Inward Heelflip Definition

What is an inward heelflip? It’s a trick combining a backside pop shove it and a heelflip. You should have your ollies, pop shove its, backside pop shove its and heelflips down before trying to learn this one. Below is a tutorial from Garret Ginner that we uploaded so you can start off on the right foot!

Inward Heelflip Tutorial

Let’s get into the trick!

Let’s take a look at the practice steps and some common problems you might run into when learning this trick. Keep in mind, it’s good to know varial heelflips but it’s not vital. The best thing to do is try to understand how this trick works. It’s pretty complicated, and really isn’t easy. But, once you understand how it works, you’ll be able to get it down in no time!

• Foot Position
• Board Rotation
• Keeping The Board Under You
• Common Problems

Foot Position

The first step is the foot position. You may think the best foot position is to have the back foot on the tail with your toes hanging off the front edge of the board, like a pop shove it. That’s not the case with this one. The best position I’ve found is having your back foot on the tail with your toes on the back of the board and the rest of your foot off the edge, like a frontside shove it. 

The front foot is going to be like a heelflip position, with your foot below the front bolts and your toes hanging off the board. You may be asking yourself “why do I have to pop and scoop the board off the heel side of the tail?” The reason is it makes flicking easier by making the board slightly tip over to the heel side and having the toe side of the board facing up.

That way when you flick, all you have to do is flick straight in front of you and off the side towards the tail. You want your legs to be doing a scissor kick motion.

With this trick, many skaters try slight variations of this and make it work. If this isn’t working for you, try changing it slightly to see what works for you. Better yet, when you have them down, you can change it to see if it improves at all. But the above is generally the most successful foot positioning.

Board Rotation

Next up is practicing the motions to make the board spin and rotate under you. Before trying to land the trick, you’re going to want to practice landing it with your front foot to get the feel for the trick. Just keep doing a pop shove it and once the board starts spinning is the moment you go to flick.

You’re going to want to flick straight to the side towards the tail, not up or down. That’s going to be a bad habit to get into and it makes the trick a lot harder. If you flick up or down the board could easily come up in between your legs and nobody wants that.

When you’re flicking, you want to flick actually backwards toward the tail. This makes it a lot easier to actually get the rotation. The reason is because when you pop, all of your pressure is on the back of your board, due to how far back your back foot is. So, your board is going to want to turn slightly in the direction of a kickflip. But, as soon as that happens, that’s when you flick towards the back. You want to flick hard enough so you can get that full rotation.

Keeping the Board Under You

Now when you’ve got the spin and rotation down, you’re going to want to pay attention to where the board stays. If it stays in the air and underneath you, then all you want to do is jump straight up once you pop the trick. Similar to the varial flip, the practice step of landing it with your front foot is where most of the trouble is. Once you’ve got that down, simply lift up your back foot and land.

The board staying under you is the ideal way you want the trick to go down but when you’re first learning this trick your board may go in front of you. If this happens then you want to make sure you’re jumping forward once you pop the trick. That way your legs will be right above your board and ready to catch it. 

Common Problems

There aren’t too many steps to this one, but let’s go over some small problems you could run into. As with any trick, there are answers to the questions you may be asking. Here are some of the common ones.

Full Rotation

One problem you could be having is not getting the board to fully rotate or rotate at all. This could happen due to putting too much power to your back foot. Doing this makes the board do a 360 shove it instead of a regular shove it.

The inward heelflip is controlled more with the front foot than the back foot. Make sure you give the back foot just enough power to get it to start spinning. Then you do the heelflip which will get the board to finish the inward heelflip motion.

Heelflip Troubles

Another problem that can happen is not being comfortable with the heelflip part of the trick. The heelflip is a difficult trick, so make sure you really have them down. And if you’re having trouble with this, do a couple of heelflips to make sure you really have them down.

If you need some more help on the heelflip, go back and check out the heelflip tutorial below. 

Foot Position

Another problem could be with the foot position. There are many different ways of setting up your feet for the trick. An example of a different setup is given by professional skateboarder, Jonny Giger. Jonny is an incredible flatground skater, so he knows what he’s up to.

He prefers to put his front foot below the front bolts with his toes hanging off the edge. This sounds pretty normal but the two things he changes is pointing his foot towards the tail at a 45-degree angle and when flicks he flicks towards the tail of the board. He’s flicking inward instead of outward. You can try this out or experiment with your foot placement to figure out what works for you.

That’s all the steps and tips you’re going to need for the inward heelflip. All that’s left is for you to go outside, have fun, practice, and never give up! Before you know it, you’ll be an inward heelflip master. 

We want to see your best inward heelflips! Film a quick clip of you landing it and tag us @brailleskate and #brailleskate on Instagram. Let us know which part helped you out the most so we can capitalize on that for future posts.

Take a look at Jonny Giger’s video below for more information on the inward heelfip. He knows his way around this trick and is an incredibly talented flatground skater.