We love to tease About.com’s skateboarding section. Usually it’s good natured, but this time I have to resort to outright heckling. Steve Cave has published Indy Grab – Learn how to Indy Grab – skateboarding trick tips. OK not a bad idea, except for the fact that at no single point does he mention that an Indy air MUST BE BACKSIDE or else it’s just a regular frontside or stinkbug. If you are going to help kids learn about skateboarding, stop propagating inaccuracies. As defined in About.com’s skateboard dictionary:
Definition: Indy describes a specific type of grab, where the skater or snowboarder reaches his or her back hand down and grabs the toe side of the skateboard or snowboard between the rider’s feet. The Indy is the most common type of grab in skateboarding and snowboarding. When describing grabs, the word Grab is often dropped from the name. For example, performing an Indy grab while spinning 360 degrees frontside is called an Frontside Indy 360.
Wrong, wrong, wrong! There is no such thing as a frontside indy. Oh wait, I have a box of them next to the left handed smoke benders from my snipe hunting days.
19 comments
sleezyskates
kinda digs under your skin like when little kids call miniramps “vert”
little kid says
im a street skater, i dont know how to sk8 vert
ryan heckler
well who are you going to believe, a whole generation of ‘old vert kooks’ or a video game endorsed (paid to be here) by the top professional skateboard athlete..???
Kilwag
Doesn’t have anything to do with vert or street. It’s frontside vs. backside, which is universal.
Concretin
Though said athlete is involved in the video game extensively… as were many pros in EAs Skate…
moe29
If you want to cry, just do a search for “frontside indy” on Flickr.
I think the lack of vert skating has also added to the confusion. When kids pop out of, say a bow, and grab toe side with the back hand – they’re not really going frontside or backside, so who knows what to call it.
Ryan Heckler
Lame, is what i usually call it
Shawn
Ask Duane Peters he made it up
miguel
im over the whole “fronside indy” deal Im tired of explaining it to kids. what really bugs me is the phrase “rock revert” back in my day we just said rock-n-roll or rock to fakie
Kilwag
Haven’t heard “rock revert” before. That makes even less sense since there’s no revert motion in a fakie rock.
sfah
Am I right saying that’s a frontside air not fs indy?
Kilwag
Yes!
concretin
By the above rationale, a backside Stinkbug is also an Indy… that can’t be right.
I always thought the difference between Indy and Stinkbug was your arm reaching to between your feet from behind your back knee, rather than down and between the knees… regardless of fs or bs…
But wtf do I care anyway… I can do neither. 🙁
And yes, to revert a rock-n-roll, you have to do an extra 180 on the way in, ala Colin McKay* revert nut. If you revert a rock fakie, it’s a rock-n-roll (either fs or bs). Now, perhaps they mean a rock fakie shifty (that stylin’ thing Cab does all the time on big walls).
*”Switchstance Dogsled” or maybe “Eskimo Pie to Revert”
jk
Duane should spit in the face of every kid who claims Frontside Indy Air..
Dan Hughes
As I said the last time this issue came up. I think it stems from snowboarding. Snowboarders call that particular grab an “Indy” grab, whether they are going down or up or sideways.
As snowboarding gained popularity, so did the misconception that the grab is an indy grab now matter which way you’re going.
Estes
Dan gets a PHD in figuring that out. Look at the big brain on Dan!
Danimal
these kids are more influenced by tony hawk than snowboarding, i bet more kids have played tony’s games than have been snowbording, especially all the midwest and southerners who dont have access to snowboarding like us who live near mountains.
i think you can do a switch fakie ollie in the hawk games, how is that different than a nollie?
Tony D.
Just like a fakie ollie could be a switch nollie.
enemy combatant
Give up barneys, before you become old kooks standing around babbling about semantics while everyone else drops in and rips. The kids are gonna call it whatever they like. You’ve friggin’ lost this one so just shut up and skate.