Half Cab

A 180° fakie ollie – half a cabalerial.

Half Cab Impossible

A half cab impossible is a combination of a half cab and a fakie impossible, often confused with a rolling nosehook impossible.

The way to tell is to look at the front foot, obviously. Also, nosehook impossibles tend to stall on the tail slightly, while the half cab impossible is more of a fluid motion. If you watch, Mullen’s are almost always nosehooks, and not half cab impossibles.

Half Pipe

The primary structure used in vert skating consisting of two concave ramps (or quarterpipes) facing each other. Originally a half pipe was simply that – a cross section of half a pipe – but modern half pipes usually have an area of flat ground between the transitioned sides to enable the skater more time to regain his balance between tricks and prepare for the next trick. Half pipes take two main forms – small mini ramps, used more for lip tricks and aimed largely at beginners, and vert ramps which feature a purely vertical wall at the top of the transition.

Hand Casper

A casper with the nose held up by one or both hands in any way at all.

Handplant

A generic name for any move where a hand is placed on something to support the skater. The term generally refers to an invert variation, though.

Handstand

Much like the much-loved staple product of any British DIY’er, Ronseal, this does what it says on the tin. You just do a handstand on the board. Comes in fetching one handed, rolling, rail stand and English variants, with many different flips, shuvits and fingerflips out.

Handstand Fingerflip

These are slightly different to your basic handstand flips. Whereas handstand flips are pulled towards you, handstand fingerflips are flipped the other way, meaning that you actually have to use a hand at either end (like a cannonball grab) to actually flip the board.

Handstand Flip

There are many different types of handstand flip, the “basic” handstand flip involves gripping onto the toeside edge of the deck with your hands while in the standard handstand position and kicking your legs in the air to launch you upwards so you can flip the board under you – much like a monkeyflip.

Other types of handstand flip include varialflips, 360 flips, railhandstand flips, one handed handstand flips and english handstand flips. Note that handstand shuvits and handstand fingerflips can also be done, but both use a slightly different technique.

Handstand Shuvit

Yep, like flips, shuvits can also be done from a handstand. I’ve also heard of handstand bigspins being done, but have yet to see one.

Hang Ten

Refers to a stance where the skateboarder has both feet facing forward on the nose. It’s named after a surfing trick where the surfer would hang their ten toes over the nose (not necessary in skateboarding, obviously). A hang ten nosemanual is possible if your balance is godlike.

Hangtime

The name given to the period of time spent in the air after launching from a half pipe, ramp, kicker or any other obstacle.

Hardflip

Apparently this is *the* tech trick of modern day street skating. This is a varial kickflip done the difficult way – you should know what a varial kickflip is before you try and grasp the hardflip.

The varial is popped frontside instead of backside, meaning that your front foot has to flick off the leading edge of the skateboard as it rotates to get the board to flip, making it very awkward.

To do this, you can ‘cheat’ and turn frontside in mid air, allowing the skateboard to flip between your legs, before turning back again to catch the board and land the trick. This is often known as an illusion flip. This variation doesn’t look like a varial kickflip, which goes a long way to explaining the confusion that surrounds them. When you watch someone doing one, it looks like the board is doing half a back flip and half a kickflip. The trademark of this – the illusion flip – is the way the skateboard flips between the legs rather than under the feet.

The ‘proper’ way, if such a term can be used in skateboarding, is to make the skateboard do the varial under the feet. This is much more difficult and rarely looks as smooth as the easier version. This trick is the opposite of an inward kickflip.

Hardware

The collective name for the nuts and bolts which hold the trucks to the deck.

Heelflip

A variation on an ollie where the skater flicks his front foot off the toe edge of the board as he ollies, causing the board to flip once, twice or even three times. This is the opposite (and usually more difficult version of) a kickflip.

Heelie

A wheelie performed with both feet on the tail of the skateboard facing forwards – similar to a hang ten nose manual, except at the other end of the skateboard.

Heelside

Like frontside and backside, heelside is used to further define some rail tricks and tricks involving a flip, in this case towards the heel edge of the skateboard. This originated in flatland skateboarding where, along with the toeside definition, tricks could be better described. Still a useful term today if you are into fingerflips, rail flips etc…

Helipop

A 360° frontside nollie. That is, a three hundred and sixty degree ollie off of the nose of the skateboard. The helipop was invented by Rodney Mullen, and he would later invent the helipop heelflip.

Ho Ho Plant

A handstand done with both hands on the floor/coping, feet fully extended, and the board resting on top of the feet in what would be a normal riding position. Can be done as an invert on vert, from a street plant, or as a yoyo plant variation.

I heard rumours that a US freestyler called Terry Synnott can do yoyo-to-hoho plants and do ollie kickflip and shuvit variations while in the Ho-Ho position. Mad.

Hospital Flip

A type of casper flip. A half kickflip to casper position in mid air, followed by a varial half underflip with your front foot to get your board back the right way up.

Hurricane

This combo grind trick consists of a 180° ollie into a fakie feeble grind. In more detail, a feeble grind is where the back truck grinds the obstacle with the front truck next to the obstacle on the toeside. The deck is therefore pointed downwards and the underside of the deck itself often slides along the obstacle as well. So do that backwards after ollying 180° and you’ll be doing a hurricane grind.