A heelflip is the act of flipping your board in the opposite direction you would a kickflip. It's a basic trick that is essentially a foundation for countless other tricks. It can be a real tough one to get down, and even harder to clean up. But with the possibilities it opens concerning other tricks, you're surely going to want to get this one under your belt.
What You Need to Know
Ollie.
Considering this is one of the first tricks you'll be learning, you're not going to need to know too many other tricks to figure it out. However, you will need to know how to do ollies fairly comfortably. Like many tricks, the popping motion and sliding of the front foot is what this one breaks down into, and being able to ollie means you will have enough skill to attempt heelflips.
What You May Find Useful:
It's pretty hard to say the heelflip is harder than the kickflip. And it's hard to say the kickflip is harder than the heelflip. If you're unable to do either, you'll want to try both a decent bit and find which one you personally find easier. Being able to do one will greatly help you in learning the other.
Doing The Trick
Positioning:
First thing first, the back foot.
The back foot should be place in the back corner of your tail. Right around that pocket
where there's that dip in the wood. Having your foot here will make the board slightly tilted in the opposite direction of a heelflip upon popping the tail. This means it makes it easier to flip it in the heelflip direction, since a little bit more of the board is exposed to your front foot.
Your front foot is best fit an inch or two behind the front bolts. It should be pretty leveled with your heel lining up with the back edge of your skateboard deck.
Motion:
Give yourself a few small pushes to get you rolling. Set up using the foot positioning explained above and make sure you're balanced on your board.
Bend down as you would for an ollie, and pop your tail.
As you pop your tail, you'll tilt your front foot and drag it towards the nose, similar as you would for an ollie. However, you're going to be dragging it off at an angle, with it leaving right at that groove before the nose of your deck.
When you find your foot just before the nose and ready to leave the deck, ROLL your foot off and give a small flicking motion to finish it off. This will cause the flicking motion of the skateboard to come from the side of your shoe, just above it's heel.
Once you've got the board spinning, make sure you get both your front and back foot out of it's way by sucking them up to your body a bit. Wait for it to finish flipping and catch it over bolts.
Land and absorb impact properly, and ride away.
Video Trick Tips:
Troubleshooting
This trick is no different story than any other basic skateboarding trick. In theory, it sounds like a fairly simple trick and shouldn't pose too many problems in learning it.. But of course, that's not actually the case. Quite a few things can indeed go wrong, and it can get all too frustrating. If you're having problems, check below for solutions.
My board isn't flipping all the way
This is a pretty common problem, but it's also not terribly hard to fix. It's because you're not applying enough force to send the board into a complete rotation before it lands. The most reasonable way to correct this is rolling your front foot off with a little bit more force.
My skateboard is going behind my body
This can be a frustrating problem. And it's hard to determine the exact cause in this guide because a large number of things can be causing this to happen. Make sure you're using proper foot placement first.
If you're still having a hard time keeping it under you, consider checking how you distribute your weight as you jump from the board. Make sure you're jumping straight up, and that you're not leaning in any direction that would cause you to move away from your board.
The heelflip rotation is complete, but it's very unleveled
The reason it isn't leveled is because of the way your front foot is leaving the board. Make sure you're flicking out on the groove just before the nose. Also, make sure you're lot leaning too far back while performing the feet motion
When I land it, I lose my balance
If you're having a hard time keeping balance when you land this trick, you need to make more effort to maintain your balance both before and while you're doing the motion of this trick.
Also, make sure you're feet are directly under your upper body while you're in the air. Keep yourself lined up with the deck, and make sure you're not leaning any direction too much. Stay as centered as possible the entire time.
You're going to have problems when learning this trick, no doubt. But as long as you make proper effort to correct your errors, you'll get this trick down. Stick with it, and good luck!
Where Do I Go From Here?
Where you want to go is up to you, of course. I'd suggest simply cleaning it up and making your heelflips consistent. But the heelflip, as aforementioned, is a foundation to numerous tricks. Double heels, inward heels, varial heels, 180 heels, fakie heel, disco flips, ect... Take it wherever you want it to go.
doing a kick flip you use the tip of your left foot to kick out and land it but doing a heel flip you use the bottom of your left foot to kick out i dont see how knowing how to do a kick flip is going to help you know how to do a heel flip.
Learning either one first greatly helps learning the other one because you get the feel of the board flipping under you and get more comfortable with catching it and landing it etc. All you gotta learn then is just the flick.
Yeah really. I remember I used to be able to flip both kickflips and heelflips, but couldn't land either one. I figured it out one day and started landing my kickflips.. Then sure enough, next time I tried heelflips I landed em.
ive seen people do this all the time. my friends do this trick all most all the time in a game of skate but as many times as i try i can never get the board to flip all around i roll my foot of off near the tip of the skateboard and sometimes the board might go half way into the flip but never all the way. anyone got any ideas about how to flip the board all the way?
ive seen people do this all the time. my friends do this trick all most all the time in a game of skate but as many times as i try i can never get the board to flip all around i roll my foot of off near the tip of the skateboard and sometimes the board might go half way into the flip but never all the way. anyone got any ideas about how to flip the board all the way?
KEEP PRACTICING worked for me, will probably work for you...
