Ah yes, the kickflip. A major milestone in Skateboarding it has to be said, even if it has become slightly overrated recently. You are going to need to pull this trick off to be able to progress to any other really decent flip trick. (Except perhaps the varial, which I've known people to learn first.)
Anyway, to business. You're going to need your back foot in pretty much the ollie position (you can't ollie? Get out of it! I suggest you head here first) and your front foot would be best at least half-way onto the board, about 2 inches behind the front bolts, and at around a 45 degree angle (thats diagonally up and right for regular skaters and up and left for goofy, in case your maths is really not all that.) The kickflip is a fluid trick. If you're clumsy or have real big feet you may have trouble with this trick at first. I suggest you learn this trick fakie, standing still and holding onto something won't
really cut it here, because you're never going to get the hang of it moving that way. Now you're going to really bend your knees, you might have seen the pro's do it on videos, so follow suit. This is where the whole, fluid one-motion thing comes in. You need to pop, suprisingly hard. Now just as you pop, jump, spring those legs up like you're in the ballet. At the same time you're going to need to kick, that's what the trick's called after all. Kick your front foot forward and right off the end as hard as you can, the harder you kick, the faster the board spins. When it has flipped a full 360 degrees, you are going to need to catch it. Some people slam their feet down, making a
satisfying crack noise, but you're just starting and you don't want to go break your board do you? Catch it with your front foot, if it's spun too fast, you might find it has escaped you, and you're going to see it fly away and you're either gonna completely lose it, or only get one foot on. A commen problem. Your back foot should not have left the tail by too much, so position both your feet as near to the bolts as you can, and bend your knees for the landing. Now, when you get this trick town, here's some advice from Sidewalk magazine. Don't go to the first 10 step you can find straight away, because you're pretty likely to snap that tail off. Your best bet is to learn to
kickflip over boxes. Starting at shoe box size and moving up and up until you hit milk crate size. After this flipping the local 6 step will be childs play.
