why do you not like crossfooted landings? Is it something you can verbalise, or do you just not think it looks good?

[@frodo3556]

@@FreestyleTricktips Yeah, it seems very controversial to say that, but as a freestyle and street skater I refuse to relearn the same street tricks in a different stance because it just feels redundant to me. The only exceptions are some fakie tricks like a half cab (or fakie 180), because it can come in handy. For example, landing fakie out of a ledge trick and going back to normal stance with a half cab. Regarding the crossfoot landing, I think there's 2 reasons why I don't like how it looks. First it seems like a very uncomfortable way to land, and personally I enjoy more how the "easy going" styles in skating look (for example Orson Merry), rather than the highly technical or aggressive ones (for example Isamu). Even though it might be less impressive, I personally prefer flow and "steez" (can't believe I'm using this word unironically) over complexity and high difficulty. A onefoot landing doesn't look like the person skating is about to break their legs, if you know what I mean. Second is the fact that you can't really do much from the crossfoot landing position and you're forced to adjust (or "uncross") your feet again. This makes it feel like the movement just disrupts the flow into the next trick, and isn't there to fulfil any purpose, except making the trick harder and more technical. This point applies to both crossfoot and onefoot landings. I'm not saying crossfoot landings aren't impressive or can't look good in general though, again this is just my personal preference when it comes to the style of skating.

[@FreestyleTricktips]

@@frodo3556 I'm inclined to agree with you on all points here. However, one of the major problems I have with the "intentionally" stylish guys (like Orson Merry) is that a lot of it can come across quite contrived. Orson's a particularly odd example: watching him at the WRU, you can see the mannerisms he's lifted wholesale from Mike Osterman's skating (which, in turn, Mike lifted wholesale from Marco Sassi - you can literally see one stylistic "flair" running through them all, and it begins with Sassi). I'm sure Orson will eventually find his own style and vibe, but it weirds me out a bit at the mo. Incidentally, if you're into something more style-based, go have a look at Takashi Suzuki. Sadly, he doesn't seem to skate any more, but he's a rare example of a complete outlier as far as style goes. Some of his stuff from ten years ago is still unmatched to this day. As for the crossfoot landings: I see where you're coming from. As I said in another comment thread on here, to me, crossfoot landings should be used like punctuation - they don't really work in the middle of a line, so you drop them in at the end as a way of saying, with authority, that the trick is over. That said, I've seen interesting things done with or from crosslegged positions in the longboard dance scene, so I think there are possibilities to make that work (and actually be stylish). I suspect the problem really is that most people who are doing tricks to crossfoot are doing it just because it's "harder" than a regular landing, and that mentality usually leads to people not paying attention to the overall aesthetics of the trick.

[@frodo3556]

@@FreestyleTricktips Thanks for the recommendation, watched some of Suzukis stuff today. Love the smoothness and overall style! I totally get your point on the intentional style as well, it looks the most authentic when that kind of stuff develops naturally over time instead of being forced. Kind of like a band trying really hard to copy a particular artist, which perhaps can work for the learning process, compared to that band organically developing their signature sound over time. Orson might was a bad example, haven't watched a ton of other freestylers yet, so he was the first who came to mind. Do you have some specific examples/recommendations on the crossfoot position being used in interesting ways in longboard dancing? I love being proved wrong!

[@FreestyleTricktips]

@@frodo3556 It just occurred to me that I've seen Suzuki do some really interesting stuff with crossfoot positions in footwork, so he's already a good example of how crossfoot stuff can work! There's also other people who really do a lot of good crossfoot steps in footwork like Micky Bluebird/Michaela Tritthart (RIP). Even the rolling switchblade is effectively a shuvit to crossfoot that doesn't suck - I love doing that trick and I love seeing it. As for particular examples in longboard dancing... I'm coming up blank. It's not a community I interact with a lot any more and I can't think of names off the top of my head. It's out there, though. Try to find some of the more dance-based (as opposed to trick-based) stuff - a lot of South Korean women flow really nicely, for instance. Going back to the early days of the modern longboard dance scene, there were jokey trick tips by Adam & Adam for Loaded, and they really highlighted how cross-stepping can (and should) flow along the board, so maybe that's a good place to start.

[@kennymcdowell]

Tony you need to do a whole routine to music consisting of your “hateful tricks” as a follow up to this episode.

[@FreestyleTricktips]

I honestly don't hate myself enough to go through that torture.

[@kennymcdowell]

@@FreestyleTricktips but we would love it 🥰

[@TomsGarage007]

22:41 because u can & because you could do it to any one footed wheelie or to a rolling flamingo, or do any one footed shuvit or even a one footed endover perhaps a smoothie. And 27:52 I think you could do alot with that, maybe with a mute grab you could turn it into a vplant half flip - but otherwise yeah I'd agree on the rest of the tricks, but all it takes it 30:01 a "small adjustment, like doing a hand flip in an aerial instead of on flat, even out of a 5050 is better, and then they could all have "value".

[@FreestyleTricktips]

So here's a hot take that I left out of the video because it is more personal opinion than anything: _I don't think one footed wheelies are very good._ I have never seen a one footed wheelie that looked as good as (let alone better) than a two footed one. Take hang tens: solid, planted, controlled. Now take a one foot nose wheelie: flailing, awkward, less refined. One footed pivots are similarly difficult: when I started doing jaywalks (which I actually like and enjoy - we're really in personal preference here, and I'm very aware of it), I obviously looked at Kevin Harris' jaywalks for inspiration. But if you watch him do them, his foot barely leaves the griptape - so what's the point? It's not obviously one footed, so it just looks like a bad monster walk. At the other end of the scale, you've got people who bring their leg up incredibly high to accentuate the one-footedness (which looks awkward), or those who don't lift the wheels at the other end of the board and skid them around (which looks sloppy). Same thing happens with one footed spins too, for that matter. So much of what we do in freestyle is all about how we do it (that's obviously the root of the argument in this video) but the problem is that some things just can't be done well - or have much better alternatives.

[@TomsGarage007]

@@FreestyleTricktips totally agree with that last point, thanks for responding. On that topic of it being about how it's done & not what is being done, like style, which seems to age way better than techy stuff, if you goto 0:46 on "SHANE ROUSE Slate Demo | BMX Beat 1986 |" ( kzbin.info/www/bejne/nHXPiZeCp5qeqbc ) you can find a well done handflip/monkey flip. And yeah, now that I think about it, one footed wheelies (and even maybe one footed grinds) are generally worse looking and gimmicky, I like one footed spins though personally, and that one footed squat turn thing (frosties??) from the 70s can look cool while turning, and of course one foot ollies have been used and abused to varying levels of pointless variation & cool style (just the simple one is best imo). Always the exceptions like the shane rouse clip, but yeah as you say it is just really hand to do stuff these awkward tricks well, making it all the more impressive when they are done well, like how Andy Anderson, Kilian Martin and to an extent Alexander Rademaker, actually manages to re - intergrate freestyle with street, fitting footwork into street lines, doing coconut wheelies downhill, fingerflipping & toehooking out of manuals, etc. But yeah, most of the time there are just some weird looking tricks, like fakie yoyo hops! ✌

[@michaelmacisco2566]

Yesssss❤❤❤❤

[@shortreed]

Be cool to see you riff on jeopardy and anticipation in trick flow. Like landing one foot, it's inevitable that we're all waiting for the foot to land before the next thing happens, so that kills anticipation. Coiling up while rolling fast is high anticipation: is it a kickflip? A shuvit? Which flavour(s)? Then there's jeopardy, and it's different for the skater and the viewer. Maybe this is why 360s get non-skaters so pumped. It's low jeopardy for the skater (not too much risk of a brutal fail on the body), but high jeopardy for the viewer, especially non-skaters who could never imagine doing them without consistent practice. Personal comedy moment for this video: the voice of younger Tony being mocked by contemporary Tony. 🤣

[@FreestyleTricktips]

I think you've hinted at a valuable thing there: there is a major difference between the perspectives and opinions of skaters and non-skaters (and even between freestylers and street skaters) with regards to "worth" and/or "value". It's too easy to get wrapped up in "do flip good, more flip good, flip other way excite, another flip plz". Doing lots of demos to non-skating audiences really helps you rethink your own biases in this way; at what point does adding more flips stop adding anything to the trick or routine? Is this trick which requires a small finesse really understood by anyone except me? Can you even acknowledge what I'm doing without a slow-mo breakdown? Meanwhile, everyone can immediately understand what's going on when someone spins 25 360s in a row. Does that make it have more "value" or worth than a 360 English flip? Maybe. Maybe not. But it's something to think about.

[@torreswaldo]

I don't like pogos either. thank you Tony for giving me reasons to never try them... and the Monkey flips not only look ugly, I feel like they can also hurt your back

[@FreestyleTricktips]

Honestly, I think hurting your back is the least of the issues with monkey flips.

[@torreswaldo]

@@FreestyleTricktips injured but no style?

[@FreestyleTricktips]

Truly the worst of both worlds. If I'm going to get broken up for something, I want it to at least look good while I'm dying!

[@hagwagtoob]

Gatekeeping lol😊. Great video though. My friend used to do 180 stalefish monkey grabs on transitions. Auful but never seen anyone else do one 30+ years on.

[@FreestyleTricktips]

There's probably a good reason for that!

[@gamesincharacter5106]

Honestly id call the rolling monkey flip a gorilla flip. And bottom line being constructive about the things you do tricks or otherwise super helpful advice. Thnx a ton tony

[@FreestyleTricktips]

I'm still not entirely convinced the rolling handflip was the monkey flip; I strongly suspect that's an early example of internet-fuelled trick name confusion, so I'm not sure we need to riff off it further! But yes, I hope you can take something from this. It really helps to take a step back and try to be subjective about your skating from time to time.

[@Kangsteri]

Actually there is a trick called gorilla grip. It's done with bare foot by grabbing the nose and tail with your toes. So gorilla flip would be done with bare foot toe grab.

[@Mr007666]

Also Freestyle history could be interesting.

[@FreestyleTricktips]

That is a REALLY good shout. There's a lot of unwritten history that most people don't know; people tend to assume "Rodney Mullen invented everything", and he *really* didn't. Also, a lot more development of freestyle happened in Europe than most people realise.

[@johnnyraven8178]

I personally thought that coco grab looked really cool. Also that one foot catch I also thought was cool reminds me of the dangling leg some people do with tre flips

[@FreestyleTricktips]

That dangling leg thing is honestly one of the worst trends to come out of the 2010s, if you ask me. Forced style is the worst style.

[@johnnyraven8178]

@@FreestyleTricktips generally agree but for whatever reason I always had a soft spot for the dangle

[@Peace_Maker]

I want an video on the english flip, I'm trying one on a bank to fakie

[@FreestyleTricktips]

I've thought about doing a video on the English flip, but honestly, they're such fiddly bastards that it might be a bit of a waste of time; I've tried to teach them to Alex Rademaker a few times and even he's been defeated by them. I also just remembered showing Isamu Yamamoto how to do them a few years back and watching him just flail into space and look confused! Let's put it this way: there's a good reason they haven't caught on.

[@burdphil]

This reminded me of the Marius Constantin vid where Tony visited Romania and seemed to spend the entire time there dumping on the kids for doing all stationary tricks… 😅

[@FreestyleTricktips]

And you know what? I DID IT AGAIN THIS YEAR I like the Romanian scene (and kids) a lot. I like Marius a lot, too. But goddamn, those little buggers need to learn to roll! (This is why Carmen is my favourite: she isn't just doing butterflips all day. Same with Dani Popescu, actually - he's really expanded into the big bangers in recent years.)

[@diddymelone2265]

calling tricks "stupid" or "ugly" just reminds me of people hating on boneless or no comply's. I think it's dumb. these supposedly ugly tricks are pretty cool tricks and surely were especially amazing for 13 year old you. now being elitist and telling everyone that perhaps some of their favourite tricks or first tricks they ever did are ugly only makes skateboarding worse overall. wtf even is "value" in that context? that doesn't make sense. is value the amount of applause you get in the park? or the points you'd get during a contest? just like beauty standarts for human beings, it's highly subjective, depends on context, culture and era and is more often than not elitist bullshit that excludes people. so yeah, not a fan of your weird theory about "value". how can you say that certain tricks do not display skill when they literally show off a skill you have ... again, it doesnt make sense, you are just making up bs. it's your opinion, which may interest people or not, but "value" doesnt sound like you are aware its your opinion, you speak with authority you cannot have.

[@benrichardson16]

I got 12 minutes in before I gave up with the whiney crap 🤣 it's ALL opinion based (the same with all of skateboarding) I see what he's 'tried' to do here but it's not worked 🤣

[@FreestyleTricktips]

Okay, let me start my reply with some context, so you can see where I'm coming at with this whole video: I've been a "professional freestyler" for about a decade at this point. I've been lucky enough through that to bounce all around the world, entering contests, and generally having a good time. I've also, in that time, done a lot of dumb stuff and learned a lot of lessons the hard way. But, in more recent times, I've also been pretty deeply involved in one of the most comprehensive overhauls of judging systems for freestyle skateboard events there's been in my lifetime. So, to a certain degree... yes, I have _some_ authority here. Now, with regards to "value": that _is_ subjective. I'm not going to say it isn't. There's a reason I called this video "tricks I won't do (and why)" instead of "tricks you shouldn't do and if you do you're an ugly heathen". All of these things I talked about here and things that I once enjoyed on some level but have now discarded, and I did my best to explain why that's the case. I don't find "value" in them; they don't flow, they're awkward to do, they put you in uncomfortable positions, and all have better alternatives that achieve the same sort of effect in a better way. What I want is for people to understand how I reached those conclusions and try to apply that to their own skating. They might not agree with my conclusions on these particular tricks, and that's fine. But they might also be able to learn from my mistakes - and yes, I do believe all of the tricks/points mentioned here are mistakes - and be able to take something from that. There's also something else to consider that I mentioned in another comment: there's an argument in postmodernist thought that everything has value. The problem with this is that it simply isn't true; if everything has value, nothing does. Things work on binaries - darkness is defined by a lack of light, happiness is defined in opposition to sadness, and so on. There is a frustrating trend for people to focus solely on perceived negativity - _completely ignoring the fact this gives space to and for positivity._ Most of the things I reject in this video as not having "value" are things I immediately put in opposition to something I celebrate. Take the awkward frontside kickflip variation I came up with in my teens - it is objectively worse than the idea Brandon Ross showed me, and while I am frustrated that I took the wrong path back in 2003 or 2004, I absolutely love the better idea that has replaced it. We should all be able to make that sort of critical analysis, and deriding people as "elitist" for doing so only really robs us all in the long run.

[@benrichardson16]

@FreestyleTricktips it still comes down to opinion in the longrun. I absolutely hate death metal/screamo but I'd never actively tell people that it's bad music because its down to thier opinion if they like it (I can't bear to listen to it but it doesn't mean that it isn't good or that it doesn't have value, I just don't like it personally) Your journey has led you to this point but everyone's journey is different, just because you listened to your peers as to what tricks you should and shouldn't do doesn't mean that people should blindly follow your opinion; if we were all the same and did the exact same tricks then there would be no variety in freestyle, imagine telling a band that they're only allowed to use two chords to make their music now and they're no longer allowed to strum upwards on a guitar, only downwards. If you limit things they become stagnant and don't progress. I don't like the direction that music or skate shoes are going these days but that's down to the evolution of both, things can't always stay the same as they were 20 years ago

[@FreestyleTricktips]

@@benrichardson16 you're very much misrepresenting (or maybe misunderstanding) what I'm saying here. In the video - which, by your own admission, you didn't actually watch - I flag up multiple times that I'm not talking about things I like and don't like (for instance: I absolutely loathe pogos, and wish people would stop doing them), but instead, I'm trying to point out tricks and ideas that don't "work" for one reason or another (and why). This isn't about my own opinion; a lot of it is practical, and based more on experience and experimentation than personal taste. I attempted to illustrate this by including tricks that I should love (like the kickflip variation - I'm a sucker for weird kickflips) and explaining how this process of analysis has led to me revisiting old ideas and turning trash into gold (like the English flip story you obviously completely missed). To co-opt your misplaced musical analogy: I'm not telling people they should only use two chords, I'm telling people that there's five different ways of playing an F major triad on guitar and one of them is objectively more uncomfortable and unusable in a song than the others.

[@grosha77]

What Tony explains here is to me the difference between freestyle skateboarding and flatland skateboarding. Look at someone like Johnny Giger for example. He's a great flatland skateboarder, he has great technical skill and beautiful "steeze". But if you greenscreen out the board in his videos, then he's just jumping around. When you greenscreen the board out of a video from a true freestyler, the body motions still have flow. My takeaway from this video is probably this: "don't just pay attention to what you do with your board, pay also attention to what your whole body does."

[@FreestyleTricktips]

I think this pretty much hits the nail on the head. When I was in my mid-teens, Bob Staton (the founder of the WFSA, the World Freestyle Skateboard Association) said that the difference between flatland and freestyle was that flatland skating is about the tricks, but that freestyle was about how those tricks were arranged. And if you look at the "flatland" competitions that people held in the early 90s when freestyle was on its way out (in a failed bid to make street skaters engage with what was left of freestyle), you see exactly this: _street skaters didn't get it_. They rolled, did a trick, rolled a bit more, and did another trick. Hell, you still see that now when street skaters are encouraged to enter freestyle competitions (I'm thinking about the bottom half of the Am division at every World Round Up in the 2010s here). Freestyle is a totally different mindset and approach - it's more holistic and considered, but to a lot of people, when you start vocalising this differentiation in any way, they just start deriding you as pretentious or start throwing around homophobic slurs. Doesn't change the fact that your favourite freestyler's favourite freestyler _definitely_ thinks about freestyle this way, though.

[@grosha77]

@@FreestyleTricktips Yes! I found that outsiders (non-skaters) are much more open to this approach. To them streetskating often looks like this: push, push, jump, fail, repeat. even on my humble skill level I hat people approach me and say it's very "beautiful" to watch me skate. But in the 90ies my "skate-friends" pressured my hard to give up freestyle because it was *homophic slur*.

[@FreestyleTricktips]

@@grosha77 One of my favourite comments from a non-skating bystander was that I looked like a "northern soul" dancer (which is a very working class British reference). Usually you get breakdancing comparisons, so that was an interesting one.

[@andresarregui3417]

Please Tony, look up "Spanish fan calls police over saxophone band who were just not jazzy enough" with Wynton Marsallis. I love your videos but totally disagree with the main idea of this video; is how you do it, not the trick. Keep the philosophy coming! (You are the W. Marsallis of the freestyle! jajajajajaja!)

[@FreestyleTricktips]

The comparison to jazz (and, I guess, music in general) is actually pretty valid. I used to work with a guy who was obsessed with prog jazz - think Weather Report and Jaco Pastorius, only... well, to put it bluntly, *worse*. And the problem with a lot of prog jazz (and prog rock, for that matter) is much the same as the problem I have with a lot of freestyle skateboarding - one that I was hinting at/talking about here: when all you have is that it's "weird", you don't really have a lot at all. I forget which philosopher/cultural theorist wrote about it, but there's thing called the "spectacle of the new". People become so enraptured by the shock value of "progression", but once that new thing is no longer new, it has to be able to stand on its own and have value beyond that initial shock. If it doesn't... well, you've got problems. And to negate that issue, people tend mostly to double down - abandoning the thing that was new in favour of something else weirder and newer than the last thing. Eventually, it becomes this endless race, desperately trying to stay ahead of criticism or analysis, and the inevitable end result is total burn out. This is why massively progressive eras in skateboarding - like the early 90s - end up collapsing in on themselves and being replaced by something that can only be described as "boring". But that's just as bad: like everything in life, the answer is never found on opposing ends of a spectrum; balance is key.

[@andresarregui3417]

Guy Debord "The Society of the Spectacle"??? i know what you mean but i think as long as the trick is "well done" (style, is clean and has purpouse) its in. Same with any art. You may dont like it (ugh! prog Jazz...) but its music. One of my favorites is Denham, whatever he does looks awesome, he flows freestyling and im sure you know how hard is that in freestyle (given that you guys dont roll AT ALL, haha!). Another example, lots of kids today, learn how to do a kickflip (or 360 flip) in a couple on months, yet they dont know how to move around (did you see that video of the Gonz talking about this?). You talk about the pressure flip. First one on video, and you know who made it, was pathetic, it started a trend and was all horrible, but in a few years when the mechanics of the trick became more natural you see guys like Chico kiling it in the middle of a run.

[@hagwagtoob]

Skateboarding, especially freestyle, definitely has mental links to being a musician. Same mindset. I just wish I had that mind 😂. Fun though even if one annoys the neighbours 🎸 and the other kills my feet.

[@FreestyleTricktips]

I think it was more Barthes than Debord, but it's been a while since I read any Debord and all I can remember is the Dérive, so I might need to dust that one off. If you go and watch the pressure flip video I did, I actually kinda flag this up. The way I was taught them was the 90s way (i.e. both feet pointing at the nose), and it was truly atrocious. I can see why they got a bad rep. But changing the approach turns it into a beautiful trick - as I said in the intro to this video, it's much nicer than the inward heelflip, despite rotating the same way. Also: "given that you guys dont roll AT ALL, haha" - have you _never_ seen me skate? I never stop rolling! It's been a major bugbear of mine for years that so many freestylers never learn to roll down the street (and Gonz thinks it's bad in street skating!). When Nick Beaulieu first came to visit me back in 2018, he could barely push down the road and he was horrified by how fast I was going down hills. Look at him now! Gonz is right: learning to push and go from A to B on your board changes EVERYTHING.

[@yesmaybe630]

Teach us renegade flips you should offer your deck in a 7.6

[@FreestyleTricktips]

7.6" makes absolutely zero sense for my deck and what it's designed for. Deck width is all about trick choice; you want a narrower deck for better flips and rail stability, and a wider deck for mid-air stability (think: ollies) and easier footwork (think: rookies). Being as my deck is designed to flip as easily as possible, sit in rail easier for longer (hence the cutouts), and move around as quickly as possible, making a fat 7.6" version would be completely pointless. TL;DR: it's never going to happen.

[@LizardWizard_]

Hey Mr.Tastemaker

[@_Maxten]

i think itd be funny if u were just a hater vs a constructive critique. be more diabolical and less inclusive, itd be awesome lmao

[@FreestyleTricktips]

People already seem to think I am just a hater, so I can only imagine how angry people would be if I went all in.

[@dthornoutdoors]

I wanted to disagree with you, but I can't. Well, except cross foot stuff. I just don't like how that looks, personally.

[@FreestyleTricktips]

A couple of people have said that. I know it's a controversial take, but honestly, I think in some situations it adds to the trick instead of purely being a dumb joke. Why do you think it looks bad? Genuine question. I'm just curious.

[@dthornoutdoors]

@@FreestyleTricktips To me, it usually seems to ruin the flow of the skaters movement into the next trick, as it is always followed by an immediate awkward hop back to normal riding position. I'm not saying some skaters can't make it look good but it is usually an exception. And, of course, the cross=legged stance itself looks awkward. I was surprised no comply tricks didn't make the video.

[@FreestyleTricktips]

You've got me thinking now: what if the hop back landed straight into a g-turn, for instance? That could be really interesting. But you're not wrong. I always see it as a punctuating end to something - like the shuvit-to-crossfoot I do after a couple of endovers in the 540-shuvit-to-one-foot clip. I was really uncertain about that as a sequence until I saw it in a video and thought "yeah, that actually works quite well to end a line". Otherwise, it's a tough position to justify. As far as no comply tricks go, though... I should hope that one would be obvious!

[@dthornoutdoors]

@@FreestyleTricktips Hop back directly into something whether it is a g-turn or into spacewalks sounds interesting. You're right, it is usually a punctuation at the end. As a writing student we were warned against exclamation marks. Very seldom should they be used. I think this is the appropriate way to think of landing in cross foot.

[@FreestyleTricktips]

@@dthornoutdoors I remember being told - at degree level, no less - that you shouldn't use semi-colons as people don't know how to use them. They told us that _rather than teach us how to use them;_ needless to say, that's advice I immediately fucking ignored. 😅