Everyone’s favorite sponsored skateboarder from the San Francisco Bay Area is here to teach us how to varial kickflip. That’s right! Aaron Kyro is passing on his varial flip knowledge to the next generation, so if you’re looking for a new trick to add to your arsenal, look no further! Before you start learning the varial kickflip, there are a few tricks you’ll need to know.

Tricks You Should Know

 The most important thing to know before trying to varial kickflip is how to ride your skateboard. You’ll want to feel extremely comfortable riding your board, so be sure to take your board everywhere with you and ride it as much as possible! Once you’re comfortable riding, you’ll want to know how to ollie, frontside and backside 180, pop shove it, and kickflip. Make sure you have consistent kickflips and pop shove its, as you’ll be combining those two tricks for the varial kickflip.  

Foot Position

Set your front foot up in the same position as a kickflip, just below the front bolts at about a 45-degree angle. The back foot is in the middle of the tail near the very edge. You shouldn’t hang your toes off of the tail, as you’ll be popping straight down and pushing back slightly rather than scooping the board.

Practice Step

A great practice step to try is doing the varial kickflip while stationary and planting your back foot on the ground once you pop the trick. This way you’ll only need to land the varial kickflip with your front foot. This will help you learn the motions for both the popping down of the back foot and the flicking of the front foot. Pop, flick, watch it spin, then land with the front foot. Aaron recommends doing this over and over again until your completely comfortable with doing the varial flip and landing it with your front foot only.  At this point, all you’ll need to do to land a legitimate varial flip is bend your back knee which will lift that back foot off the ground. Then you can spot your board, land on the bolts, and roll away clean. 

Things That Can Go Wrong

It’s very common to both under-rotate and over-rotate the pop shove it portion of the varial kickflip. Another common issue is over-flipping or not flipping the board enough, which can result in you landing primo…Ouch. If you find yourself encountering any of these issues, simply go back to the practice step mentioned above and drill it until you are rotating perfect varial flips more consistently. 

How To Varial Kickflip

1. Ride at a comfortable speed with your feet set up in the varial kickflip position.
2. Pop straight down, then quickly push back with your back foot.
3. As your board comes up, flick off with your front foot.
4. In the air with your knees bent, watch the board’s rotation then catch it with your front foot.
5. Bring the board down, get your back foot on the bolts, then roll away clean.

Check out our updated varial kickflip tutorial below. Aaron goes over all of the details, Mogely gets bodied and you’ll also get to see some incredible varial kickflips in stunning slow-motion. We hope this helps you with your varial flips, now get out there and SKATE!