Skateboarding can be a very hard thing to understand sometimes. One of those things that can be hard to learn, is the words that skaters use. Theres a lot of them and sometimes it sounds completely different from whats normal. Im gonna go over some of those terms that skaters use in this article. There will be more than what I cover, but this is the important stuff.

Frontside or Backside

Frontside or Backside (also known as "FS" or "BS") is the action of turning your body or coming at a rail or ledge in a direction. Frontside is going over your shoulder, I think of it being the way against your vision. Backside is the opposite, your turning the way you can see. AKA Frontside = clockwise rotation and Backside is counter clockwise.

Examples of usage: "Dude that Backside 180 was dope" or "Im learning how to Frontside boardslide down a handrail"

Goofy or Regular

Goofy and Regular are known as the two different "Stances". Goofy is when you stand with your right foot in the front and left foot in the back. A goofy stanced skater would push with their back foot (left foot). Regular is when you stand with your left foot forward and right foot back. A regular stanced skater would push with the right foot. An important thing a lot of new skaters think, is that its bad to skate goof. But in all reality, its just as normal as regular.

Examples of usage: "Do you skate Goofy or Regular?" or "Did you guys see that ______ skates regular?"

Pop

Pop is a common term used very often. Pop is the term for how high you can get off the ground out of any trick, such as, Ollies, Kickflips, 180's etc.

Examples of usage: "Did you see how high that guys pop is?"

Switch

Switch isnt always a common term but is important to know. Skating switch means that your skating the opposite stance of what you normally do. So if you skate Regular, while skating switch youd be skating Goofy.

Examples of usage: "I want to try switch kickflips" or "I suck at skating switch"

steez / steezy

Steez is the mixture of words "style" and "easy". It is used to describe how clean a trick looks. So if its super buttery, well preformed and overall visually pleasing and the skater makes it look like nothing, than you could use the word steez or steezy. Its slightly less used now, but its still a good word to use and know.

Examples of usage: "Did you see how steezy his tre flips are?" or "I gotta start working on my steez"

Grip Thumb

Grip Thumb is a term that is used often. It explains the weardown of the skin on your thumb from the grip tape. It can hurt and even bleed sometimes but a lot of skaters get it at least once

Examples of usage: "This grip thumb is really starting to hurt"

Closing thoughts

Those are a few terms that are good to know and also know how to use. But dont overuse all of them, you might sound a little goofy. It is a good thing to understand the way skaters talk when trying to understand what theyre saying.