The 180 is simply a rotating ollie. It can be done on flat ground as well as out of a transition ramp. The 180 rotation can be added to every skateboard trick ever made. There are frontside 180’s and backside 180’s. Mastering the 180 will give more appeal to whatever trick you want to add it to.
To do a frontside 180, place your back foot as you would for an ollie with the ball of your foot on the center of the tail. Your front foot can be placed a little past the center of the board like an ollie. When you pop your board up, rotate your body to turn in the direction of your heels and lead with your front shoulder towards that direction. If you are “goofy” footed this will be your right shoulder leading. To do a backside 180, you set up the same way but you rotate your body in the direction of your toes. Backside tends to be a little harder because you’re more prone to leaning too far forward, making it easy to slip out.
The 180 was invented by Rodney Mullen in the 70’s. It was originally done out of a ramp, not in the form of a flat ground trick. A lot of tricks like the 180 were first created by airing out of ramps. This is because the shape of skateboards back then were not designed for flat ground popping like new school skateboarding. In order to do a trick like the 180 back then, you needed to get air from a ramp. Later, when the shape of skateboards evolved to have a curved tail and nose, the 180 was performed on the ground.
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