Skate glossary
The words you hear at every park, from goofy and nollie to manual, grind and sesh.
Stance
- Regular: left foot forward. Goofy: right foot forward.
- Switch: riding with your other foot forward.
- Fakie: rolling backwards in your normal stance.
- Nollie: popping off the nose instead of the tail.
Tricks
- Ollie: popping the board into the air with no hands. The base of almost everything.
- Flip trick: the board spins under you (kickflip, heelflip, varial).
- Shove-it: the board turns 180 degrees under you without flipping.
- Manual: riding on two wheels, the back ones (a nose manual is on the front ones).
- Grind: sliding on the trucks along a ledge or rail. Slide: sliding on the deck itself.
Spots
- Ledge: a box or edge to grind and slide on.
- Rail: a metal bar, flat or down a set of stairs (a handrail).
- Bank: an angled wall or slope.
- Gap: something you jump over or down, like a set of stairs.
At the session
- Sesh: a skate session.
- Line: a run of tricks one after another.
- Bail: abandoning a trick to land safely.
- Game of SKATE: one skater sets a trick, the other matches it, and misses spell S-K-A-T-E.
