Who Really Invented the MERLIN TWIST?

[@tofs2298]

You are totally right with your oppinion on stance. Especially because many people find some tricks easier in a switch or nollie variant. So regular/switch should not be part of a trick definition. Never.

[@josephlozano4533]

I think it's an important distinction when it comes to some tricks. Kickflips, switchflips, fakie flips, frontside flips....

[@ikebuttle360]

TOFS apart from cabs

[@BigFatCock0]

@@ikebuttle360 But why apart from cabs? Like remove any reverence you have for Steve Caballero and just think about why you would want to make that exception. I'm not sure there's an answer.

[@tobiasboschung3210]

ghettobird is technically only nollie

[@felipefreitas3942]

@@tobiasboschung3210 i was about to say that

[@TekMoliGy]

The 90s was my favorite era of skateboarding. So much sick tech stuff without having to worry about dumb giant stair sets and gaps like now days.

[@Rustoization]

God. That Ocean Howell merlin twist might be the coolest clip in the history of skating.

[@therealpoka]

Great digging and amazing work! So good to see ol' footage in a great context!

[@RadRatVideo]

Thank you! I've got a lot more of this kind of stuff on the way.

[@Biohazard667Productions]

whut! that trick is awesome! nice video man, keep it up

[@RadRatVideo]

Thank you, I will!

[@invisibleselfbodyart8920]

Love that you mentioned Julio de la Cruz. He did some crazy tech back then.

[@vajivan]

history of the varial flip pls!

[@lukenluken]

I second this.

[@RadRatVideo]

I'll see what I can do!

[@marcelboogaard5449]

Death box, now there is a blast from the past. Forefather of Flip.

[@gest667]

Seriously im addicted to your channel rite now!!! your history is on point. ocean howell is my favorite skAter all time!!!

[@RadRatVideo]

Thanks! Yeah he's amazing, and nobody seems to know who he is anymore.

[@weqrfawe1336]

got the opportunity to skate with alex moul at bashas skatepark in arizona about fifteen years ago, and holy shit....moul is unbelievably good at skating, like he's a pro, i know, but to actually see his pop in person and watch him just flow around the park was mindblowing. at one point, a small kid fell in front of alex and he just did about a two and half foot high pop shuvit over the kid, absolutely incredible skater

[@drowningin]

"Eh that's just a big spin" meanwhile I can't ollie

[@davecoppenrath]

Radrat can skate bro

[@victorycentralgaming1577]

I fucks with Rad Rat bc he just lays the knowledge down, then you see him skate and he's cold!

[@SpitefulAZ]

please do a video about under flips!

[@ryanewalters]

I remember watching ocean howell do it in 1992. I tried it so many times off of a picnic table switch in grass i did get it tho. I had no idea dude was doing it in 1991 on a mini ramp, that is impressive. It just goes to show somewhere in the world there is like a 90% chance someone has done the trick before you. I was doing late back foot flips and frontside pressure flips in the 90's also. Show those tricks to the kids these days and they think you invented them hahaha.

[@YourNewBuddy]

Great job putting together this video!

[@RadRatVideo]

Thank you!

[@merlinzest]

First time watching your videos. Well presented. I enjoyed them and shall subscribe. Cheers from NZ

[@RadRatVideo]

+Andrew Condon Thanks man!

[@Garf2O]

a youtube based skate channel that isnt just some kook with a camera vlogging about nothing, im backing this channel.

[@ryanbill8692]

i used to do feather flips with tech decks and never knew it was actually a thing interesting

[@equaleyez]

I've spent aaaaa lot of time on this channel ever since I got back in to skateboarding this year. Amazing content, and I have to say I like these types of videos the best, diving in to the history of skateboarding and seeing the evolution of a trick. I hope you'll make these again, ever. Keep up the good work, I'm following the Session videos too!

[@df3kt]

I can only do this trick switch. I 1st did it nollie back in like 2000. I had never seen it before. I was really good at nollie backside bigspins. I was also really good at doing them with a late flip. One day I messed up doing it and realized how easy it was ti kinda scoop it and wrap it around my foot. It is really easy to do nollie.

[@rileyschnare5191]

Rad Rat Video Great video man, they're very insightful

[@RadRatVideo]

Thank you!

[@kunkushun1]

People that dislike this video and other videos of yours are 99% of the same people mad you proved them wrong that there new fav skater didn't invent a trick. I am only 28 & been skating for 12 years but you have to give credit where it is due. GREAT GREAT CONTENT MY FRIEND!!

[@kgedgeyo5839]

Please make a video about the history of feather flips

[@Nebulation]

Good video. Funny to see all the newgen see these tricks and think its some alien technology. They were pulling this stuff in the early 90s.

[@collin9085]

I love your content. Keep up the good work.

[@RadRatVideo]

Collin Thanks! I will. I've got tons of this stuff on the way.

[@xcvsumextra]

Great video, RR. I love a good history lesson :) I'm still keen to see you breakdown the gazelle underflip

[@RadRatVideo]

+James Price well buckle in because I have a lot more on the way! I have a note to make a gazelle underflip one, but I don't know when that'll happen.

[@xcvsumextra]

+Rad Rat Video awesome man. I love all your content and am excited for any new stuff you do bro!

[@daniel244]

MAN I MET JULIO DE LA CRUZ IN 2016 HE´S A GOOD PERSON AND SHOW ME THE TRICKS

[@RadRatVideo]

That's awesome!

[@herrreinsch]

3:45 that's the weirdest trick I ever seen. And I basically studied weird tricks. :P It looks like a pressure fs half flip late switch casper flip and then body varial back. like wtf.

[@herrreinsch]

Also, Your videos are very interresting, and I think I learnt hospital flips and casper flips and many other tricks from your old tutorial videos. So thanks.:) And It's cool to see that you make now better videos than ever.👍 You also mentioned MisterCK (Americ Nocus) in one of your videos, which was my favourite skater back then. :)

[@YessC1a0]

I know look forward to every Tuesday!! Still haven't got a board yet but hopefully soon. Also could you recommend any good skate tapes to watch? I love watching old raw footage! Thanks.

[@RadRatVideo]

+Yess c1a0 Oh man, there are so many! Depends how old you want to get. I love the 90s Plan B videos. Check the Skately library and you'll have a ton of choices.

[@dustinsmith788]

I taught cory how to do that at utf skatepark in spokane WA

[@JustSpamAble]

i got one question do you think hospital flips en casperflips are the same thing?

[@RadRatVideo]

If I set a casper flip in a game of skate and someone matched with a hospital flip, I would count it. They're different... But still very much related. I actually have a trick tip that covers both tricks in my Shred School playlist!

[@JustSpamAble]

Ow thats Right you do if seen that one. maby you can do a vid on the hopsital / casper agrument. what came firts how did it first and variations of the tricks. (but i finaly convist my friends that It's rail and not primo thanks to youre vid so thanks bud 👍✌) keep up the vids dude

[@RadRatVideo]

Thanks! I'm trying to do research on that one. Haven't figured out all the details yet, but I know that Alex Moul and Ed Templeton were doing casper flips in 1991.

[@trillinflossin412]

Dude the way you say Merlin is freaking me out. It is MIR LIN. Ad a subtle glottal stop between those two syllables; Its hard to explain but the way you are saying it makes it sounds like merlin is a type of candy or french product and not a badass wizard.

[@yellowlemonPenguin]

Yeah his emphasis is all fucked up.

[@MrSimondaniel3]

doesnt everyone know merlin from king arthur

[@joejoe2658]

your phonetic explanation is wrong too. you should've written MER-LIN. or even MUR. MIR was a space station and pronounced nothing like merlin.

[@paulgcasso6930]

Awesome video dude very mentally stimulating very well done keep up the good work God bless

[@RadRatVideo]

+Paul G Casso thank you Paul!

[@iggybunn4494]

I have been doing fakie j flips 180s and calling them Merlow flips🤯

[@81casperflip]

We need more of these videos

[@eeeeric1966]

Maybe a double impossible? I mean it seems simple enough for the people that were featured in this video! :D great stuff

[@RadRatVideo]

Problem is, after the first wrap, your foot is in the middle of the board and you don't have enough room to wrap a second time. I don't know if a double impossible can be done. Maybe an impossible late impossible, but that's pretty crazy too.

[@eeeeric1966]

Rad Rat Video You might be able to have a funky foot positioning (as in the Merlin Twist) that when executed just the right way, can make the your foot be in the back for an impossible, after doing the first impossible ;)

[@brickmafiaindylocal317supe5]

i would have figured Rodney Mullin made that up along with the countless tricks he contributed...

[@AnthonyColomboAppliedMath]

You mentioned going back to watching 90's footage. What early 90s skate videos would you recommend to go back and re-watch?

[@RadRatVideo]

I would start with all the Plan B and New Deal videos. Go to the skately library and you can find links to watch them all there.

[@typ044]

Dont forget blinds video days, my friends and I wore that vhs out back in the day!

[@marcelboogaard5449]

Soldiers story is a great early nineties skate video

[@nobodysreview6137]

Matt Walker does a front foot imposible (chain saw) in the Zorlac video Zero Hero like done on this mini ramp here.

[@MrSimondaniel3]

the storm is a late 90s vid

[@TheToofpick]

I would like you to look at every trick _JamieGriffin does on Instagram.

[@elementsk84life1]

so if you're against having a trick be identified as a switch trick, what are your thoughts on fakie full cabs? why should that not transfer over to nollie full cabs?

[@RadRatVideo]

Good question. I think cabs are a little different, because it's named after a dude who did a trick a certain way. Caballero did fakie 360s all the time, and people eventually named the trick after him, because it was better than saying 'fakie 360 no handed aerial'. So the term has a lot of history behind it, and it's been built into other terms, like half cab. I don't like using it for Nollie, because it's not what Caballero used to do, and it doesn't even save time. "Nollie half cab" and "Nollie 180" are both really short.

[@AnklepantsSkateZine]

Very informative. I love this. What about alpha and beta flips?

[@RadRatVideo]

Thanks! I've got a lot more of these on the way. I am planning on doing one about casper and hospital flips, and I'll probably throw alphas in there. What is 'beta flip' these days? A gazelle alpha flip? Beta flip used to mean 360 half pressure flip late half flip.

[@AnklepantsSkateZine]

Rad Rat Video - An alpha flip is a 180 hospital flip and a beta flip is a 360 hospital flip. They're like bigspins, but with hospital flips. At least that's what the internet tells me. Also, have you seen the unpossible?

[@RadRatVideo]

OK, that's what I thought. Trick names change so much that it's hard to keep track. Yeah, I've actually done unpossibles before. You're talking about the regular impossible on the front foot, right? I think people used to call those 'improbables' too.

[@cabaiste]

Good video with interesting info, deffo going to try and get that trick now

[@RadRatVideo]

Good luck! I had the hardest time learning front foot impossibles.

[@dxzxax8772]

Frigid Airs, history, creator, how they differ frontside and backside. I think it was Neil Blender or Tony Hawk that did them first.

[@tvaiden]

I must say I find a difference between a frontside 180 frontfoot impossible on a mini ramp and street. On the ramp it is just a frontside frontfoot impossible. Do you call a frontside ollie a 180 on a ramp? Same trick different place? Ocean was the man. 540 flips first too?

[@TheActiveAssault]

impossibles look so satisfying

[@jgtv6313]

Do a video on the history of the gazelle flip

[@RadRatVideo]

+Simple Skate stay tuned, I've got one planned already

[@snuff411]

The oldest attempt (not land) I seen to the Corey Kennedy style switch front foot impossible 180 was from masahiro Fuji it's in the KZbin video masahiro & toshiaki freestyle sk8 91-92 @ the 1:53 mark you see him almost land it I bring it up for i don't know lol I just thought I'd relay the info lol

[@RadRatVideo]

Awesome! Nice detective work! I'm sure he landed that some other time off camera. The camera date says '92, so Alex Moul still beat him, but he had a gazelle alpha flip in there, which helps for another video I'm working on...

[@mimik4568]

great video. love em

[@clydeaseity1208]

3:45 what the hell is this trick? I don't understand

[@nobodysreview6137]

The best is Josh Kalis fakie five 0 chainsaw out. In Chicago we were doing front foot impossibles back then too and we called em Chainsaws, we called heelflips Pancakes.

[@odayvissonsouza]

Talk about the hectop flip

[@richardmayle4878]

Alex mole what an absolute legend

[@n1ck1930]

the merlin twist is a 540 board rotation not the 360 that the earlier ones keep doing

[@chillout2919]

Please do some video on dark slides!!

[@andynonymous2164]

Seen my boy Matt Bell (Google him) do it down a 4 set at Stony Brook University (Long Island) back in the early to mid 90's. Regs not switch. Sick. He had impossibles and front foot impozzies on lock. One day he was busting front footers down these stairs and someone said to "try it FS 180°." I think he did it within about 20 tries. We did NOT call it a "Merlin Twist." Lol... Dude was a wizard.

[@salladz3863]

Feather flip? That’s a dream flip

[@SamThredder]

new fave channel

[@RadRatVideo]

Thanks!

[@mckermdog]

will you do "how to" vids?

[@RadRatVideo]

+mckermdog I've got a ton in my Shred School playlist. I'm out with a knee injury at the moment but I made a few this summer.

[@mckermdog]

+Rad Rat Video oh ok thanks hope your knee heals fast :)

[@aegontargaryen573]

I thought I invented this 15 years ago damn

[@deathwishchrisreilly5194]

Do something on Ryan fabry. He was in questionable an then ghosted.

[@argonzalez71]

Ryan Fabry shagged Sean Sheffy’s girlfriend at the time. That’s why he was kicked off PLAN B.

[@jasondashney]

Banging Sheffy's wife will do that to your career. He was pro for Evol tho (what H-Street turned into after Ternasky died).

[@argonzalez71]

1:41 That’s NOT a big spin. That’s an impossible. I see it wrapping around his toe. I’m sure OCEAN was doing them before. Those guys (H-Street) down in southern Cali we’re doing that shit before 1990.

[@colerinehart1938]

the emphasis is on the penultimate syllable (the e) of merlin. Like the wizard. Doesn’t matter but it just annoyed me

[@deathwishchrisreilly5194]

Big spin improbable

[@terrenbrown4941]

search anything on nollie no complys for me and tell me what you see

[@dustinsmith788]

I dubbed it the merlin twist in 2005 at Bryant school as the mctwist of flat ground tricks and actually did a double the same night mystery solved

[@kaspar_1982]

i agree, I've seen nothing new that wasn't done in the early 90s, it took a full decade from the revolution of skating in the late 70s to set up this holy time of revelation. however, i still await the universal super being that can bring forth the ultimate expression of this living art force to the whole world. The Skateboard Messiah.

[@tyhggb]

I could do them fakie to forward in 92

[@JamisonMyth]

instant subscribe, glad i found your channel

[@RadRatVideo]

Thank you!

[@ukyo6195]

4:06 Man!

[@Juantron2000]

hey cool channel. Your aronl trick tips basically taught me all the tricks i knew the first few years of me skating(thank you), i quite enjoy the meta commentary also, really neat, accurate information with a lot of thought and effort put into the presentation. take this with a grain of salt as i barely have any proof, but i believe cory kennedys merlin twist is a fs 360 front foot impossible which is more likely to have been an nbd than the 180 version. i base this on a video of Mr. Kennedy skating inner space skatepark, its looping footage of him trying the 360 variation along with audio of him talking a bout it and calling it the merlin twist and how hard it was to land back in switch. unfortunately i havent seen that video since and this link: xgames.espn.com/xgames/action/skateboarding/article/4674604/cory-kennedy-merlin-twist-video-interview is dead , not even sure if its the right video. anyway good luck on your channel and everything i look forward to watching more

[@RadRatVideo]

I think the full 360 was NBD as well, but in that one video I show a clip of, he clearly refers to the 180 version as the Merlin Twist.

[@Juantron2000]

thanks for replying, youre right he does do the 180 one in that video and clearly the subject is his merlin spin. but this quote: "With everyone talking about Cory Kennedy's almost-landed super trick (which he's dubbed, the Merlin Twist)" along with the thumbnail(which is at innerspace where he tried the 360) makes me think that at some point the 360 one was supposed to be his wowser trick , but since he didnt actually land it till later and the 180 one was pleasing the crowd enough, he just kinda rolled with it. the 180 version isnt really that much of a stretch if you got front foot impossibles decent enough, he had to know the 180 was nothing new.

[@terrenbrown4941]

I can do nollie no complys

[@aegontargaryen573]

Damnit! I thought I invented this in 2002. Fml

[@throwawayarchive3722]

I invented a NBD. I call it a Tuttle flip! IT is a fakie kickback bs 180 body varial.

[@carlkearney4614]

Ray Simmons dose one in 88 its on the shake me not video, boom!

[@fernandoreyes680]

he didn't

[@MrEmbew]

"do a feather flip like Julio delacruz" Yo wtf is that

[@Itsbigpitch]

Love your videos man. Just some advice, you need to edit down the talking parts more. There's a ton of dead air between things you say. I doesn't need to be the ridiculous 15 cuts per sentence that's popular now, but it would be across so much smoother and enjoyable if you cut it up a bit. Just a thought. Other than that, good shit man. Haven't seen anyone else have the type of content your putting out.

[@stevebean1234]

I like the pauses it reminds me of life before the ADHD Gen z Instagram generation

[@loweni7460]

The amount of skaters claiming this trick was invented by Cory is ridiculous

[@shainedupuis2649]

The way you say merlin pisses me off lol

[@vector2g]

bro its not mer-lin its merlin like the famous wizard come on rad rat it seems like your pronouncing it weird on purpose

[@atharris8]

True!

[@Glashome]

out of interest has anyone ever seen a back 180 front foot impossible?

[@controlalldelete]

I don’t know if that’s possible because the board is spinning backside but the board is spinning frontside so it would be really weird

[@joshuarestrepo2501]

540 flips!

[@rafaelxrafael]

great video

[@claymationwaves]

I was really popular in school and I didn't give a fuck I would sabotage myself all the time and laugh about it as they turned on me.. I really love this generation because they are like a pathetic image of those people from my past and reminder stay away from them