Inward heelflip: why the spin feels backwards, and where it really comes from

You scoop, you flick, and the board shoots out in front of you as a varial heel. Again. You wanted an inward heelflip, you got the trick next door. Or worse, the board does a quarter turn and lands sideways under your feet.

Honestly, this trick has a weird reputation. On paper it's a heelflip and a shove-it stuck together, two tricks you already have. In your feet, nothing goes the right way.

The culprit has a name: the spin direction. The board turns the opposite way your body expects. Everybody says it, almost nobody explains why.

Here are the 6 steps, the fails to watch for, and a drill to check where you're at. And at the end, the exact reason for that backwards spin, and how to flip it in your favor.

Rodney Mullen, 1982: the heelflip is born, already spinning the wrong way

The heelflip has a father and a date. Rodney Mullen invented it in 1982, back when freestyle was the lab for all of street skating. Mullen also invented the laser flip, a heelflip mixed with a frontside 360 shove-it, which later became Torey Pudwill's signature.

Look at the family. Varial heel, laser flip: the best-known heelflip variations spin frontside. The board goes out in front of you, the same way as your flick. The inward heel does the opposite. It's the black sheep of the family.

That didn't stop it from becoming a pro weapon. In November 2012, Emerica introduced the Herman G6, Bryan Herman's signature shoe. In the launch video, he throws a nollie inward heel. Chris Cole filmed one too, coming out of a crooked grind.

No Mullen heelflip in '82, no nollie inward heel in a shoe promo thirty years later.

Read next: Varial heelflip: why your board spins out.

The 6 steps of the inward heelflip, from setup to landing

1. Back foot in shove-it position

   Toes on the heel-side edge of the tail, ready to scrape backwards. That's a backside pop shove-it setup, not a heelflip one. If your back foot sits in the middle of the tail, it can never pull the board behind you.

2. Front foot in heelflip position

   Just behind the front bolts, toes hanging slightly off the toe side. Your heel has to catch the corner of the nose. Lower than a regular heelflip, otherwise it blocks the spin.

3. The pop: a scoop, not a snap

   You snap the tail and pull it backwards in the same move, toward your heels. That scoop gives you the 180. Pop it straight like an ollie and the board won't spin enough.

4. The flick: forward, and light

   While the back foot pulls toward you, the front heel goes forward, a bit toward the nose. A sharp flick, not a kick. Its only job is the flip. The spin doesn't come from it.

5. Your body stays square

   Your shoulders don't turn. The board spins under you, you go straight up. If your shoulders follow the board, you end up doing a body varial and landing next to it.

6. The landing: back foot first

   The grip comes back around, the tail arrives under your back foot. Put that foot down first, then the front one. Knees bent, weight centered. If you roll away, it's in.

The 4 classic inward heelflip fails

The control drill: 10 shove-its, then 10 inwards standing still

Before chasing the flip, check your spin on its own. Board standing still, on a rug or in the grass so it won't roll. Do 10 backside pop shove-its in a row, front foot barely resting on the board.

Count the ones that finish at exactly 180°, tail under your back foot. Less than 8 out of 10? Don't move on. It's the scoop you need to work, not the inward.

Then the same set with the flick. Still standing, 10 tries. This time you don't count landings. You count how many times the board went the right way, behind you. One single varial heel in the set, and your back foot is still cheating.

Film yourself from the front. In slow motion, watch the tail at the pop. If it moves forward, even a few centimeters, you've got your diagnosis. And if your basic heelflip is still shaky, that's where it starts.

So where does that counterintuitive spin really come from?

From your two feet going in opposite directions. That's it, and it's huge.

On a heelflip, your front heel flicks forward, out in front of you. Your brain learned that move over months. So at the pop, your back foot follows without asking you: it pushes the tail forward too. Result, a frontside spin. The varial heel. That's why people tell you the varial heel is the "natural" way.

The inward heel asks you to break that reflex. The heel goes forward, the tail goes back, toward your heels. Both feet pull their own way at the same instant. "Inward" says it: the board spins toward you, not away from you.

The fix fits in one sentence. Split the jobs. The back foot does the whole spin, alone, like a backside shove-it. The front foot only does the flip, with a short flick that doesn't drag anything. Think "shove-it, and I drop a heel on the way", not "heelflip that spins".

At 1000 frames per second, watch the order of things. Who starts the spin, the tail or the heel? Now you know where to look.

And the day the grip comes back right under your feet, tail behind you, you'll feel it click. The spin that felt twisted becomes the only one that counts.

Your inward heel: does it go varial heel or stop at 90°? Tell us in the comments ↓