Learn the lingo

Skateboarders have developed an extensive and ever-changing vocabulary to describe the tools, skills and tricks of the trade. This is a very limited introduction.

Last update: November 2, 2007 - 1:56 PM

A THRASHER'S GLOSSARY

• Air -- What you catch when you fly above the lip of a ramp.

• Board -- The platform of the skateboard. Typically made of layers of maple.

• Deck -- See board.

• Dropping in - Entering a feature such as a bowl from the lip.

• Flow -- How smoothly a skate park or skating area accommodates a line of successive actions.

• Grind -- Sliding down a railing or other surface on the metal of the trucks.

• Heelflip -- While doing an Ollie, heel pushes down on edge of board to turn it over.

• Iceplant -- You have to ask? It's a boneless to a fakie. (Boneless means to gain air with the assistance of your hand and front foot. Fakie is rolling backward with feet in the normal position).

• Melon grab -- Reaching behind the legs to hold the board during a long flight.

• Ollie -- Moving forward through the air on the board without using your hands; a basic trick.

• Plant -- Planting, spring planting, face planting: When the front of one's head greets the horizontal plane before any other part of the body.

• Poser -- An unskilled rider wearing new skateboard clothes and carrying an unscratched skateboard.

• Ripper, ripping-- Noun: An excellent and fearless skateboarder. Verb: Excellent and fearless skateboarding.

• Sick --Adjective or adverb describing dangerous or difficult actions well done. Can be used to mean cool or accomplished.

• Street --Currently dominant of the two main styles of skateboarding. Street features lower-to-the-ground tricks that can be improvised in any urban setting.

• Thrasher, Thrashing -- See Ripper, Ripping.

• Tight -- Cool.

• Trucks -- The axel and hardware mounted to the bottom of the deck.

• Varial gay twist - Has nothing to do with sexual orientation; the skater flies off the ramp into the air, does a 360-degree turn with a half-lateral rotation while grabbing the skateboard with the front hand.

• Vert -- Vert skating is the kind made famous by Tony Hawk, a style characterized by tricks performed on ramps designed to propel skaters high into the air.

CHRIS WELSCH

Recent Lifestyle stories

Ask Amy: Now's not the time to talk - November 2, 2007

Ask Amy: Now's not the time to talk - Dear Amy: My girlfriend wants to "talk" again. She is currently experiencing her monthly cycle. More