There’s a saying: just because you can doesn’t mean you should. It can apply to anything from drinking bucket loads of beer to getting free product from wacky sponsors. It also fits for tricks, including our beloved frontside boneless, which, invert craze aside, is the one I’ve noticed suffering from the most overuse these last couple of years.


I mean….I’ve seen worse but at least he’s fully padded.

But please, don’t jump to any conclusions about what I’m trying to say here. There’s some nuance, and this is more of an advice column than it is a hate column, so hear me out.

Besides having a richer heritage and a stronger pedigree than the benihana, are they really all that different? In both, a foot is dangling, the board is being manipulated by hand, and almost anyone can make them look bad. Most of us should use the boneless as a gateway trick, learn it, enjoy it for a little while, then move on.


Not half bad, this could be the distant cousin to the fs bone. Next up, the crail slide!

Depending on where it’s done, the frontside boneless should probably sometimes barely even count as a trick. If you do an ugly big heel or switch back lip, at least you did something difficult. But the issue with the frontside bone is that it’s so supremely easy that anyone can learn it in three tries, and when put in the wrong hands, which is a lot of the time, you’ve got yourself a total double whammy. If you ever find yourself hunched over, yanking on your board like a cave man to get one into the air, it’s probably time to reconsider. And since the trick falls right on the cusp of an early grab, and is also often found in the stink bug variety, it lives in a very gray area for the more rodeo stanced among us. The real trick to a frontside boneless is ALL in the style. So unless you’re sailing them out of the top of some steep terrain while looking like the smoothest of operators, you might want to not.


I’m convinced these dudes could boneless better than some pros.

In the spirit of getting along with people, I’m not going to name names, but there are certain professional skateboarders even, ones seemingly capable of doing tricks the average skater would kill for, who still will on occasion toss in a frontside boneless that is so awkward and uncomfortable in appearance that somebody (other than me) should really tell them to cut it out.


If you’re stance is anything like a rodeo cowboy, the fs bone is probably not for you.

There are exceptions. There always are. Like Curren Caples. He can blast the fs bone so high and effortlessly that it’s a thing of pure and intense beauty. Peter Hewitt is another one, his are totally wild and appear completely out of control, but at the same time they’re utterly phenomenal and being done in places that even a great skater might struggle to get his wheels on. Then there’s Mark Gonzales, of course there is. And Cab, who light on his feet even at 50 can make a frontside boneless look radical in a two-foot tall ditch.


Mark G. The best, at many things. Photo by @JGrantBrittain.

I know, some of you are thinking “Zitzer, dude, there aren’t any rules in skating, you’re blowing it.” And you’re right, well, maybe sort of right. Actually maybe you’re wrong, because the skateboarders that make the most of an impression on the rest of us are the ones that are doing the stuff that looks amazing. Whether it’s Aaron Herrington jib jabbing around or Daewon redefining the limits of human to board interaction, they’re both inspirational doing their thing because of HOW they do it and what it looks like. I think we all aspire to do the same.


Herrington, jib jabber. Photo by @PepKim from Quatersnacks.com.

So the point? Simple. You’re not fooling anyone with a sub par frontside boneless on a bank / weak hip / flat / etc. If you can make it look good, then great, but if no one has ever complimented you on how you’re doing yours, it might be a signal for you to stop, not for our sake, but for your own. And btw, this is only aimed at those of you who care. If you don’t, then by all means, keep doing them no matter what, and long live the frontside boneless!


Now THIS is a frontside boneless. Cab. Photo by @JGrantBrittain

- Paul Zitzer