HAW22AXDA
G&S
G&S
SARL COVER OF
VERONE
by Don Redondo
Back...back some more...left...my left
not your left, you idiot! "Damn it, Janet," his
father swore to himself while backing the
trailer into the driveway with the family
wagon. "It's not that simple." Left is right and
right is left, the kid thought to himself, observ
ing the temporarily stalled operation. He
rolled backwards down the gradual slope of
the driveway, on his skateboard, past what
was rapidly developing into a family scene.
He carved a switchfoot turn onto the sidewalk
and threw the board into a 180° slide, emit-
ting a chattering, screeching sound and
temporarily catching his parent's attention,
before skating off to a friend's house. Now
everything was right between him and his
board, at least. The board was pointed for
ward and he had the proper foot forward, as
he pushed and carved down the sidewalk.
What I'm leading into, or rather backing
into, is "switchfoot" or backwards skating:
The surfers coined the term "switchfoot"
because a surfboard doesn't go in reverse
for long. I don't mean backwards in time or
some other kind of cinematic fantasy like
Back To The Future. Should you someday
end up backwards in time with your brand
new modern skateboard expecting to amaze
skaters of the past, I hope you run into Lonnie
Toft (father of the eight-wheeler and the
earliest "ultrawides"). Besides laughing at
your graphics, he would probably ask you
where he could get some wide trucks for his
boards-which are just as wide as yours
although no yet "in vogue" for the time. But
that's a different story.
"Fakie" comes to mind when you think of
backwards skating, but to me it seems like
a straight line type of thing and too limited.
The first time I can remember seeing the
term (and the move) was when the first ever
pipe sections were conquered at San Onofre
Nuclear Power Plant in Southern California.
Stacy Peralta and (I think) Greg Ayres had
to "fakie" to get going in the narrow pipe sec-
tions until they got high enough to kick-turn.
From the pipe sections also came the
"fakie-360º." The early half-pipes were rid-
den the same way. Whether wooden.
front/backyard structures like "the
Rampage" or the giant, slippery plexiglass
monsters that Firestone built, they had no
decks to drop in from, so you fakied to get
going. Somehow, the fakie was coined a trick
and you could get in the magazine at the time
by doing one in San Diego, no matter how
stupid it was to do something like that, or in
a one-hit swimming pool like the Kona Bowl.
Straight up and down the facewall? C'mon!
On the other side of the coin, backwards
skating was being advanced unnoticed by
guys like Kevin "the Worm" Anderson, who
could carve bowls frontwards or backwards
(switchfoot, he called it). To the untrained eye
it looked like some smooth carves, but to
anyone who has tried unsuccessfully to con-
trol a board switchfoot or backwards on a flat
sidewalk, the prospect of switchfoot vertical
carve-grinds was terrifying. Remember, there
were no copers back then either.
It looks like nothing-deceptively easy
when done smoothly. Peralta had the crowd
"up in arms" at an early bankriding contest
at the Runway Skatepark in Carson, Califor-
nia, many years ago. It was supposed to be
a bank riding contest. The judges couldn't
comprehend the difficulty (and the style) in-
volved in what Stacy was doing. Later, Steve
Olson would backwards carve almost un-
noticed, and then there was Duane.
Duane Peters rolled into pools backwards.
He may not have made up the fakie footplant
or the Miller Flip, but he made them his own.
He did invert-reverts (coming out of an invert
backwards) and fakie ollies going forward.
He went straight up the wall, hitting his front
wheels on the coping, continuing into the air
and then freefalling backwards into the pool.
It looked bizarre, but it was merely a switch-
foot fakie ollie using the nose as the tail.
Stevie came up with the Caballerial,
speeding backwards into a 360° ollie. Earlier,
Tony Jetton patented the "Jetton slide" (a)
360° thruster coming out backwards). So
many tricks, variations and combinations are
possible it's impossible to name them all:
Miller Flip, lien air to tail-revert, Bert revert,
fakie rock, backwards invert, air to fakie,
shove-its, a unit, all probably culminating with
Tony Hawk's 720° air.
The point (yes, there is one) is that the hot
skaters are adept at going forwards and
backwards, regular and goofy foot. Putting
your best foot forward isn't such hot advice
anymore, so get on it and switch!
Left: "Can you find what's wrong with this photo?"
Although still in his regular stance on this backwards
grind, it's always hard to tell which end is up when
vertical wizard Kevin Staab skates. Above: Ben
Schroeder reverts to takie from a precarious tail
touch. If you think this is easy, you don't skate.
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