Skateboarding: Linking Tricks

What does it mean to 'link your tricks' in skateboarding?

It's just consistency. When you link your tricks together, it's being spontaneous as well as consistent, and it just makes the skateboarding look that much more impressive. Aesthetically, it's just more beautiful, and the consistency with putting one move together with another one. It's just, link two things. Like with surfing, to where on wave, you do a bottom turn, you cut back, you hit the lip, you just like put everything, it all has a function. And usually one move leads to the next to where you're hitting different parts of the course, especially in a skate park, to where you're getting maximum potential out of the terrain.

What is a good way to combine skateboard tricks?

The main thing is just to connect the lines to where you do not slow down, or get bogged down, or have to stop. To where you just go from point A to point B without stopping as fast as you can, as fast and high and as hard as you can. And you just connect all those lines to where it's just one flawless, continuous, just beautiful thing.

What combination of skateboard tricks will get me respect from other skaters?

What can be impressive to one skater won't be impressive to another, depending on what kind of things they're into. And a lot of it revolves around personal preference. Some kid will do a kick-flip trick and you'll say, "Ah yeah that was alright." But then a guy will come along and do a huge 540 Arial like 10 feet out or whatever and you'll be like, "That was rad". So it just depends what you're into.

What type of skateboard is best for combining lots of tricks?

A lot of technical boards are smaller than little street-shaped boards that really don't have much of a template to them; they're just kind of a double-ender. For skate parks and pools and stuff like that, we ride a bigger, wider board. Not only is it wider and longer, but it also has a bigger wheel base. And then for really going fast and doing crazy high-speed manoeuvres and stuff, you usually ride a long board. Something 36 or longer, usually at least nine inches wide. For some of the bigger stuff, myself, I ride a 34 by 10 with a 16-inch wheel base.