Backside flip: a 180 and a kickflip at once — which one goes first?

Level: Intermediate

Your kickflip comes out clean. Not once in ten tries — every session, on flat, on a curb, rolling. So you figure the backside flip is the same move with a half-turn on top. You try it. And the board goes sideways, half-turned, half-flipped, while you land a metre away.

A backside flip is a kickflip and a 180° body rotation firing off in the same fraction of a second. Two moves, one instant. The question that stops everyone at the exact same place: which of the two do you trigger first?

The answer is less obvious than it looks, and it explains almost every attempt that spins out. We'll get there — but first you need to understand why your board goes crooked.

Backside flip: what you're really adding to your kickflip

Backside means you turn with your back facing the direction you're rolling — you lose sight of your line for half a second. That's what makes the trick scary, far more than the flip itself.

You're stacking three things: a full kickflip, a 180° body rotation, and 180° of board that has to follow your feet instead of running off on its own. If you've never landed a clean 180, start there: the backside flip isn't a flip trick, it's a rotation trick with a flip happening inside it.

1. Load your shoulders BEFORE you snap — crouched, shoulders opened towards the nose, like a spring being wound. You're not turning yet. You're loading.
2. Feet: back foot deep in the tail pocket — front foot half a centimetre further back than on your usual kickflip, and slightly more angled. That delays the flick, and that's the point.
3. Vertical pop, never angled — you snap straight down. Any tilt of the tail at the pop sends the board varial instead of turning it with you.
4. The flick comes a fraction AFTER the pop — on a kickflip, pop and flick are almost simultaneous. Here you let the board rise first, then you scrape the corner of the nose.
5. Unwind: shoulders first, hips next, legs last — the body unscrews, it doesn't throw itself. Your eyes look for the ground over your back shoulder.
6. Catch between 90° and 135°, back foot first — you stop the board with the back foot before the rotation ends, and your feet finish the half-turn together.

Why your board goes sideways instead of turning with you

When the board goes diagonal there's basically one cause: the tail got snapped crooked. Your back foot, instead of dropping straight down, drifts outwards as your shoulders start moving. You've added a scoop — the move that makes shove-its — to a trick that needs none.

The board then spins twice at once: your rotation, and its own. It escapes forward and your feet never find it again. Same mechanics that make the varial heelflip so temperamental, except here the scoop is parasitic: you don't want it.

The test that settles it in one session: film yourself head-on in slow motion. If the tail slides sideways before touching the ground, your flick isn't the problem.

Timing: the flick doesn't happen at the same time as the pop

On a kickflip, pop and flick are almost glued together. Here you have to separate them. Your body is turning, so your front foot travels an arc: flick too early and it scrapes the nose while the board is still on the ground — it goes flat and sideways.

The mental image: you pop, the board rises ten centimetres, and that's when the front foot goes for the corner. A fraction. In slow motion the gap is barely visible, and yet it's what separates a flip that finishes from a flip that dies halfway.

So which one do you trigger first?

The rotation. Always the rotation. But not when you think.

You don't trigger the rotation during the pop — you load it before. That's the answer, and that's what unlocks the trick: in your crouch, your shoulders deliberately wind the opposite way, towards the nose. They're under tension when the tail hits the ground. The pop stays a vertical, neutral move that turns nothing at all. And it's on the way up that you release: shoulders unwind, hips follow, the board comes along because your feet are on it.

The exact order, the one to repeat before every try: load → vertical pop → flick → shoulders unwind → back-foot catch. Five beats inside half a second. Everyone fails because they merge two of them — the load and the pop — and turn a backside flip into a failed varial.

Your three-week routine

• Week 1 — the backside 180 on its own, stationary then rolling. Goal: turn while keeping the tail perfectly vertical at the pop. Twenty a session, no more.
• Week 2 — the loose backside flip. Pop, flick, turn, don't try to land on it. Watch the board finish on the ground. If it lands flat and turned, you're ready.
• Week 3 — the catch. Back foot only, front foot after. The first roll-aways will be ugly and sideways. They still count.

Where to work on it

1. Smooth flat with a very slight slope — speed helps the rotation finish. Learning it stationary is the best way to make it harder than it is.
2. A low curb or a painted line — you need a visual marker for the half-turn. Your eyes need something to find again.
3. Never on rough ground — a half-finished backside flip means a sideways landing. You want forgiving concrete.

A backside flip isn't a foot trick, it's a tempo trick. You don't train to flick harder — you train to do nothing at all for a tenth of a second, between the pop and the flick. That wait is the hard part, and it's exactly why a landed backside flip is visible from ten metres away.

Load the shoulders. Snap straight. Wait. Scrape.