It is an interesting time in the shove-it industry. Over the last several of years, it seemed like the shove-it was making a serious bid against the kickflip for market share over bumps-to-bars and cans, after the backside bigspin overpowered the backside kickflip in the ratio of victory-lap tricks. The recent indulgence in conventionally ‘ugly’ and ‘dad tricks’ even has found a place for the fakie frontside pop shove-it, among the least aesthetically pleasing forms. As skateboarders push out the walls to make things freer, fairer, less strictly hierarchical and more open, it is clear that the shove-it has benefited.
As a trick, the shove-it always has stood with a more utilitarian bearing than its chief rival, the kickflip. This is because the 180 degree rotation swaps the typically longer and wider nose with the shorter and sometimes more tapering tail, potentially altering the way you pop the next trick, what the next trick even will be, or any number of other butterfly-winged effects on the planet around us. A kickflip, or any of its fakie/switch/nollie versions, solely flips the board in place, leaving it in position to immediately be popped again in the pusher’s preferred position. One can kickflip a board, land and keep going, unhassled. The shove-it leaves the board in a different place, and perhaps, one’s mind as well.
Now comes Blake Norris, student of the old SF spots and gods, with a grab bag of a trick list — an inward heelflip lipslide, a blaster of a backside heelflip and a half-cab into the bloodthirstiest bank as yet unknowed by Milton Martinez. Between the China banks, the hills and a crazy one on Clipper, Blake Norris mid-line screeches a backside powerslide that quickly spins 90 degrees further into a shove-it, midway through a downhill line. For sure it’s cool to look at, as a trick, but it retains the shove-it’s purposefulness, moderating speed at the same time.
Could broader incorporation of powerslide shove-its into the ongoing hill-bomb wave, possibly elevated by the GX1000/Supreme axis, mount the shove-it’s most serious push yet to counter the kickflip? Who’s done a frontside powerslide shove-it? Speaking of shoves, will Blake Norris’ wallride nollie backside bigspin on the fence squeeze grudging approval from longtime detractors of the unfairly maligned bigspin varietal?
Tags: balling for position, Big Bear, Blake Norris, fakie frontside pop shove-its again, kickflips, knowed in the Biblical sense, more hyphens, pop shove-its, powerslide shove-it, San Francisco, sliding with power, woodgrain wheels
boil the ocean 
September 21, 2020 at 5:59 pm |
Don’t think that was an inward heel.
September 22, 2020 at 1:21 am |
Jameel Douglas recently ran a great backside powerslide shove it in a downhill line as well. Also, I feel like multiple people have done that same wallride bigspin thing at Alabama banks before
September 23, 2020 at 2:39 am |
Funny, I noticed the trick too and rewound it to confirm I saw what I’d seen…. It seems to me that regular backside powerslides, though easy enough to do, are the most difficult trick to scale up. Much more technically difficult tricks, such as bsts’ and nbs’ and every handrail variation, have been done much longer that a bs powerslide. Maybe because it’s still considered corny to wax the ground????