Skateboard Trick Nomenclature

Due to the incredibly large and complex trick space, a naming convention should be established in order to catalog and identify all possible trick variations.

One way to do this is to use a constructor method of identifying tricks. The idea behind this is similar to how prime factorization in number theory works.

A prime factorization is a way to represent any number as a product of prime numbers. Recall that prime numbers can only be divided by themselves and one. Every single number has a unique prime factorization.

Here is a brief table of prime factors

Number	Prime Factorization
2	21
3	31
4	22
5	51
6	21 * 31
20	22 * 51
36	22 * 32

How Does This Apply to Skateboard Tricks?

Essentially, every skateboard trick can be broken down into component parts, or fundamental movements. What constitues a fundamental movement?

Though it may be open to interpretation, there seems to be an intuitive approach to this problem. Consider:

The Skateboarding Primes

Every standard flatground ("flip") trick can be uniquely described by the following movements:

Board flips about the X axis

Kickflip
Heelflip

Board rotates about the Z axis

BS Varial (or shuvit**)
FS Varial

Body rotates about the Z axis

BS Body Varial
FS Body Varial

Note: what about the Y axis? This is a special class of tricks that include the "Impossibble", but we will omit this for now for simplification/brevity sake. We will also omit the ability for our bodys to do backflips and frontflips for the same reason.

Consider these 6 motions as the "prime or fundamental movements". All (flatground/flip) tricks can be described as a unique combination of these movements. Below is a table of prime factorizations of some common skateboard tricks. Keep in mind that just as there can be multiple of the same prime number in a prime factorization for a given number, there can be multiple of the same prime movement, such as two kickflips or 3 board rotations (540 degrees). In this case, we use the terms "Double" or "Triple" or a degree of rotation to indicate. This usage of double or 360 is analougous to the use of an exponent where 2² just means (product of) two twos.

Trick	Prime Factorization	PF Simplified - w/ Conventions**
Kickflip	Kickflip1	Kickflip
Varial Flip	Kickflip1 * BS Varial1	BS Varial Kickflip
Hard Flip	Kickflip1 * FS Varial1	FS Varial Kickflip
Trey Flip	Kickflip1 * BS Varial2	BS 360 Varial Kickflip
Lazer Flip	Heelfip1 * FS Varial2	FS 360 Varial Heelflip
FS Big Spin	FS Varial/Shuvit2 * FS Body Varial1	FS 360 Shuvit**
BS Gazzelle Double Flip	Kickflip2 * BS Varial3 * BS Body Varial2	BS 540 Varial Double Kickflip BS 360 Body Varial
BS 360 **	BS Varial2 * BS Body Varial2	BS 360
FS 180 Double Heelflip **	Heelfip2 * FS Varial1 * FS Body Varial1	FS 180 Double Heelflip

Conventions**

When the board and body share the same rotation, we can omit the separation of a board and body varial and combine into a single term denoted by just the degree of rotation, i.e. "180", "360", "540", etc.

The order does not matter. A "Kickflip FS Varial" is equivalent to "FS Varial Kickflip". But we will stick with the convention that best matches current naming systems.

I use the term "varial" when a flip is involved and "shuvit" when no flip is involved simply to appease the masses.

Purpose

I hope that the advantage to using this naming convention is obvious. It allows us to "construct" tricks in a way to be sure we include all possible variations or combinations of movements. It also allows us to classify and cateogorize tricks if we want which is useful for filtering and other applications. It also allows us to better catalog tricks for machine learning procedures. Identifying parameters ahead of time for the ML model greatly simplifies the identification procedure. It's the difference between guided and unguided learning.

How Many Trick Combinations?

Consider this example:

Let's put a limit on the number of flips or rotations we can achieve. Say, no more than 2 kick/heel flips + no more than 3 board rotations + no more than 2 body rotations.

Total Combinations = (2*2 * 2*3 * 2*2) + (2*2 * 2*3) + (2*2 * 2*3) + (2*2 * 2*2) + 14 = 96 + 24 + 24 + 16 + 14 = 174

174 is a manageably small number of tricks. You might wonder if it was really necessary to do all this work, surely there are a few more animal names we can conjure to denote the more obscure variations?

But let's see what happens when we continue to build out the trick space...

Adding just one more possible movement whether it's an extra kickflip or rotation will grow our trick space exponentially. You may shrug them off as tricks that are so rare or improbable that "who cares?" is a perfectly valid response. But many tricks that were deemed out of reach are being done all over the world. 900 shuvits. 360 triple flips. Heelflip 540 Body Varial. Rare as they are, these tricks have been done and it is likely that more will be achieved in our lifetime. The goal of this database is to incorporate not just everything that's been done, but also COULD be done, even with a megaramp or if you're Jamie Griffin.

Beyond the Basic Flip Tricks

Starting with our modest set of 174 flatground flip tricks, we have learned that this list could grow exponentially when new fundamental movements are added. But the exponentiation doesn't end there, in fact it's just getting started...

Stance, Grinds/Slides, Manuals, Grabs, Freestyle and More...

Here's a quick exercise to fully grasp the breadth of our trick space:

Consider our starting set of 174 flatground tricks. Now consider that each version can be done from four different positions (Normal, Switch, Nollie, Fakie). This will multiple our trick space to 696.

Now let's consider the fundamental grinds/slides (all grinds and slides will simply be referred to as "grinds" from now on).

1. 50-50
2. 5-0
3. Smith
4. Feeble
5. Suski
6. Salad
7. Nosegrind
8. Crooked
9. Overcrook
10. Willy
11. Overwilly
12. Boardslide
13. Lipslide
14. Noseslide
15. Tailslide
16. Bluntslide
17. Nose Bluntslide

Without getting overly complex and by ignoring certain tricks such as dark slides, casper slides, and primo slides, we can see that by including these grinds into the trick space, we now have 969*17 (flip/grind combo) + 17*4 (grind/position combos) + 969 (original flip tricks) new tricks available when we consider the grinds, positions and possible flip-in movements which equals a total of... 16,473 + 68 + 969 = 17,510. Oh and you can do each grind BS or FS. So double the previous value excluding the 969 and we get 32,946 + 136 + 969 = 34,051 tricks.

Okay, so far we have over 34,000 tricks available and we are still only considering a relatively small subset of tricks. We haven't even included grabs, manauls, or considered combos more than just 2 tricks. Think about how fast this number will grow once we add a possible flip-out. Now add the dozens of grabs into the mix. Include manuals. Include the ability to string 2 different grinds together...etc.

Continuing to tally the trick space starts to get a little more complex because there are certain tricks that are not possible. For example, you can not Nollie out of a 5-0 grind, or a manual, or any grind that solely rests on the back truck. The inverse is also true. So we have to be careful about mathematically including impossible tricks.

Anyway, the process continues to become more complex and I will refrain from further details here, but if you are genuinly interested in what I've done, and how I currently have a list of 45,000+ valid tricks using this naming system, I realize that there are actually MILLIONS or even HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of reasonably possible trick combinations and variations and the best way to cover them all systematically is to use a constructor method. The particular constructor method I use is analagous to prime factorization, a method taken from Number Theory which "builds" composite numbers uniquely out of prime products.