Learn the half cab: prerequisites, five stages from shoulder turns while rolling fakie to a clean fakie backside 180, typical mistakes and safety.
The half cab is a fakie backside 180 ollie: you roll backwards (fakie), jump, turn board and body by 180 degrees and land rolling forward. It is named after Steve Caballero. The honest answer: if you can do the fakie ollie and the backside 180 ollie securely on their own, you usually put them together in a few sessions.
The half cab is an assembly, not a new trick. You combine two things you already can in an order that feels wrong at first because you cannot see where you are rolling at the start.
The ollie itself is a short, strong action. In seven top skaters the ground force at take-off reached about 2.2 times body weight [1]. In the ollie, kickflip and 360 flip, skaters also use a shared jumping pattern of the muscles [2]. For the half cab itself there is no measurement; the numbers apply only to those tricks.
How long it takes is experience: often a few sessions, once both parts sit.
What helps you here is less strength than balance. In a study of 45 skaters, static and dynamic balance were among the most important factors separating better from weaker skaters [6]. In the half cab you need this balance twice: once when rolling backwards and once in the landing, when your direction of travel has just reversed. So practise fakie rolling until you are relaxed doing it. Whoever is stiff on the board also turns stiffly.
Roll fakie and turn only the shoulders 90 degrees without jumping. The hips follow, the board stays on the ground. You notice how far you can turn at all. Milestone: 10 times turned cleanly without losing balance.
Jump the fakie ollie and turn the shoulders about 90 degrees in the air. The board follows only halfway, you land at an angle and roll out. Milestone: 8 of 10 landed without stepping off.
Pull the shoulders to the full 180 and let the board turn with you by the back foot pushing it. Look over your shoulder in the direction of your new travel. Milestone: 5 of 10 fully turned, even if the landing wobbles.
Land over the bolts, knees bent, gaze ahead. An attempt counts only when you are standing. Milestone: 5 of 10 landed and rolled away.
More speed, more pop, smoother landing. Only now do you take a small ledge or a line as a target. Milestone: 8 of 10 half cabs cleanly over a line.
Film check: Film yourself from behind or from the side. Do shoulders and board turn at the same time, or does the board lag behind? Count the frames in the clip between take-off and landing to judge the height.
Session structure (experience): Warm up with fakie rolling and a few ollies, then stage by stage. At most three sets of five attempts, then a break. End the session at the first messy landing.
In the half cab you start riding backwards: obstacles, walls and other skaters lie behind you. Practise only on a free surface and look around before you start.
In a survey of 197 skaters in Spain, 87.8 percent had already had an injury, most often ligament sprains of the ankle; 70.1 percent of these came back [3]. Landing with tired legs and a half turn promotes exactly that. Wrist and forearm account for more than half of skaters' injuries because people fall onto the outstretched arm [4].
In falls the head can also be hit: a review reports head injuries at up to 75 percent of all injuries, with helmet use below 35 percent [5]. When riding backwards you do not see the obstacle coming, so the helmet belongs on every session. This guide explains and motivates, it does not replace supervised training.
Draw a line on the ground with chalk and land with the turn parallel to it. This shows you immediately how far you turned too little or too much. That is much more precise than feel.
A half cab is a fakie backside 180 ollie. You roll backwards, jump, turn by 180 degrees and land rolling forward. The name goes back to Steve Caballero.
In five stages: shoulder turn while rolling fakie, fakie ollie with a half turn, complete the turn, land and stay standing, speed and height. A secure fakie ollie and backside 180 are the prerequisite.
In the backside 180 you start forward, in the half cab you approach fakie. The direction of turn is backside, but the starting position changes.
Yes, you should land the backside 180 ollie cleanly, because the half cab uses the same turn from fakie riding.
There are no data on this trick. The risk lies mainly in riding backwards and in the landing. Start on a free surface.
Learning the Backside Air: Over the Coping with Backside Turn and Grab