Skimboarding Tricks: Body Varial

How To Do A Body Varial Trick Tips

A body varial is where you jump in the air and rotate your body. This trick is often combined with other tricks, but if you are just doing a body varial, then the board would not rotate underneath you.

To do a body varial, bend your legs slightly and wind up your arms as you prepare to jump. Jump into the air and turn your body. Watch the board so you can land back on it and ride away. If you do a 180 body varial you will be riding switch after you land it.

Tips 

Rotation
A body varial can be done frontside or backside and be a 180, 360, or more. A frontside body varial is when your front shoulder rotates toward your back. A backside body varial is when your back shoulder rotates toward your back. Most people find the backside body varial a bit tricker just because you feel more “blind”.

Jump high for more rotations 
The higher you jump, the easier it will be to rotate more times.

Don’t spin the board 
This can be difficult at first because of a little physics principle called conservation of angular momentum (this usually causes the board to spin in the opposite direction of your body spin). If the board is spinning beneath you then you are relying on too much on your feet and take-off to create the spin. You want to use your upper body more. Practice this technique to help. You’ll need a partner. Stand facing your partner. Jump in the air and do a body varial. Your partner will tell you whether you will be doing your body varial frontside or backside. (They can also just say left or right if you prefer.) However, they will not tell you which one to do until after you have jumped into the air. This will give you practice using your upper body and hips to create the rotation rather than you feet to push off. That will help so the board doesn’t spin. This will be immensely helpful when you learn your bigspins. In a bigspin, you need the board to rotate the same directions as you do, but if you use your feet and take-off to create your spin, the board will spin in the opposite direction (it’s that conservation of angular momentum thing again - stinking physics!).

Learn it! 
It is definitely a good trick to get down as a beginner so that you can use it later in combination with other tricks.