How to Nosestall

The nosestall is a really important trick to learn on a ramp, because it gets you used to being up on top of the deck. With some stalls, you can ride up, catch the coping and come back in with your body leaning completely inside the ramp. The nosestall gets you used to being all the way up on top of the coping, and that helps a lot with tricks you’ll learn later.

Before you start

You need to be able to drop in, since that’s how you start the trick.

Foot position

Drop in with your front foot solidly on the nose. It doesn’t need to be in a pop position or anything like that. It should be nice and stable.

How to nosestall

1. Get your speed right

Pump. You need some speed for this trick, and it helps to have too much at first.

With too much speed, you come up, keep going and step off. With too little, you try to get the board to touch, it doesn’t quite make it, the board shoots out and you fall forward. It’s a lot better to start with too much and work down than to start too slow and work your way up.

2. Pretend it’s a curb

The way I got this trick to work was to pretend there was no ramp, just a curb. If you’re skating a curb, you don’t ride into the side of it first. It’s the same with your ramp. You start on the flat bottom, the coping is the curb, and you’re jumping up and landing in a nosestall on it. You’re not riding the transition, stopping and coming back. You go straight up and hit it.

3. Put weight on the nose

As you go up the transition, the board tilts, so start putting weight on the nose. The more weight you put on it, the slower it feels like you’re going, because the nose is coming back down. Get the timing right and you land up in the nosestall.

That part is all timing and balance. It depends on your ramp and how tight the transition is, so it’ll take some experimenting. Just getting up there shouldn’t give you much trouble.

4. Get back in

If you step off, it’s no big deal. Step back on and try to come back in anyway.

To get back in from a nosestall, you have to drop in switch. Landing the stall isn’t as hard as that. A rock to fakie is different, because you never really leave the inside of the ramp. You just rock on the coping and come back in. A nosestall is like setting your board on the coping, standing on it and dropping in switch.

So go quickly. Don’t land the stall, slide the board a bit, set your foot up, get ready, look and then go. That makes it just like a standing switch drop in. Come up, touch the nose down, count about a half second to a second and go for it. Keeping your momentum going helps a lot.

Troubleshooting

Not getting up on top

The main problem people have with this trick is not keeping their back straight. They come up with the speed, but their body isn’t vertical. Go straight up to the coping like it’s a curb.

Shooting out or stepping off

That’s your speed. Too slow and the board shoots out. Too fast and you keep going and step off. Start fast and work down.

Taking it further: the nosestall revert

A popular add-on that isn’t too hard is a revert. Exactly how you do it depends a lot on your ramp.

• Sticky ramp: I have to spin most of the way in the air and land in a slight pivot.
• Slick ramp (skatelite, polished concrete): start to spin and get the front truck sliding down. It’s not that hard to get the full slide on a ramp like that. Once the truck starts sliding, shift your weight to the back truck and pull it around from there.

On a sticky ramp, make sure your weight is on the tail, since your back foot is still on it.

For a backside revert, come up with your shoulders already turning that way, the same as a rock and roll. Then scoop the nose around. You can do them frontside too. Like the stall itself, it’s mostly experimenting with timing for your ramp.

What’s next

Once you’re comfortable on top of the coping, keep building your ramp tricks from the ramp + transition section.