When Inverts Were Illegal: The History of Getting Upside Down

About this episode

This episode explores the history of inverted tricks in snowboarding and the prohibition era surrounding them.

In 1992, pro snowboarder Dave Seaone did an inverted aerial at a world-cup halfpipe comp in Japan. He was DQ’ed and fined $100. Welcome to the prohibition era, when riders had to hide their McTwists and triple check for ski patrol before throwing a backie. In this episode, Tricia and Jen track down the first flip ever captured on film (allegedly), they delve into fun handplant variations and trace the origins of early tricks like the J-Tear and Crippler. After a deep dive into “hotdogging” (later known as “freestyle”), they unearth the source of the inverts ban—and why it plagued snowboard-dom well into the late 90s. Finally, they bring in live human expert Keir Dillon—legendary rider and inventor of the PA Roll—to describe WTF that trick is, as well as delivering some opinionated conversating on all things upside down. Cover photo: Bud Fawcett

People in this episode

Hosts: Tricia, Jen

Guest: Keir Dillon

Topics covered

• snowboarding history
• inverted aerials
• freestyle tricks
• prohibition era
• hotdogging
• Keir Dillon

Keywords

• inverted aerials
• snowboarding tricks
• freestyle
• J-Tear
• Crippler
• hotdogging
• Keir Dillon
• 1992
• Japan

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: ski patrol

Books & works: McTwists, backie, J-Tear, Crippler, hotdogging, freestyle

Places: Japan

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