Stance Variations and What They Mean

In skating there are a number of different stances which affect not only the name of the trick being performed but the difficulty of that trick.  The two fundamental stances of skate boarding include whether or not you ride regular or goofy.  These different preferences in stance do not have any effect on the difficulty of tricks but it does classify you as a goofy stance rider or regular.   The goofy stance simply means that naturally you are more comfortable skating with your back foot as your left foot, while regular stance skaters find it more comfortable to have their back foot as their right foot.  For the rest of this article I will be explaining the different stances which affect the difficulty and names of tricks form the goofy stance perspective.  I personally ride goofy so it will be easier for me to explain the differences.  The stance variations which do have an effect on the tricks include switch, fakie, and nollie, first we will discuss the switch stance.  Skating switch simply means that as a goofy skater I am performing tricks and or riding with my back foot as my right foot.  A regular skater would be skating switch if he or she was riding in the goofy stance.  Switch tricks are much harder than normal tricks, it can be compared to writing an essay with your non dominate hand.  Fakie tricks are essentially tricks that are done riding backwards.   An example of this would be a fakie Ollie.  A fakie Ollie from the perspective of a goofy skater would mean that his left foot would be on the nose of the board when he pops the Ollie.  The last position which is typically considered the hardest stance is the nollie position.  A nollie would be doing a fakie switch Ollie.   This is hard to envision so just picture riding the board how you normally would ride but popping ticks with your front foot.  These are the stances of skateboarding which affect the difficulty and technicality of tricks.