Now that you’ve learned the Kickflip and know all the tricks from Skateboarding Made Simple Volume 1, it’s time to step it up even more! That’s where the Varial Kickflip comes in.

You’ve probably seen this trick and wondered, “how did they land that?”. That’s because this trick, when done correctly, looks so clean and will leave others wondering the same thing.

The good thing is, it’s not that complicated to learn. One thing to know, you’ll need your kickflips mastered before you continue onto the Varial Kickflip. Many of the steps are the same, so the muscle memory should be there already.

Before we get into the practice steps and how to actually do the trick, let’s take a look at the definition.

Varial Kickflip Definition

Varial Kickflips are acheived by combining the Pop Shove-it and Kickflip together as one trick. It’s also known as a Varial Kickflip.

Because you’re combining two tricks, it’s important you have those and a few others down. Here’s what you should know:

• Ollie
• Pop-Shove It
• Kickflip

At this point, you’re probably very comfortable with your board. Once you have those down, you’ll be in a good place to land this trick.

Check out the tutorial video below so you can see how this trick is done. Aaron goes very in depth and covers all the practice steps necessary so you, yes YOU, can master it. After you watch it, continue reading to see some extra practice steps to really get the mechanics of how it works.

Varial Kickflip Tutorial

We hope you enjoyed that video! Now let’s get into the details of the trick. Here’s what we’re going to cover in the rest of the blog post:

1. Foot Position
2. Practice Steps
3. Front Foot Flick
4. Back foot & Landing
5. Confidence

Before going on, try warming up with a few pop shove-its and kickflips. This will help get that muscle memory developed when you’re working to land the Varial Kickflip.

Foot Position

The foot position is relatively simple. It’s similar to the Kickflip, as that’s the most important part of the Kickflip.

Your back foot is going to be on the tail, with your toes hanging off the board. This is what’s going to help you get that scoop that you’re going to need to rotate the board underneath you. We’ll go over this more in detail later on.

The front foot is right underneath the top bolts. Your foot should be at a 45 degree angle. One tip that makes it easier is to be standing more towards the heelside of your board. This makes it flip faster, without you having to flick harder. When you’re flicking your front foot, you’re going to be flicking more in front of you, thus having that angle on your front foot.

Your body position is also important. When you’re watching the trick unfold, you wouldn’t see how important your upper body is. Your back should be straight, and similar to the position for the kickflip.

Practice Steps

Before we just dive into the trick, we’re going to break it down in classic Braille style.

The first and really only practice step for this trick is learning how to flip the board. You do this by doing everything as your normally would, but catch the board with your front foot. You should still scoop the board with your back foot, but then just step off with your back foot.

Practice this enough so you can get that movement that gets the board to flip under you. Once you’ve gotten that flip, the rest of the trick is just committing to putting that back foot on the board.

Front Foot Flick

Let’s dive a little deeper into that front foot. When you’re flicking with your front foot, it’s basically the same as the Kickflip. It’s the timing and the scoop from your back foot.

One piece of advice is to really flick your front foot forward off the board, like a karate kick. If you’re not doing this with your kickflips, this will give your board more time to rotate underneath you.

Going along with the practice step above, flicking the front foot with the correct amount of force could be challenging at first. After practicing this step for awhile, you will be able to get the full rotation and land it.

The Back Foot

When doing the varial kickflip, you might want to scoop your back foot with a lot of force. The truth is, it doesn’t need to be that powerful. You’ll notice in the video above, Aaron points out it’s a small nudge.

When you’re popping the board down, you’re going to pop the board straight down, with a slight nudge to get that board to rotate 180 degrees. Keep that in mind if your board starts over/under rotating under you.

Finally, when you’re ready to commit, you have to simply lift your back foot up and place it back on the board. Once you’ve got that down, you’ll be landing this trick time and time again.

If you’re still having trouble landing it, go back to the practice steps and focus on catching the board with your front foot. After that, just make sure you’re lifting your back foot up super high so you can come down and have it land under you.

Confidence

This trick is all about confidence. The practice steps involved are really all about gaining confidence so you can get that rotation down first before trying to attempt it.

As you practice this trick over and over, you’re also gaining confidence. Try practicing this trick stationary at first, and then you can work your way up to a comfortable speed. Keep going with the practice steps, go at it every day until you have enough confidence to land it and roll away!

In Conclusion

This trick really is awesome. It’s the stepping stone to learning the Tre Flip and other advanced tricks. As time goes on and you learn the Tre Flip, oddly enough your Varial Kickflips might actually get worse. If you keep them up as well as your Tre Flips, it’s a really useful trick in a game of S.K.A.T.E. Chances are, if someone has a really good Tre Flip, you’ll be able to get a letter with the Varial Kickflip.

This trick is also a good stepping stone to combining two tricks. Because you’re combining the kickflp with a pop shove it, you’re getting used to doing more advanced tricks. It’s one, very important but amazing trick once you land it!

If you want to see this and many other intermediate tricks explained in more detail, check out Skateboarding Made Simple Volume 5! Once you’ve mastered the basic tricks, Skateboarding Made Simple Volume 5 gets into the Varial Kickflip, Backside Bigspin, Backside 180 Heelflip and so many others. You CAN learn to skate, and Skateboarding Made Simple is the answer!

Finally, we want to see YOUR Varial Kickflips. Film a quick video and tag @brailleskate, #brailleskate and #brailleskateboarding on Instagram. Tell us which part of this blog post helped you the most so we can highlight it. Our goal is to help everyone get into skateboarding and push skateboarding across the world. We love seeing you guys progress and learn new tricks. The more people that are skating, the more skaters we will make! All thanks to you guys.