What is riding fakie on your skateboard?

One of the questions you need to answer to pass your beginner grading is, ‘what does fakie mean’?

What does fakie mean?

Fakie means, riding backwards on your skateboard. Almost every trick can be done going forwards, or backwards. When someone says that they did the trick fakie, it just means that the rider was riding backwards when they did the trick.

The stance does not change when riding fakie. Foot position doesn’t change in any substantial way. You will, however, turn your head and look in the direction you are travelling, so your upper body may rotate slightly in the direction of travel.

Is riding fakie difficult?

As a beginner in the skatepark you will learn to ride fakie early on, because the first time you learn to ride ramps, it is easiest to come out fakie, because to come out forwards you will ned to do a kick turn, which is far more difficult. If you take a lesson with us you will probably learn to ride fakie in your first lesson. We find some mellow flat banks or quarter pipes that you can ride up, and come out fakie.

Pushing fakie is hard, because, well, pushing is hard for a beginner, so, as a beginner, don’t worry about pushing fakie for now.

What is a rock fakie?

One of the first, easy tricks you might learn on a ramp is to rock fakie. This is where the front trucks go over the coping of the ramp and the middle of your board contacts the coping, with all your weight on this point of contact, the board ‘rocks’ (rock), before you put the weight back on the rear axle and you manual backwards (fakie) into the ramp.

• Learn more about how to pass your beginner grading.
• Learn how to ride fakie