TKT Transitions

Companion reference for transitions between vertical kick tricks. Read alongside the main TKT reference.

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How to use this document

This document extends TKT into the rules for combining vertical kick tricks. It assumes familiarity with the main TKT reference: in particular, the takeoff vocabulary (TKT reference §4), the base-rotation and root-kick trees (TKT reference §5), the modifier ladder (TKT reference §6), the in-air rotation math (TKT reference §7), the hyper landing distinctions (TKT reference §10), and post-landing rotation (TKT reference §12). When this document refers to a section number with no qualifier, it means a section in this document; when it refers to a section in the main reference, it says so explicitly (e.g. “TKT reference §4”).

Transitions are also a closed formal system, and like the rest of TKT they reward step-by-step rule-following over heuristic pattern-matching. The body-weight scenarios, position choices, and stance-change counts compose into a small fixed set of named transitions; identifying any transition is a matter of running through the same sequence of questions in order. Treat this document as the sole source of truth for transition definitions and shorthand symbols, and flag a rule as unclear rather than inferring from outside knowledge.

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1. Identity card

• Name: TKT transitions — the rules for connecting one vertical kick trick to the next inside a combination.
• Author: Daniel Perez de Tejada (“dpt”), same author as the main TKT system.
• Status: Part of TKT proper, building on its core (TKT reference §1–§12). The vocabulary and most of the symbol shorthand have been in use throughout the lifetime of TKT; this document is the canonical written specification.
• Scope of this version: Transitions between vertical kick tricks only. Transitions that connect to or from inverted tricks are deferred to a future revision and are explicitly out of scope here.

2. What a transition is

A combination of vert kicks is a sequence of complete tricks: (takeoff, rotation, landing), (takeoff, rotation, landing), …. Every adjacent pair of tricks in that sequence is connected by a transition — the moment between the landing of the first trick and the takeoff of the second.

A useful framing: the tricks are the nodes of a graph and the transitions are the edges. For N tricks in a combination there are always exactly N − 1 transitions.

To identify a transition, an observer can drop everything in both tricks except for the immediate junction:

• The takeoff and rotation of the first trick are irrelevant.
• The rotation and landing of the second trick are irrelevant.
• Only the landing of the first trick and the takeoff of the second trick define the transition.

This makes transitions composable: any landing can connect to any takeoff, and the transition’s name depends only on what happens between them.

2.1 Baked-in assumptions

The transition definitions below assume two things that hold for “well-formed” combinations:

• Fixed target. The performer is oriented around a single target across the combination — the same camera, the same imagined opponent.
• Uniform spin direction relative to that target. Every trick in the sequence spins in the same direction (left or right) and travels in the same general direction relative to the target.

These assumptions make a transition’s body-weight and position behavior unambiguous. A combination that violates either — a single trick performed in the opposite spin orientation, an arbitrary 180° change of target between tricks, a deliberate change of travel direction during transit — needs additional context to interpret. The rules below are written as if the assumptions hold; when they don’t, identifying the transition becomes a matter of interpretation rather than rule-application. See §14 for treatment of target and travel.

3. The two questions every transition asks

Every transition is fully identified by answering two questions in order:

1. Body weight. What did the performer do with body weight between landing the first trick and taking off into the second?
2. Position. Did the performer change stance on the ground between landing and takeoff, or carry the landing stance directly into the takeoff?

The first question maps to the three top-level body-weight families (§4). The second question maps to the Natural / Artificial distinction (§6). Together they determine which named transition applies. A small set of additional rules (§9 Stance Change Rule, §8 Standard family) handles edge cases inside those two answers.

4. Body-weight families

A transition lives in exactly one of three body-weight families:

Family	Definition
Standard	Both feet are on the ground together at some point during the transition.
Sequential	The feet are used in sequence — one foot lands or takes off first, then the other follows — without the two ever being together.
Singular	Only one foot is involved in the transition; the other does not touch the ground.

The “Standard” name was originally Unified in early TKT, and some mainstream practitioners still use that older term. The current canonical name is Standard, and that is what the rest of this document uses. For mainstream-translation purposes, treat “Unified” and “Standard” as synonyms.

5. The body-weight decision tree

A single decision tree resolves the body-weight family and picks the named transition for almost every case. It branches first on what the performer does at landing:

if performer lands on both feet together:
    if performer takes off from both feet
        → Standard:    "punch"
    else (takes off one foot at a time)
        → Sequential:  "reverse pop"

else if performer lands on one foot first, then the other touches down:
    if performer takes off from both feet
        → Standard:    "pop"
    else if performer takes off in the same sequence
                       (lands left → right, takes off left → right)
        → Sequential:  "vanish"
    else (takes off in the opposite sequence:
          lands left → right, takes off right → left)
        → Sequential:  "reversal"

else (performer has landed on only one foot, the other does not touch down):
    if performer takes off from the same foot
        → Singular:    "swingthru"
        (or "missleg", a Standard-pop subcase — see §8.1)
    else (performer takes off from the other foot — a special two-jump case)
        → Singular:    "skip"

A few notes on the tree:

• “Same sequence” and “opposite sequence” describe the foot order on takeoff relative to landing: (examples, let the first trick land left leg first) a vanish lands left-then-right and takes off left-then-right; a reversal lands left-then-right and takes off right-then-left. The doc uses same / opposite sequence rather than “direction” because in tricking, “direction” is reserved for either the performer’s spin orientation (left or right) or their direction of travel.
• The Singular case is structurally special. To take off from the same foot on which the performer lands, they keep the other foot in the air across the entire transition (a swingthru, or its Standard-pop subcase, missleg). To take off from the other foot, they perform two separate jumps from a single planted foot, briefly switching between them — the skip. Skip is mechanically distinct from a vanish: a vanish draws power from a sequential push off both legs (one then the other), while a skip is a one-leg push followed by another, separate one-leg push. See §9 for the Stance Change Rule that disambiguates the Singular cases.

The tree also confirms what is generally happening at the body-weight level in each family:

Family	What’s happening to body weight
Sequential — change legs	Performer leaves the landing leg and takes off from the other leg (vanish, skip)
Sequential — stay on same leg	Performer keeps body weight on the landing leg through the takeoff (reversal, swingthru)
Standard	Performer evenly distributes body weight on both legs (pop, punch), or has landed that way already and then sequences out (reverse pop)

6. Position: Natural vs. Artificial

The second question — what happens to position on the ground — maps directly to the post-landing rotation choice from TKT reference §12.

• A Natural transition continues directly from the landing stance into the takeoff stance. The performer holds stance after landing (TKT reference §12: hold stance), and the takeoff begins from the same stance in which the trick ended.
• An Artificial transition first returns stance (TKT reference §12) — pivoting 180° on the ground after the landing — and then begins the takeoff from the opposite stance.

Every Natural transition has a corresponding Artificial counterpart that performs the same body-weight movement but with the landing-to-takeoff stance flipped. In theory, Artificial transitions are derivative — they are just Natural transitions with an inserted return-stance pivot. In practice, they are used as commonly as their Natural counterparts and are essential for connecting tricks whose root stances do not otherwise line up.

7. The transition glossary

Combining the body-weight family with the Natural / Artificial distinction yields the core transition glossary, with one mirror pair per body-weight scenario:

Body-weight scenario	Natural	Artificial
Change legs, Sequential	vanish	wrap
Change legs, Singular	skip	skip (no separate name — see below)
Stay on same leg, Sequential	reversal	redirect
Stay on same leg, Singular	swingthru	carrythru

skip does not differentiate between Natural and Artificial because skip is inherently Artificial: the extra mid-transition jump that defines a skip is itself the means by which the performer can adjust position. A “Natural skip” would be a skip where the second jump landed on the same stance — mechanically possible, but indistinguishable from a vanish for practical purposes (see §11).

These eight named transitions cover the alternate-takeoff (cheat / swing) cases. A separate set of rules covers the Standard family, where the takeoff is pop.

8. The Standard family: pop, punch, reverse pop, return-stance pop, bound

Standard transitions use a pop takeoff (TKT reference §4) — a takeoff with no grounded stance change. Because the rules above all keyed on alternate-takeoff stance change, Standard transitions need their own enumeration:

Transition	When it applies
pop	Performer lands on one foot first, then the other; takes off from both feet together via pop. Natural.
(return stance) pop	The Artificial form of pop: same body-weight scenario, but with a 180° stance return on the ground before the pop takeoff.
punch	Performer lands on both feet together; takes off from both feet together via pop. Always Natural — a punch has no Artificial counterpart in its own right.
reverse pop	Performer lands on both feet together; sequences out into an alternate (cheat / swing) takeoff. Natural.
bound	Catch-all for the remaining Artificial Standard cases: any Standard transition that involves a return-stance pivot or a mid-transition jump that changes position before continuing into a singular or sequential takeoff.

bound covers, in particular: a return-stance punch, a return-stance reverse pop, and the case where a performer lands on both feet, jumps to change stance on the ground, and then begins a singular or sequential takeoff. All of these are categorically the same — Artificial Standard — and share the single name bound.

8.1 The missleg subcase

There is one further Standard-family transition that lives next to swingthru (the Singular stay-on-same-leg case). When a performer lands on one foot, takes off from the same foot, but uses a one-foot pop takeoff (no grounded stance change) rather than an alternate (cheat / swing) takeoff, the transition is missleg. A missleg is structurally a Singular transition, but the takeoff is pop; it is the Standard-family member of the stay-on-one-leg group.

A missleg is a “difficult pop” in the same sense described in TKT reference §4 — it forfeits the grounded stance change of an alternate takeoff and is simply harder to perform. The named technique exists because the body-weight and position behavior at the junction is genuinely distinct from a swingthru.

9. The Stance Change Rule

The Singular family has three named transitions that all share the “lands on one foot, takes off from the same foot” body-weight scenario: missleg, swingthru, and carrythru. They are disambiguated by how many 180° stance changes occur on the ground during the transition:

Transition	Stance changes on ground
missleg	0
swingthru	1
carrythru	2

The rule’s significance:

• 0 changes means the performer used a standard pop takeoff (since cheat and swing both change stance on the ground). The transition is a missleg.
• 1 change means the performer used an alternate (cheat / swing) takeoff directly from the landing stance. The transition is a swingthru (Natural).
• 2 changes means the performer first returned stance after landing (the first change), then performed an alternate takeoff that itself adds another 180° (the second change). The transition is a carrythru (Artificial).

A grounded stance change is sometimes part of the landing (return stance after a single-leg landing) and sometimes part of the takeoff (the 180° grounded rotation of a cheat or swing). The Stance Change Rule counts both indistinguishably: it is the total number of 180° pivots on the ground between the moment the landing stabilizes and the moment the next trick becomes airborne.

9.1 Movements that are formally possible but practically equivalent to others

A handful of in-between cases technically satisfy a transition definition but are not in practice treated as separate transitions:

• 0-stance-change vanish (“vanish into a missleg takeoff”): mechanically a vanish, and stays a vanish.
• 0-stance-change skip (“skip into a missleg takeoff”): stays a skip — but the case is more practical when used as a regular vanish.
• 1-stance-change pop (“return stance pop”): with the change happening between landing and takeoff, stays a pop.

These edge forms appear in transcription corner cases but do not have separate names.

10. Symbol shorthand

Transitions have a one- or two-character symbol shorthand for compact written sequences. The symbols use keyboard punctuation only — they have no relationship to any algebraic or programming meaning. Originally devised so a user on a digital device could quickly write combinations, the symbols were chosen for convenience and visual mnemonic, not semantics.

The convention: a doubled symbol indicates the Artificial (return-stance) variant of its Natural counterpart, with bound as the only deliberate exception.

Transition	Symbol
swingthru	+
carrythru	++
missleg	^
skip	^+
vanish	>
wrap	>>
reversal	<
redirect	<<
pop	=
(return stance) pop	==
punch	-
reverse pop	"
bound	#

Notes on the symbols:

• The doubled-symbol convention applies cleanly to +/++, >/>>, </<<, and =/==. For the others (^+ skip, - punch, " reverse pop, # bound), the Natural / Artificial relationship is structural rather than symbolic.
• vanish and reversal use opposite directional bracket characters (> and <) because they are opposite sequential transition definitions: a vanish takes off in the same sequence as the landing, a reversal in the opposite sequence.
• skip uses the missleg symbol ^ combined with the swingthru symbol + because a skip is mechanically a missleg-style mid-jump that lands and is then followed by what would have been a swingthru from the new position.
• bound uses # because no doubled-symbol form fits — bound is itself the catch-all Artificial Standard form, and several different body-weight scenarios all collapse to it.

A combination of N tricks contains N − 1 transition symbols; written out, a combination interleaves trick names and transition symbols, e.g. p1r > c3r or p1r >> c5r.

11. Cross-tier conversions: Sequential, Singular, plain-hyper

Many transitions have direct equivalents across body-weight families when the same physical landing-to-takeoff junction is performed at a different landing tier (TKT reference §10). For example, a reversal (Sequential, single-leg landing) becomes a swingthru (Singular, single-leg landing where the off-leg never touches) at the same junction; if the landing is hypered to plain hyper (both feet at landing), the same junction becomes a reverse pop.

Sequential	Singular	Plain-hyper (both feet at landing)
<< (redirect)	++ (carrythru)	# (bound)
< (reversal)	+ (swingthru)	" (reverse pop)
>> (wrap)	^+ (skip)	# (bound)
= (pop)	^ (missleg)	- (punch)
> (vanish)	N/A	" (reverse pop)

Reading the table:

• The << and >> rows have bound (#) as their plain-hyper equivalent because both are Artificial: any plain-hyper landing followed by an Artificial Standard takeoff is structurally a bound.
• The < and = rows show reverse pop (") in the plain-hyper column. When the performer lands on both feet (plain hyper) and sequences into an alternate takeoff, the directional sequence (same vs opposite) is no longer distinguishable, so reversal-style and vanish-style sequences both collapse to a single reverse pop.
• The = row also shows punch (-) as a plain-hyper option, because when both landing and takeoff use both feet, the transition is a punch rather than a reverse pop.
• The > row’s Singular cell is N/A. The Singular change-legs case (skip) is best utilized as an Artificial transition (returning stance), which makes it belong in the >> row rather than the > row. A Natural-Singular vanish exists in form but not usefully in practice — it is essentially a regular vanish performed with the off-leg held in the air.

12. Transition matrix by landing and takeoff target

The matrix below lists every transition symbol (or pair of symbols, where Sequential and Singular forms both apply) for each combination of landing scenario and takeoff target. It compresses the full set of single-junction rules into one lookup table.

The landing rows cover the six common cases — three Frontside-landing scenarios and their three Backside-landing mirrors. The takeoff target columns cover the six TKT takeoff endpoints, distinguished by their root stance (TKT reference §4):

• cheat = regular cheat (Frontside-rooted; the standard cheat takeoff that swaps stance from FS to BS on the ground).
• irr cheat = irregular cheat (Backside-rooted; the same foot sequence as cheat, but starting from BS and swapping to FS — see TKT reference §4 historical notes).
• swing = regular swing (Backside-rooted).
• irr swing = irregular swing (Frontside-rooted).
• FS pop = pop takeoff into a Frontside-rooted trick.
• BS pop = pop takeoff into a Backside-rooted trick.

Where two symbols are listed in a cell (e.g. < +), the first is the Sequential form of the transition and the second is the Singular form. Where only one is listed, that is the only practical form for that landing tier (see §11).

Landing	cheat	irr cheat	swing	irr swing	FS pop	BS pop
round / true-hyper shuriken / katana half gyro (lands FS)	>	>> ^+	<< ++	< +	= ^	==
hyper-style shuriken / katana half gyro (lands FS, non-kick leg)	< +	<< ++	>> ^+	>	=	==
plain hyper shuriken / katana half gyro (lands FS, both feet)	"	#	#	"	-	#
hook / true-hyper katana / shuriken half gyro (lands BS)	<< ++	< +	>	>> ^+	==	= ^
hyper-style katana / shuriken half gyro (lands BS, non-kick leg)	>> ^+	>	< +	<< ++	==	=
plain hyper katana / shuriken half gyro (lands BS, both feet)	#	"	"	#	#	-

Reading the matrix:

• The top three rows are FS-landing scenarios (round, plus the hyper-tier landings whose body position ends in Frontside); the bottom three rows are the BS-landing mirrors.
• The bottom three rows are the FS↔BS mirror of the top three rows. The mirror swap pairs each takeoff target with its FS↔BS counterpart: cheat (FS-rooted) ↔ swing (BS-rooted), irr cheat (BS-rooted) ↔ irr swing (FS-rooted), and FS pop ↔ BS pop. So the cell at row 1 / cheat corresponds to the cell at row 4 / swing, the cell at row 1 / irr cheat corresponds to row 4 / irr swing, and so on for rows 2/5 and 3/6.
• The plain-hyper rows have fewer distinct symbols because every both-feet landing puts the junction in the Standard family (§8): # (bound) for the Artificial cases, " (reverse pop) for the both-feet-into-alternate-takeoff Natural cases, and - (punch) only for the both-feet-into-pop case where landing stance and takeoff stance match.
• The true-hyper row groups with the standard-landing row (round / hook) because both land on a single leg in the same orientation relative to the target — the round’s kick leg and the true-hyper’s kick leg both sit on the leg farthest from the target after landing. The hyper-style row is the mirror partner of these because it lands on the leg nearest the target (the non-kick leg), which flips the leg-family interpretation for every alternate-takeoff cell.
• The Sequential / Singular pairing in each cell follows the cross-tier conversion rules from §11. For a given landing tier, choose whichever form (Sequential or Singular) the performer used at the junction.

A useful anchor for reading the matrix: start with the round / true-hyper FS-landing row. Every other FS row differs from it by either flipping the leg-family interpretation (hyper-style) or collapsing into the Standard family (plain hyper). The BS-landing rows mirror the FS rows column-for-column under the FS↔BS swap.

Disambiguating landing tier in shorthand. Some transition symbols already imply a specific landing tier — - (punch), " (reverse pop), and # (bound) can only be performed from a plain-hyper (both-feet) landing, while the rest are compatible with single-leg landings (true hyper or hyper style). When the landing tier doesn’t disambiguate from the transition or from surrounding context, TKT reference §9 defines a niche shorthand convention: the kick letters k and s default to true hyper (unless followed by a plain-hyper-forcing transition); hyper-style versions of those kicks must be written either longhand or via the H-modifier form (e.g. c3Hr. for hyper-style katana); and the period-on-H convention (H plain, .H true, H. style) gives full disambiguation when needed. Most chained shorthand leaves the landing tier implicit and relies on context or transitions to fix it.

13. Worked examples

Single-transition examples, working from a round (or hook) landing into various takeoffs. Lowercase shorthand follows the TKT reference §9 convention; bare letters like r and h represent a round or hook on the ground, consistent with any standard round and any standard hook respectively, allowing the rule to be stated generically.

13.1 From a standard (non-hyper) round landing

A standard round lands in Frontside, single-leg sequential touchdown.

• p1r > c3r — any round into a cheat where the cheat target is on the Frontside root-kick tree → vanish. The round-landing FS connects directly into a cheat takeoff from FS (Natural, change legs, Sequential).
• p1r >> c5r — any round into a cheat where the cheat target is on the Backside root-kick tree → wrap (the Artificial counterpart of vanish). Equivalent Singular form: p1r ^+ c5r (skip). The round must first return stance from FS to BS before an irregular cheat takeoff.
• c3r << s3h — any round into a swing where the swing target is on the Backside root-kick tree → redirect. Equivalent Singular form: c3r ++ s3h (carrythru).
• p3r < s5h — any round into a swing where the swing target is on the Frontside root-kick tree → reversal. Equivalent Singular form: p3r + s5h (swingthru). Round-to-swing junctions are naturally same-leg because the round’s kick leg and the swing takeoff’s first leg are the same.
• r = p1h — any round into a Frontside pop → pop. Equivalent Singular form: r ^ p1h (missleg).
• c3r == p3h — any round into a Backside pop → (return stance) pop. The Singular form would be a missleg, but missleg requires 0 stance changes; here the stance was returned, so missleg does not apply.

The same set of transitions exists in mirror form for hook landings (hook lands BS, single-leg sequential), with FS and BS swapped throughout.

A standard round or hook landing cannot punch or reverse pop, because both require a both-feet landing, which is only possible at the hyper tier or above.

13.2 From a hyper-tier landing — true hyper (single-leg landing on the kicking leg)

A katana (hyper round) lands in Backside on the kicking leg under true hyper (TKT reference §10). The kicking leg planted on the ground is the same leg a cheat takeoff stands on (TKT reference §4 — cheat ↔ hook leg correspondence), so a true-hyper-katana → cheat junction stays on the same leg (same-leg family). A swing takeoff stands on the opposite leg (the round-kicking leg, by the same correspondence), so a true-hyper-katana → swing junction is the change-legs family — the canonical “vanish into a swing” case (e.g. c3k > s3h). The examples below all go to cheat targets and are therefore same-leg:

• p1k << c3r — true-hyper katana lands BS on kick leg, into a cheat where the cheat target is on the Frontside root → redirect. Equivalent Singular form: p1k ++ c3r (carrythru).
• p1k < c5r — true-hyper katana lands BS on kick leg, into a cheat where the cheat target is on the Backside root → reversal. Equivalent Singular form: p1k + c5r (swingthru). The Singular form p1k + c5r specifically — true-hyper katana into an irregular cheat via swingthru — is what mainstream users still call a wrapthru; see §15.2.

13.3 From a hyper-tier landing — hyper style (single-leg landing on the non-kicking leg)

Hyper style is the mirror of true hyper at the same tier (TKT reference §10): for a katana, the body lands in Backside on the non-kicking leg. With the leg correspondence in TKT reference §4, the non-kick leg planted matches a swing takeoff’s standing leg (round-kicking leg), so a hyper-style-katana → swing junction stays on the same leg (same-leg family). A cheat takeoff stands on the opposite leg (the hook-kicking leg), so a hyper-style-katana → cheat junction is the change-legs family — opposite to the true-hyper case in §13.2. The examples below all go to cheat targets and are therefore change-legs:

Note on shorthand in this section. Within these examples, p1k is read as a hyper-style katana — the section heading establishes that context. Per TKT reference §9, an unmarked k would otherwise default to true hyper. When no contextual heading is available to do this work, the equivalent stand-alone shorthand for hyper-style katana is p1Hr. (using the period-on-H convention for hyper style).

• p1k >> c3r — hyper-style katana lands BS on non-kick leg, into a cheat where the cheat target is on the Frontside root → wrap. Equivalent Singular form: p1k ^+ c3r (skip).
• p1k > c5r — hyper-style katana lands BS on non-kick leg, into a cheat where the cheat target is on the Backside root → vanish.

13.4 From a hyper-tier landing — plain hyper (both feet at landing)

A plain hyper katana lands BS on both feet together. The both-feet landing puts every alternate-takeoff junction into the Standard family:

• p1k # c3r — plain-hyper katana lands BS on both feet, then jumps to FS to begin a cheat takeoff → bound.
• p1k " c5r — plain-hyper katana lands BS on both feet, sequences directly into a cheat takeoff (no stance change before the takeoff begins) → reverse pop.

The mirror set exists for shuriken (hyper hook) landings — substitute FS for BS and the corresponding cheat / swing targets.

13.5 Chained sequence examples

Longer combinations exercise multiple transitions in a row. In the chains below, hypers are assumed to be true-hyper landings unless otherwise indicated by transition, and each transition is independent — only the junction between adjacent tricks defines its transition symbol.

p1r > c3r > c3k << c3j
h ++ c3r + s5h ^ p1k
s3s - p1h > s5r ++ s3h
p1j + c5r >> c3s ^ p1h == p3r
c7r ++ s3h + c3s + s5h ^+ s3k > s7h
c7h << c3kg > c3k ^ p1t ++ s3h ++ c3kG
s1y << c3r << s3sG + s7r ^+ c7s = p1w
s9r >> c7h + c5k = p3Hf = p3s == p3fj
r > h > s3h > s5r < s5h << c3k ++ c5h + c3s == p1kG = p5j

A few chains specifically with plain-hyper landings (inferrable from the transition symbols used):

p1k - p3h << c3kg " c3kG - p1y
s3s " s3k - p3s " c5s
p1s - p1f = p1sg - p5k " s3sg " c5j

14. Grounded transitions

A grounded kick is a round or hook executed without the jump-spin-kick framework that defines a vert kick trick. Round and hook are kick techniques in their own right — foundational martial-arts moves — and they are commonly inserted into combinations for stylistic or pacing reasons. Because there is no airborne phase (no takeoff, no rotation, no in-air landing), a grounded round or hook does not strictly fit the definition of a “kick trick”, but the connection between it and an adjacent technique still has to be classified, and the body-weight-and-position rules (§3 onward) still apply.

A grounded kick has a fixed position relative to the target: a grounded round is performed in Frontside, and a grounded hook is performed in Backside. In each case the standing leg is also fixed by the leg correspondence in TKT reference §4 (round stands on the support leg of a round kick — the left leg for a left-spinner — and hook stands on the support leg of a hook kick — the right leg for a left-spinner). The performer is therefore “pre-positioned” in a specific stance with body weight on a specific leg, and the transition into or out of that grounded kick has to respect the same body-weight rules that govern transitions into and out of vert kick trick takeoffs.

14.1 The four valid grounded transitions

Because a grounded kick has no jump or takeoff, transitions whose receiving side is a grounded kick cannot use any transition that would require a jump (the Standard family transitions: pop, punch, reverse pop, return-stance pop, bound) or that would map to an irregular-takeoff target (the transitions in the irregular-cheat or irregular-swing columns of the matrix in §12). The remaining transitions — the ones that move the body into the grounded kick’s natural position without invoking either an airborne mechanic or an irregular-position takeoff — are exactly four:

• vanish (>)
• redirect (<<)
• missleg (^)
• carrythru (++)

These four cover every valid grounded transition for trick → grounded (an airborne trick lands and the next move is a grounded kick) and for grounded → grounded (one grounded kick is followed by another).

14.2 Asymmetry: grounded → trick can use any transition

The four-transition restriction applies only when the receiving side is a grounded kick. When the receiving side is a real vert kick trick, the trick’s own takeoff carries the full options of its takeoff family (cheat, swing, or pop), and the transition can be any valid transition for that takeoff — including ones such as swingthru (+) or skip (^+) that aren’t valid for trick → grounded or grounded → grounded.

Examples of grounded → trick using the broader set:

• r + s3r — grounded round → swingthru → swing 360round (Singular Natural same-leg, valid because the receiving side is an airborne trick).
• r ^+ c3h — grounded round → skip → cheat 360hook (Singular Artificial change-legs into an irregular cheat target, again valid because the receiving side is airborne).

14.3 Notation: parentheses to flag a grounded transition

A bare r or h (with no takeoff prefix) implicitly indicates a grounded kick, so a chain like p1r > h > r reads unambiguously as “vert kick into grounded hook into grounded round.” When an author wants to flag the grounded nature of a transition explicitly — for instance to signal that the symbol must be read against the four-transition rule rather than the full set — TKT uses parentheses around the transition symbol: r (>) h means “grounded round, vanish to grounded hook.” The parentheses are optional; bare-letter context typically makes the grounded reading obvious.

14.4 Worked examples

Single grounded transitions (between two grounded kicks), one for each of the four valid types:

• r > h — grounded round → vanish → grounded hook (change-legs Sequential Natural).
• h << h — grounded hook → redirect → grounded hook (same-leg Sequential Artificial).
• r ^ r — grounded round → missleg → grounded round (Singular Standard, 0 stance changes).
• h ++ h — grounded hook → carrythru → grounded hook (same-leg Singular Artificial).

Mixed sequences with grounded kicks interleaved with airborne tricks:

p1r > h > r << s3h
s5h << h ++ h ^ h > r
r > h > r << r ^ r ++ r

The first chain illustrates a vert kick (p1r) transitioning into a grounded hook (h), then to a grounded round (r), then opening into an airborne swing 360hook (s3h). The second begins from a swing-540hook landing and runs through four grounded hooks connected by all four valid transition types in turn. The third chain is entirely grounded, with six grounded kicks and the four valid transition symbols all represented.

15. Outliers

Two transition cases sit outside the main glossary and deserve separate treatment.

15.1 Rapid (a missleg variant)

A rapid is a missleg performed without the typical “rebound” motion of the off-leg. Most missleg performances pull the off-leg down toward the ground and back up into the takeoff; a rapid connects instantaneously while holds the off-leg in the air through the entire transition. Rapid is structurally a missleg — same Singular body weight, same 0 stance changes — and is not a separate categorical transition. The shorthand symbol is ' (single quote) for users who track the technique distinction; in practice most uses are simply called missleg.

15.2 Wrapthru (mainstream-only)

Wrapthru is a mainstream term that does not exist in TKT as a transition name. The original wrapthru label was applied to a specific connection in the invert space — where it is also called wrapthru in mainstream — and was carried over to the equivalent vert-kick connection. Once that connection was examined under TKT’s body-weight and position rules, it was correctly identified as a Singular transition the system already covered: a swingthru. TKT does not recognize wrapthru; mainstream still uses it.

What mainstream calls a wrapthru in vert kicks is a swingthru in TKT — specifically, a swingthru into an irregular cheat takeoff from a true-hyper katana or shuriken half gyro landing. The canonical example is c3k + c5r in TKT or 540 wrap(thru) 9 in mainstream (true-hyper katana lands Backside on the kicking leg → swingthru → irregular cheat 540round on the BS root tree). Mainstream uses “wrapthru” exclusively for this Singular form. The Sequential equivalent of the same junction is a reversal (TKT p1k < c5r), not wrapthru.

The same connection in the invert space — the original source of the term — is also a swingthru in TKT. Inverts are out of scope for this document, but the takeaway is that mainstream “wrapthru” maps to TKT “swingthru” in both vert and invert contexts.

Note that mainstream’s habit of treating swingthru as exclusively the transition into a swing takeoff (rather than as a body-weight-and-position description that can precede either alternate takeoff) is part of why wrapthru was coined as a separate name. In TKT, swingthru describes the body weight at the junction, and “swingthru into a cheat” and “swingthru into a swing” are both valid, distinguishable only by the takeoff word that follows.

16. Direction of motion and travel

Transitions are defined under two baked-in assumptions (§2.1): a fixed target and uniform spin direction relative to that target. Mainstream practitioners often refer to this uniform direction as the Direction of Motion (DOM). DOM is not a TKT term, but it does not conflict with anything in TKT and may be used by practitioners who find it helpful for discussing the assumption.

Tricking is an artistic discipline, and a performer may at any moment break either assumption — finishing one trick early to reverse target, traveling in a different direction in the next trick, performing a single trick in the opposite spin orientation. When this happens, identifying the transition becomes a matter of interpretation rather than rule-application. Two specific scenarios are useful as anchors:

• Scenario A (fixed-camera recording). The performer travels camera left-to-right and every kick targets the camera. Target and direction both held constant; transitions resolve cleanly via the rules above.
• Scenario B (live-event floor with observers around all sides). The performer may begin uniform but, as floor space runs out, deliberately reverse target by 180° and continue traveling the other way. Transitions across that reversal point need to be re-evaluated against the new target.

Most real combinations live somewhere between Scenario A and Scenario B. The rules in this document are written for the fully-uniform case, though body-weight rules still apply consistently. Where the assumptions don’t hold, the right approach is to identify which assumption broke (target change, spin orientation flip, or travel direction change), then re-apply the body-weight and position rules to the new orientation.

17. Relationship to mainstream

A few specific mainstream / TKT differences in the transition vocabulary are worth calling out for translation purposes.

17.1 Transition names used as takeoff names in mainstream

Mainstream commonly uses the words vanish, swingthru, and wrap as takeoff names — for example, “vanish 9” (mainstream nickname for a 900-family trick that follows a vanish transition into a cheat takeoff) or “swingthru 9” as a stand-alone trick with no setup from which to transition via swingthru. TKT reserves these as transition names only: the takeoff word in a TKT name is always one of pop, cheat, or swing (TKT reference §4, §13.1).

A mainstream phrase like “vanish 9” translated into TKT terms describes a trick whose transition into the takeoff was a vanish; the takeoff itself is not knowable without first defining the landing preceding the transition. The TKT version of the name spells out the takeoff (cheat 540hook, cheat 540katana, etc.) and the transition (> c5h, > c5k, etc.) separately, and the combination of the two is the full picture.

This is why TKT reference §13.1 maps the mainstream takeoff usages of vanish and swingthru to cheat and swing respectively: the mainstream name conflates the transition with the takeoff, and TKT separates them.

17.2 Unified vs Standard

Early TKT used Unified for what this document calls Standard. The renaming was for clarity; some mainstream users still use the older Unified term and should be understood to mean Standard.

17.3 Wrapthru

See §15.2. Mainstream uses wrapthru as a distinct transition name. In TKT, wrapthru does not exist as a transition — what mainstream calls a wrapthru is a swingthru in TKT, specifically a swingthru from a true-hyper katana or shuriken half gyro landing into an irregular cheat takeoff. The same mapping holds in the invert context (where the term originated).

17.4 Wrap

wrap is one of the most consistent points of confusion between mainstream and TKT, because the word is used in both systems but with different scope.

• In TKT, wrap is a transition (§7) — the Sequential Artificial counterpart of vanish. Like swingthru and like vanish itself, TKT’s wrap describes a body-weight-and-position scenario at the junction; the takeoff that follows can be either a cheat or a swing. “Wrap into cheat” and “wrap into swing” are both valid and distinguishable only by the takeoff word.
• In mainstream, wrap is most often used as a near-synonym for wrapthru (see §17.3) — i.e., the mainstream specific Singular junction TKT calls a swingthru into an irregular cheat. Mainstream practitioners therefore tend to think of wrap as a cheat-only construct.
• Mainstream also uses wrap as a takeoff descriptor in some contexts, where it means “cheat from a Backside-rooted stance into the Frontside root tree” — which TKT calls irregular cheat (TKT reference §4 historical notes on takeoffs). This usage is mapped to TKT’s cheat in TKT reference §13.1.

The translation to keep in mind: when a mainstream speaker says “wrap” in a vert-kick context, they almost always mean either a wrapthru-equivalent (TKT: swingthru into cheat) or an irregular-cheat takeoff (TKT: cheat). In TKT, wrap is reserved as the name of a Sequential Artificial transition and can precede either alternate takeoff.

17.5 DOM

Mainstream Direction of Motion (DOM) is a useful concept for discussing the uniform-direction assumption (§16). It does not have a TKT-specific equivalent because TKT bakes uniform direction into the rule set, but the term may be used by practitioners and does not conflict.

18. Frequently confused points — FAQ

What is the difference between a vanish and a reversal? Both are Sequential transitions from a single-leg landing. A vanish takes off in the same foot sequence as the landing (lands left-then-right, takes off left-then-right) — it changes legs from landing leg to takeoff leg. A reversal takes off in the opposite foot sequence (lands left-then-right, takes off right-then-left) — it stays on the landing leg.

What is the difference between a vanish and a skip? Both change legs from landing leg to takeoff leg. A vanish is Sequential — both feet are involved in a continuous push-off sequence. A skip is Singular — only one foot drives each push, with a separate small jump in between.

What is the difference between a swingthru and a carrythru? Both are Singular stay-on-same-leg transitions. A swingthru has 1 grounded stance change (the alternate takeoff itself, no return stance). A carrythru has 2 grounded stance changes (a return stance after landing, then the alternate takeoff). The doubled-symbol convention reflects the doubling: + for swingthru, ++ for carrythru.

What is wrapthru and why isn’t it a TKT transition? See §15.2. Wrapthru is a mainstream term that TKT does not recognize. What mainstream calls a wrapthru is a swingthru in TKT — specifically a swingthru from a true-hyper katana or shuriken half gyro landing into an irregular cheat takeoff. The same mapping holds in the invert context. In TKT, the body-weight-and-position rules already cover the junction; no separate name is needed.

Is wrap the same in TKT and mainstream? No. In TKT, wrap is a Sequential Artificial transition (§7) — the Artificial counterpart of vanish. In mainstream, wrap is most often used as a near-synonym for wrapthru, and occasionally as a takeoff descriptor meaning “cheat from a Backside-rooted stance into the Frontside root tree” (TKT reference §4: irregular cheat). See §17.4 for translation.

Is missleg a takeoff or a transition? A transition. Specifically, missleg is the Standard-family Singular transition: lands on one foot, takes off from the same foot using a one-foot pop (no grounded stance change). It uses a pop takeoff, but the transition name describes the body weight at the junction.

Why does the same trick connect to different transitions depending on landing tier? Because the body-weight family at the junction depends on what feet are bearing weight at landing. A standard round lands single-leg sequentially → Sequential or Singular family. A hyper round (katana) on plain-hyper lands both feet → Standard family. Even within the hyper tier, true hyper and hyper style place weight on different legs, which flips the same-leg / change-legs family. The same takeoff into the next trick reads as a different transition depending on the landing.

Why does reverse pop appear multiple times in the conversion table? Because reverse pop is the plain-hyper equivalent of multiple Sequential transitions. When a performer lands on both feet (plain hyper) and sequences out into an alternate takeoff, the directional sequence (same vs opposite) is no longer distinguishable from outside; reversal-style and vanish-style junctions both collapse to a single reverse pop.

What does the doubled-symbol convention mean? A doubled transition symbol indicates the Artificial (return-stance) variant of a Natural transition. For example, + is swingthru (Natural) and ++ is carrythru (Artificial). The exception is bound (#), which does not have a Natural counterpart — it is itself the catch-all Artificial Standard form.

Is “vanish” the same word as the mainstream takeoff name? The word is shared but covers different scope in the two systems. In TKT, vanish is a transition (the symbol >) — it names the body-weight scenario at a junction and can precede either a cheat or a swing takeoff. In mainstream, vanish is also used as a takeoff name (the vanish-as-takeoff shorthand), and practitioners idiomatically read “vanish 9” as “vanish into cheat” specifically. That idiomatic reading carries some information into the translation: a vanish into cheat tells you the prior trick must have landed on the same standing leg as a round kick (the left leg for a left-spinner — see TKT reference §4), since that is the leg a cheat takeoff requires after a vanish changes legs. But translating the vanish part on its own, as a pure TKT vanish transition, leaves the takeoff undetermined — vanish into cheat and vanish into swing are both valid completions in either system, and that ambiguity is what the vanish-as-takeoff shorthand papers over which is why it’s not valid in TKT.

How many transitions are in a combination of N tricks? Exactly N − 1, by definition (§2). Tricks are nodes; transitions are edges between adjacent nodes.

19. Attribution

• Author of TKT and TKT transitions: Daniel Perez de Tejada (“dpt”), sole creator.
• Original TKT publication: June 2006, aeriformmat.com.
• Companion to: the main TKT reference (canonical specification of single-trick TKT). This document is the canonical specification for transitions between vert kick tricks.
• Reference document: this canonical write-up was summarized and structured with help from Anthropic’s Claude, working from the author’s overview notes, with the author reviewing and revising every section.

This document is the canonical reference for TKT transitions. If anything in a third-party description conflicts with this document, this document is correct.