How to 360 Flip (Tre Flip)

The 360 flip, or tre flip, causes a lot of people a lot of problems. It looks simple: a varial kickflip with an extra spin. From a technique standpoint that’s right. But the trick is hard, and I’ve run into pretty much every problem it has over the years. Here’s how to work through them.

Are you ready for this?

Before anything else, make sure you’re actually ready. I don’t mean any specific trick. I mean being comfortable on your board: rolling, landing clean and knowing where your feet are.

If you can do no comply bigspin flips, backside bigspins or even impossibles (which I think are a bit easier than this), and do them cleanly, you’re probably ready.

A couple months after learning kickflips, I was trying 360 flips over and over and getting nowhere close. I had the ingredients, but I wasn’t ready. If this trick isn’t working for you, step back, learn some other stuff and enjoy skating more. Then come back to it.

Foot position

• Back foot: in the pocket of the tail. You want a balance between a scoop and a pop. A pop sends the board up. A scoop pushes it around. The 360 flip needs a little of both.
• Front foot: start from your kickflip position and move it back a little, to around the center of the board. Keep it as far forward as you can.

People learning these often put their front foot way back, almost touching the back bolts. You can make the board spin and flip like crazy from back there, but it’s much harder to keep it with you and land on it. I can make a board do a 720 triple flip. That doesn’t mean I can do that trick. It lands 20 feet away.

How far on or off the board your front foot hangs is mostly a troubleshooting thing. More on that below.

How to 360 flip

Keep your shoulders square

You hear this a lot, but on this trick it’s really important. Keep your shoulders lined up with the direction you’re going, parallel to the board. I have a bad habit of facing forward when I do tricks, and it makes this one a lot harder.

Pop and scoop

Pop it down and pull your back foot toward the middle of the board and behind it, like you’re drawing a circle in the air.

If it’s not spinning enough or it’s flying away from you, you might want to scoop the board way out. Don’t. You’ll scoop the board out ahead, your front foot will be flicked out, your back foot will be scooped out, and then you have to throw your feet back to land. You’ll be off balance and shoot out.

Also don’t let the board stay too flat, like a regular non-pop shove it. The board pivots around the back truck, and if you’re centered over the board while it pivots around the back truck, it gets farther away from you. Keep it poppy, so the tail touches and scoops without the wheels.

Flick forward

The flick is actually easier than when you learned kickflips. It’s hard to mess up. Since the board is spinning, you flick more forward than off to the side. Maybe even angled slightly the other way, and it’ll glance off the board fine.

One spin and one flip balance each other out really well. If it goes right, the board comes around and you land it.

You’ll hear that you should catch it with your front foot first. One-foot catches were a big style for a while. That’s style, though. Get to where you can land it first, then worry about how it looks.

Troubleshooting

This trick is all about balance. Not enough spin might be your flick. Too much flip might be your scoop. Getting all the variables lined up takes time.

The board flips too much

The board flips two or three times and lands way over there. Don’t change your flick or your ankle motion. Move your front foot. It’s probably too centered on the board for the angle you’re using. Hang it a little more off the side so it glances off the board and helps instead of grabbing it.

Turning frontside

Your feet are bolts distance apart in the air, but you land turned. Back toe off one side, front heel off the other. You’re scooping backside pretty hard, which pushes your body frontside. That’s why square shoulders matter.

That might not be enough on its own. When I first learned these, I wound up like a backside flip before the trick, and it really helped. I still land some and have to nose pivot because my shoulders are fighting me. Eventually you’ll pop the board more end over end, which is how the pros deal with it. That won’t turn you frontside, but that’s a ways off.

Landing on the nose

This is the big one, and you’ll probably fight it for a long time. You land on the tip of the nose with the board slightly behind you.

How not to fix it, which is what I used to do: start with your weight forward, lean back during the trick and throw the board way out in front. It works on flat, but you’re off balance. Try it higher, over something or down something, and it falls apart.

Fix it with your front foot instead. When the board flips too much, it’s grabbing your front foot too hard. Here, you want the opposite: let it grab a little more. Move your foot a bit more toward the center, and flick so it pushes the board out ahead as it flips. With a 360 pop shove it, there’s no front foot at all, and it all comes down to your scoop and balance. On the 360 flip, your front foot can push the board back under you.

Not enough spin, or landing sideways

That might be your shoulders again. Wind up a little and throw it as hard as you can. The really good guy at the park might not wind up, but it’s a way to learn the technique. Even after years of 360 flips, I have to throw my switch ones as hard as I can. It’s not harder switch. The technique just isn’t refined yet.

Last resorts: fakie and stationary

If you’ve tried everything and moved your feet a million ways, try these:

• Fakie. This is what I used to do. If you’re rolling backward and pop the tail, the board can go behind you, and you catch up with it in the air. It builds confidence and gets you used to the board in the air, but it won’t make your regular 360 flips better.
• Stationary. This is how I learned, and I don’t recommend it. You might land one and feel like you’ve got it, but not notice you landed way over there. You can’t roll forward, jump backward and land on it.

Use these only if you’re still figuring out how to make the board do the trick at all. If the problem is staying over it, keep going forward and work through the steps above.

If none of this is working yet, take a break, skate some other stuff and come back. Be patient and stay balanced.