Regular,
Fakie,
Nollie, Switch

Regular is the stance you ride most naturally, with your front foot leading and your back foot resting across the tail. You are rolling forward, and you pop off the tail with your back foot.

Note: regular here means your natural foot-forward direction, which is separate from being a regular-footed skater (left foot forward) versus goofy (right foot forward). Every trick you first learn is in this stance.

Fakie keeps your feet exactly where they sit in your regular stance, but you are rolling backward instead of forward. Your back foot is still on the tail, but the tail is now pointing in your direction of travel.

Because your feet have not moved, fakie tricks often feel like the most natural way to expand your vocabulary. Rolling away fakie after a trick (landing in fakie) is also a core building block for transition and ledge skating.

Nollie (short for nose-ollie) is when you roll forward in your natural stance but pop off the nose with your front foot instead of the tail with your back foot. Your stance is the same, your popping foot changes.

This swaps the roles of your two feet: the front foot snaps the nose down while the back foot slides forward. Nollie tricks have a distinct feel and are a key part of mastering a trick from every angle.

Switch means riding with the opposite foot forward from your natural stance, rolling forward and popping off the tail, just like regular, but with everything mirrored. If you normally lead with your left foot, switch means leading with your right.

It feels like writing with your other hand: clumsy at first, then powerful. Switch is the hardest of the four to learn because nothing is in its usual place, but a clean switch trick is one of the clearest signs of real board control.