Look, there’s fucking thousands of tutorials out there for your more basic stuff — kick/heel/360 flips, pop shuvs, noseslides, etc. But here at 4ts, tastes [and talent] runs to the more esoteric side of things. Welcome to Tricks; hope you’re ready to learn.
tf is this trick now? To cut it to the bone here, a caveman just means you’re holding your board and you jump up and jump on to that bish. Up something, down something, just standing still, all cavemen — it’s a beautiful club-carrying family of a trick that can be so small its like breathing or such a hammer everyone’s up like the tide.
Let’s take a quick dip into myth, shall we? Look, I don’t have, like, proof or anything, but it’s hard to imagine anything which could be considered a trick coming before the caveman — as in, it’s hard to imagine any one doing any thing that was completely unnecessary before the Original Cube Gleamer decided what if I just fucking jump on this thing? Instantly, an entire world would open, Castlevania-style; before ollies or bonelessess or bean plants or no complys, you could just literally jump off, over, or down some shit and roll away. Down some steps, over a sidewalk, off a car, the caveman is essentially endless and — despite the name — timeless. It’s probably among the first tricks most of us will learn, and imo at least, looks cool as all fuck til the day you die.
Because it’s so simple, there’s a million variations of it. You can add hand flips, take it into or out of things like mannys and grinds, and shift the style by changing where you grab the board at. That last part is the key to what I call the ‘Kadow caveman.’ This is a caveman where you grab the board Weddle (née mute) style, charging shit tail first and sort of swinging it into place under you, which looks rad as all fucking hell.
A note on naming: obviously, obviously Ben Kadow did not come up with this style of caveman. I mean, Boulala’s doing one right here, and there’s hundreds of these spanning skate history. I just call ‘em Kadow cavemen because I learned them by frame-by-framing this lil hit from his Epicly Later’d ep, and because I am an absolute alliteration slut.
Pics by Em; ready to jump off some shit?
the set up: Honestly, this may be the trickiest part, because compared to the classic nose grab caveman, the way you hold this and bring it around is a bit wonky. Basically, you’re gonna be grabbing the board with your lead hand like a club, tail facing forward — it may help to think of it like you’re swinging the board around to under your feet. Frame-by-framing Kadow right here is what finally got me to understand how this works. It’s both what makes the Kadow caveman a bit harder but also a lot sexier.
step 1: Figure out how far you’re gonna need to jump to make this trick happen, since this will determine how long of a runway you need and how fast you go. Fwiw, I’ve found that more often than not, you can don’t need a ton of speed to make these work, and the slower and floatier the easier. This is a great time to hype yourself up too — the caveman is one of purest examples of courage & commitment > skill.
step 2: Get moving forward, board-first, ready to turn your shoulders in midair so you land ready to roll away.
step 3: This is the heart of the trick, and where you better be all in, since it’s the only way this is gonna work. While you’re airborne, you need to basically swing the board around under your feet — you want to have caught it bolts around the peak of your jump. THE KEY: Look for those fucking bolts! Literally, eyes-on-the-bolts like its Little League. If you’re looking right at them, getting your feet over top of them is easier, the swing comes more naturally, and Idk it just feels, like, better. It makes sense I swear.
step 4: I’m not gonna lie, step 4 on most of these is gonna pretty much be the same: catch that bish by the bolts, absorb the landing, and ride away. Another dinosaur on the wall, you Turok you.
breaking it down: It’s not as exciting, but you can do any variation of these on flat with nothing in your way. Just throw a couple Kadow cavemen and get a feeling for the swing, the spot, and the landing. If you’re struggling a bit — it’s def harder than a usual one! — start with doing a few nose grab cavemen first to get in the mood and mindset. Insofar as I can tell, there’s not a great way to atomize this one into various pieces; it’s basically one brave action. So when we break this down, we’re mostly focused on starting small and building confidence.
Once you get these down, you can literally Kadow caveman basically anything. Since you should be landing bolts almost every time, these can get hucked down some much bigger shit than you’d anticipate — just make sure the spirit is willing, bb.
