Additional Notes

A lot of the issues you’ll have with the fakie frontside M80 are shared with the regular M80 kickflip, but there are a few new things to consider. If the board is rotating: your feet aren’t starting out in the right position. They need to be perfectly balanced, side-by-side. Most people end up spinning the board backside (clockwise for a regular footer); if this is happening, your hooked back foot is too far back, and needs moving towards the nose. You might even want to have your back foot slightly in front of your front one if you still can’t stop it rotating. If you’re landing in front of the board: if you dip your head too far or lean forwards while setting up for the trick, the board will shoot out behind you. This is true during the take-off, too; any lean towards the nose will push the board backwards as you jump. Try to make sure you jump straight upwards and to the side. If you’re falling over a lot: don’t lean back. Never lean back. This trick will dump you out the back of the board and put you on your arse if you’re not careful. There’s no nicer way of saying it. If you lean back, you will fall over. If you can’t find the tail: it could be that you’re jumping slightly towards the nose, pushing it behind you. But it’s also likely that your board is too long; the longer the board is, the further you’re going to have to stretch to find the tail, and considering how twisted up your body is, that stretch is going to make it a lot more difficult. If the 180 seems impossible: make sure you’re not returning your shoulders to a regular riding stance. They need to face the nose all the way through the trick – even as you roll away. Any other shoulder position will kill the 180 dead. If the 180 feels heavy: you’re probably using a board with a steep kicktail. The steeper the kicktail, the more effort a board takes to move through an endover, and this trick will really highlight the need for extra energy. It’s not impossible to do – but you will need to force it a lot more. If you’re never quite making a full 180º spin: there’s a good chance you’re going too slow. This is a very picky trick. Go too fast and it’ll fly out of control. Go too slowly, however, and you’re going to struggle to get a clean 180 turn after the flip. Play around until you find the sweet spot. If you’re finding it hard to get a clean takeoff: tighten your trucks. You don’t have to lock your kingpin nut way down, but a super-floppy setup will be really uncomfortable and make learning this trick far more effort than it needs to be. You also risk wheelbite catching the board to pivot if your trucks are too loose, and considering you’re rolling backwards, that’s not a fun way to slam. Finally, one last note courtesy of Eric Schäder from Sweden: he found it difficult to keep his shoulders square when he was trying this trick. His fix for this was to hold his back arm straight out in front of him as he did the trick, using his arm as an anchor point to stop him pulling his shoulders back in line with the board. If simply staring at the nose isn’t working for you, give this arm position a try!