How to Switchblade | Freestyle Footwork Trick Tip

hi i'm sarah and today i'm going to talk about how to switch blade [Music] [Music] a good friend of mine in an awesome freestyler asked me if i would want to make this trick tip so i hope this is incredibly helpful switchblades are a fun little freestyle footwork trick that you can add into any line or that you can use to bring your tail from your front foot back to your back foot if you are riding a single kick the only trick that would probably be useful to know before trying a switchblade is how to do a tail stop shuffle variation so being able to pin the tail to the ground and then move and or jump back and forth between your feet would be a huge help when learning how to switch blade when i was learning this trick in the beginning i quickly realized that my foot placement seemed to be the biggest factor between making it and failing miserably so i'm going to go over a couple different foot placements and why your foot positioning matters now a switchblade is typically done with your front foot over the tail especially if you ride a single kick and your back foot near the back bolts i tend to hang my toes off the board quite a bit you don't have to hang them off if you don't want to the most important part of the foot positioning will be the front foot i've seen this trick taught by angling your front foot toward the nose where the ball of your foot is slightly toward the toe side edge of the board now i can use this foot placement now but when i first started out i found this foot placement to be particularly uncomfortable for a few different reasons one there didn't seem to be much room for me to land back on the tail when your toes start near this corner by the time the board swings around there isn't much tail to land on which led to a ton of throwing the board away there just wasn't a lot to grab onto and the board slipped away a lot if it didn't slip away i often pinched the corner into the ground causing the board to tilt or even tip over and if that didn't happen my heel would get caught on the edge of the board probably because my heel started so far away from where i was landing and whenever i landed like this i felt really unstable and almost uncomfortable it was really frustrating i was either getting caught and landing in a position where i couldn't balance or i was simply throwing the board away i quickly realized that there was a bit of a spectrum so if my toes were too close to the toe side edge of the board i was running into problems and when my toes were too close to the heel side edge i was running into problems but for different reasons luckily i realized that there was a middle ground and another variation i could use that seemed to solve both of those problems i put the ball of my foot exactly in the center of my board and kept my foot perfectly parallel in that same direction this did two things one my foot had even more room to land on the board and i even landed closer to the center and two since my heel was closer to the edge i didn't have to push the board around as hard with my back foot to clear it this was kind of my perfect medium with a lot of practice all of these foot positionings became easier i can use all of them now with semi-consistent results but definitely having my or the ball of my foot in the middle of the board in the middle of the tail seems to give me the most consistent results and it works the best for me depending on your foot size and your setup you might find one of these foot positionings to be more comfortable than the other so feel free just experiment and see what works for you the second part of the switchblade is the actual kick i like to hang my toes off the board so that i can just push it back behind me it's not a strong kick i don't use a lot of force it's more like a quick nudge and you simply need to practice to find out how hard you need to nudge your setup then while you're pushing the nose backwards your front foot does a lot more of the work right here you can see that i do this little bounce i don't really jump or hop i just do a little bounce so that my weight leaves the board just for a moment you can see how my heel lifts off the board but as soon as my bounce is coming back down and do a tiny pivot and pin the board to the ground with the ball of my foot and my weight should be centered over the ball of my foot it's almost like i was just standing up on my tippy toes just lifting my heel now this part is arguably the hardest part of the switchblade getting the perfect balance between bouncing and bringing your heel up doing a tiny pivot and pinning your foot back down is hard but you'll notice that my toes do not leave the board this is important if you hop or kick too hard you'll lose contact with the board and it will fly away so the switchblade is really made up of your front foot comfortably positioned on the nose where you feel the best and then with a little bounce you kick the board back behind you and pin the tail down with the ball of your foot now the board is in tail stop with your front foot now you need to do a little hop to get your back foot back on the tail and push those trucks back down onto the ground and that's it this is a trick that really i think anyone can learn um if you just put in a little bit of practice and try to pay attention to the details you can definitely do it and so when you're practicing this skateboard trick in particular you might want to pay attention to a few different things as there are some common problems with it at least problems that i kept running into one being balance if you're having a hard time balancing just try starting from the end just put your front foot on the tail stand on one leg and then jump to switch your feet i would actually recommend all beginners start from the end it's typically how i learn tricks and it's a great method another thing you could do is just adjust your foot positioning your foot might be landing too far to the left or too far to the right of the tail making it tough to balance when the board comes around or your toes might be too far away from the edge making it tough to land if your heel is getting caught and throwing you off balance try making your foot positioning a little more parallel to the board the closer your heel is to the toe side rail the easier it will be to make that pivot putting your other foot down is also really common at the beginning and that's fine you just need more practice once your foot positioning and balance are all figured out you'll be able to stop that if your switchblade looks like this it might be a matter of where your weight is centered your weight and balance need to be centered over your front foot or it will just slip away but then again you don't want to lean too far forward and fall another common problem is the board flying away from you you might be kicking too hard or hopping too high just remember it isn't a jump or even a push down it's more like a bounce or going up on your toes you only want your heel to leave the tail if your toes leave the tail it's going to fly away looking back and making this trick tip i kind of realized for the first time how strangely complicated this little footwork trick is but don't let that scare you you can definitely do it good luck everyone i hope this video was helpful if you have any questions or comments please leave them below i'm happy to hear from you and i hope to see you next week [Music] okay

Channel: Sarah Park-Matott

Views: 8,894

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Id: Aq9x13s6_P4

Length: 9min 9sec (549 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 07 2020