Floor: First Tricks
Zero to your first real tricks — no flips required. Rolls, wheels and ground moves that build the body control everything else stands on. Graduate to the Tricking Starter Pack when these feel easy.
The safety roll converts the momentum of a drop, trip or overshot landing into a roll instead of an impact. From a staggered stance with the same leg forward as the rolling shoulder, the hands go down inside the knees and the body folds diagonally from one shoulder across the back to the opposite hip, with the chin tucked so the head never touches the ground. That diagonal line keeps the spine off the floor and spreads the force across the back muscles, and staying rounded lets the roll flow straight back up to the feet and into a run. The most common fault is rolling square down the spine or jumping onto the back rather than lowering into it, so early reps are best done slowly from kneeling, and the roll should be learned on both sides since a fall rarely picks the convenient shoulder.
💡 Learn to fall before you learn to fly.
The foundational inverted balance: hands, shoulders, hips and feet stacked in one straight line, arms locked, legs glued together with toes pointed. The standard entry is a deep lunge, tilting forward like a seesaw so the straight back leg rises as the hands take the weight, then drawing the second leg up to meet it. Balance lives almost entirely in the hands — press through the fingers when tipping over, through the heel of the palm when falling back — while the rest of the body stays rigid like one stiff piece; a floppy line cannot be balanced from below. The head stays neutral with the ears between the arms, since craning to look forward pulls the shape apart. Bail safely by cartwheeling out or tucking the chin into a forward roll. The position hides inside half the catalog: cartwheels, handsprings, gumbi, macaco and 1990s are all handstands in disguise.
💡 The straight body line every trick borrows.
A cartwheel travels sideways along a straight line, passing through a straddled handstand and back to the feet — hand, hand, foot, foot. It starts from a lunge facing the direction of travel, with the chest lowering as the upper body turns a quarter so the hands arrive in a line rather than scattered. A hard swing of the rear leg with a push off the front one carries the hips over the shoulders, and the arms stay straight to take the whole bodyweight at the midpoint — which is why plank and wall-handstand strength come before the skill. Most crooked cartwheels are a hand-placement problem rather than a strength one: the hands are guessing where to go instead of tracking a line, and drills that impose one (a mat, a floor line) fix more than extra effort does.
Learn the handstand half roll in one minute.
The dive roll extends the safety roll into the air: a jump forward over an obstacle or gap, an outstretched reach for the ground, and a roll out on landing. The arms meet the floor first and bend to absorb the impact while the shoulder lowers, the head tilts aside, and the body rolls diagonally across the back rather than down the spine, staying tight enough to carry the momentum back onto the feet. Getting the hips up during the dive matters more than getting the chest over, both for clearing objects and for arriving at the right angle to roll. The two faults coaches warn about most are locked arms, which turn the dive into a collapsed handspring onto a flat back, and over-rotating past the roll line. It is built up gradually, from crouched reaching rolls to standing, then jumping, then diving over small objects, and belongs on forgiving ground rather than concrete.
A roundoff is a cartwheel that lands on both feet at once — hand, hand, feet — with a half turn that leaves the body facing back the way it came. That turn is what makes it the standard way into back tumbling: it converts a run-up into backwards power. The entry hurdles into a deep lunge with the arms reaching long, since distance through the skill matters more than height. The first hand turns out and the second comes over turned further in, roughly in line with it, and that inward placement is what brings the body around. The legs join at the top and snap down together while the chest and arms come up; landing on the balls of the feet with the body tight is what produces the rebound that carries into the next skill. Arms left low absorb the power instead.
💡 Cartwheel with a snap — your future tumbling engine.
Tricking's workhorse transition: from a low crouch with one hand planted, the back leg steps through and pivots on the ball of the foot while the other leg swings over the arm, turning the body 180 degrees to finish facing the way it came — loaded to jump straight up into the next trick. The details every coach hammers: the planted hand turns sideways or slightly backwards so the motion flows over the wrist instead of against it, and the swinging leg travels over rather than out and around, since a leg that swings wide sends the momentum sideways and has to be killed before setting. Power comes from elongating the movement — reaching well away with the hand and covering distance — while the exit lands facing the floor with the chest rising and the trailing leg held back; crunching into a ball on the way out is the most common fault. A good scoot feeds gainers, corks, swings, pops and vanishes alike.
The classic movie get-up: rolling back onto the shoulders with the hips lifted, both legs kick up and forward while the hands push off beside the head, arching the body through a bridge shape to land on the balls of the feet. The kick goes up before it goes out — the near-universal beginner mistake is kicking straight forward and trying to land immediately, which drops the trick short onto bent knees. Hands plant just above the shoulders, and the push has to be real: legs kick and arms shove the ground away together, with the chest chasing the hips up, because a body left behind falls straight back down. Shoulder flexibility and bridge work make the arch dramatically easier, and handstand push-aways build the exact strength the shove needs. Landing on the balls of the feet with the knees folding under absorbs the impact cleanly, and from there the trick scales into continuous rubber-band kip-ups and the no-handed version.
A slow, flexibility-driven tumbling line: from standing with arms by the ears and one leg extended in front, the body bends backwards into a bridge and kicks straight over — one leg chasing the other through a split handstand — to step out standing again. Coaches build it from two smaller pieces: a solid bridge, then a backbend kickover, each drilled by falling back onto a raised surface and lowering it toward the floor. The walkover itself adds travel: the lead leg rises as the lean begins, and the kick over happens the moment the hands touch down rather than after settling into the bridge. The legs stay split one in front of the other the whole way — bringing the feet together stalls the rotation. The main obstacle is simply the fear of going backwards, which is why tilting the head back to spot the ground early helps so much. A common stepping stone toward the back handspring.
Capoeira's monkey flip adopted by tricking: from a low squat or crab position one hand reaches back, and the body swings over the planted arm on an off-axis arc, legs kicking overhead to land cartwheel-style on one foot facing where it started. Its forgiving progression is why coaches love it — start by barely leaving the ground and walking around the side of the arm, then steepen the arc round by round until it travels over the top. The cues repeat across every tutorial: turn the planted hand's fingers backwards or the wrist pays for it, squat low and let the balance break before reaching rather than jumping too high too soon, drive hard off both feet with the hips thrust toward the sky, and keep the eyes fixed on the landing spot the whole way around. It is the classic cure for backwards fear and a stepping stone into back handspring, touchdown raiz, gainer flips and more.
💡 Your first inverted trick — low and safe.