The tail stall is a trick that becomes an essential as you move on in your transition skating career. It allows you to set up for an upcoming trick in your normal stance, and allows you to gain speed easily. The trick consists of rolling up a ramp fakie, doing a tail stall on the coping, and then dropping back in. It is extremely simple and only requires speed, timing, and confidence. Once you get it down, it will allow you to learn future fakie tricks on the coping.
Half of this trick is a basic drop in, unless you know how to do those, you won't be able to do this trick. Also rock to fakies are helpful because they set you up in the fakie stance to perform this trick.
Other Skills:
Knowing how to pump on transition will be a big help on this trick, nothing is worse than not being able to make the coping and doing the trick on the ramp.
Doing The Trick
Positioning:
The foot placement for this trick is essentially the same as it is for dropping in. You want to have your back foot in the center of the tail, and front foot a bit behind the front bolts.
Motion:
While rolling fakie make sure your feet are in position as you are coming up the ramp
As you approach the top of the ramp, begin to shift your weight to your back foot
Right before you are about to hit the coping with your wheels extend your legs and lean back onto the deck of the ramp.
You should now be in the tail stall, your back foot should be centered on the tail and on top of the coping, the same as the drop in position
To come back in simply drop in
Video Trick Tips:
Troubleshooting
I can't make it to the top of the ramp
The simple way to correct this problem is to get more speed. To do so pump harder on your way down, and into this trick.
When I try to go into the stall my board shoots out
Your problem is that you are attempting to go into the stall too early, and/or aren't committing and following the motions. If you try to do the trick too early, you won't hit the coping, and instead of locking in, you will enter a fakie manual on the ramp, which is what is causing you to shoot out. Also if you are simply lifting your front trucks up, but aren't leaning into the coping, you will enter a fakie manual like described above, and will face the same problem.
I can't hold the stall, it is only a tap
The way to fix this problem is to get more speed, and lean back into the ramp more. This also tends to happen if you have a destroyed tail due to razortail or chipping, meaning it is shorter so you have to lean back more to get it on to the coping. It is still easy to do this trick with a tail like that, you just have to follow the advice above.
When I go to stall, my board goes over the coping and onto the deck
This is a common problem when learning this trick. The issue is that you are waiting too long to start the stall so instead of your tail stopping you from riding over, your board goes over the coping. The only way to fix this is to start the trick earlier, eventually you will perfect your timing. However this problem can actually be helpful for learning fakie rocks if you haven't yet, because you will already be in the position by mistake, so you simply have to go back in.
Where Do I Go From Here?
After you get the tail stall down it is time to move on to axle stalls, rock n rolls, and fakie rocks. The tail stall is the perfect setup trick for the first two, since it will allow you to get your feet oriented on the board for the next trick, and it will prepare you for fakie rocks by getting you comfortable riding fakie.
