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Comment by rawling | Hacker News Reader

> As a last example we will describe the hardflip. This is a simultaneous half kickflip (a 180 degree rotation about the axis joining the tail to the nose of the skateboard) and a 180 degree rotation about the x-axis in the right-hand orientation.

Is it? Isn't a hardflip just a mirror of the varial kickflip they describe, and rotation around their x-axis something else entirely?

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It both is and isn't. Technically the rotation is just the inverse of the varial kickflip (a frontside varial kickflip as opposed to the "normal" backside varial kickflip").

The problem comes around that your front foot is very much in the way of the board if it is only doing an "inverse varial". The vertical (end over end) rotation comes out of necessity to get the front foot out of the way.

Plus it looks really cool.

Hah, ok. I'll go find some videos and brush up!

Varial kickflip = 180 backside shuvit + kickflip

Hardflip = 180 frontside shuvit + kickflip

The hardflip is unique in that it has two main variations. One is the end-over-end style that I think they're describing, where the board only does half a kickflip. The other is "flatter," and explicitly a 180 shuvit with a complete kickflip. In practice the end-over-end style is much more common, easier to perform, and nicer looking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNlKad9vzng

You can also steez fs flips like this as well, aka the Muska flip

The biggest difference in hardflip à is where your back foot is in relation to the board during the flip.

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