The Inward Heelflip: Skateboarding’s Ugliest Trick?
There are ugly tricks in skateboarding.
And then there is the inward heelflip.
The kind of trick where your first reaction isn't always “that was sick.”
Sometimes it’s more like:
“Wait… was that actually a trick?”
The board spins in a direction your brain doesn’t expect. The feet look like they are fighting for control. The whole thing looks like a kickflip and a heelflip got mixed together, had a bad day, and somehow became a real trick.
It’s awkward.
It’s weird.
It’s confusing.
And somehow, people still love it.
In our latest DOSE video, Gino Körner made a controversial statement: the inward heelflip might be the ugliest trick in skateboarding.
And judging by the reaction, he hit a nerve.
Because apparently nothing gets skateboarders talking faster than insulting a trick they may or may not like.
The Great Inward Heelflip Debate
The comments immediately split into two groups.
The first group:
“Finally, someone said it.”
The second group:
“You don’t understand style.”
And honestly?
Both sides have a point.
Because skateboarding has always had this weird relationship with what looks good.
There are tricks that everyone agrees are beautiful.
A clean kickflip.
A perfect backside flip.
A smooth frontside air.
Then there are tricks that look completely wrong… until the right person does them.
The inward heelflip belongs to that second category.
Who Are We Actually Trying To Impress?
One comment under Gino’s video asked the most important question:
“Does the trick feel good to do? Why worry about what it looks like to other people? Who do you skateboard for?”
And that might be the most skateboarding comment possible.
Because somewhere along the way, skaters started judging tricks based on how they look from the outside.
Especially now.
With Instagram clips, slow-motion edits, and everyone watching everyone else skate, there is more pressure than ever to have “good-looking” tricks.
But skateboarding was never supposed to be gymnastics.
Nobody gave a damn about perfect form when someone invented half the tricks we love today.
A lot of skateboarding’s best moments came from people doing something weird and making it their own.
The Haters Might Actually Be Wrong
The funniest thing about the inward heelflip is that it only looks terrible when it’s done badly.
And let’s be honest, a bad inward heel looks terrible.
But so does a bad kickflip.
A bad backside 360.
A bad frontside air.
The trick is not always the problem.
The skater is.
When someone with real style does an inward heelflip, suddenly everyone changes their opinion.
The comment section even brought up skaters like Shuriken Shannon, who have made the trick look smooth, controlled, and honestly pretty beautiful.
Other skaters mentioned names like Wieger Van Wageningen and Richard Mulder as examples of people who proved the trick can look good.
Maybe the inward heel isn’t ugly.
Maybe most people have just never seen a really good one.
The Huzz Probably Doesn’t Care Anyway
One comment joked:
“the huzz can’t tell the difference.”
And there is some truth to that.
The average person walking past a skate spot probably isn’t analyzing whether your trick was an inward heel, a varial flip, or some strange combination nobody has a name for.
They just see someone flying through the air on a piece of wood.
The pressure to make tricks look cool mostly comes from other skateboarders.
Which is funny, because skateboarders are probably the hardest people in the world to impress.
You can land something that took you six months to learn, and someone will still say:
“Yeah, but have you tried it switch?”
Skateboarding Needs Ugly Tricks
The inward heelflip is not the only trick with a bad reputation.
Varial flips have been hated for years.
Dolphin flips have caused arguments.
Pressure flips have confused entire generations of skaters.
But maybe these tricks are important.
Because if every trick looked exactly the same, skateboarding would lose what makes it interesting.
The weird tricks create personality.
They show how different people move.
They show that skateboarding isn't about copying a perfect formula.
It’s about finding your own way of doing something.
Maybe The Ugliest Tricks Are The Most Skateboarding
The best thing about skateboarding is that it has never been completely logical.
Nobody looked at a skateboard and thought:
“This is the most efficient way to move around.”
Nobody thought:
“Jumping down stairs repeatedly is a smart hobby.”
Skateboarding has always been about doing things because they feel good, not because they make sense.
Maybe the inward heelflip is ugly.
Maybe it’s beautiful.
Maybe it doesn’t matter.
Because at the end of the day, the most skateboarding thing you can do is take a weird, difficult, slightly ridiculous trick and spend months trying to make it work.
And honestly?
That’s probably why we love skateboarding in the first place.
Before you start defending inward heels in the comments, watch the full video below:
