Getting Back into Skateboarding

[Compass]

I will use this thread to track my progress.

Trick	Landed	Three in a row	Record # in a row
Kickflip (flick)			11
Double kickflip			3
Ollie Impossible		-	1
360 flip		-	1
360 shove-it			20+
540 shove-it	-	-	-
Rail-to-rail			6
Railflip		-	1
Butterflip			3
No-handed 50/50		-	1
Carousel	-	-	-

I used to be way into freestyle skating, then stopped cold. Picking it back up again the last few months, I've forgotten pretty much everything, but damn if it isn't fun to relearn.

My first main goal is to hit three in a row of the above tricks. Three in a row is usually a good indicator you didn't just fluke-land something. Certain tricks, like 360 flip, I had never mastered even in my heyday, so three in a row will make me very happy.

The "(flick)" after kickflip indicates the style where you ollie and flick your front foot up and out to flip the board. I knew how to kickflip back in my freestyling days, but I did them how Mullen first invented them -- by pushing straight *down* with my front foot after the ollie. This is a much sketchier technique and very difficult to get them high or catch the board in the air like this. So I'm trying to shrug off that old habit and learn them the modern way.

I finally landed my first one yesterday (then got booted out of the parking lot 30 seconds later before I could dial it in). Then, today, I landed six in a row! Pretty pleased with that. I really want to get them to where they're as natural and consistent as ollies.

I'm still skating an old Mullen World Industries freestyle deck (one on the left):



It's chipping and splintering badly on both ends. Splinters and making the damage so bad the board becomes unskateable has me terrified to do any 50/50 or pogo tricks. I'll get a new board soon, but until then the second half of the above list will remain empty.

Here is freestyle skateboarding (circa 1990) if anyone doesn't know (filmed terribly, btw):



A lot of the flip tricks have been absorbed into modern street skating, but the rail (side of the board), 50/50 (standing on the truck, board upside down), and casper (standing on the nose or tail, board upside down) tricks are still pretty much freestyle domain (unless you're Mullen who was known to incorporate even these into street sessions on a regular size street board [which incidentally at this point is almost as small as the old freestyle boards]).

Finding a place to skate in DTLA without getting kicked out within minutes is the most challenging part.

Updates:

Feb. 1st: Landed a couple double kickflips (old push down style), but I'm a long way from three in a row. 360 shove-its up to four in a row, but that's a pretty easy trick. Still, I'll take any progress I can get. Speaking of which, total backslide on kickflip progress. T_T I felt like I had them so well last Sunday, and now this weekend it's like starting from scratch. Discouraging. Until DST kicks back in I can only really skate weekends, so I guess "rust" will set in. Probably need to skate at least every other day not to backslide at all.

Feb. 14th: Brand new board finally. Couldn't re-use my old trucks because bolt pattern. Got new offset wheels and bearings as well, so everything is fresh.

Hot damn, it's nice to skate on wheels and bearings that aren't 20+ years old. So smooth. Kickflips are getting much closer to second nature now. Landed a couple ollie impossibles today. Was also finally able to start trying some rail and 50/50 tricks again. Hurt my thumb really bad catching the nose on a butterflip. This is a relatively easy trick once you figure out how the board is going to pop-up into pogo from rail, but every deck will behave uniquely. I'll get 'em, though. Carousels feel like light-years off. That's the only brand new trick up there that I'd never even really tried back in the day because they felt so hard.

Met some other skaters in the business parking lot in Marina del Rey where I skate most weekends. Super nice guys who filmed me doing a double kickflip! I also tried their street boards and kinda liked them... Trucks were way too loose, but the wider deck was more comfortable to stand on (~8.5" compared to my 7.4"), and I felt like I had more room for error on flip tricks. Like I could just flick out willy nilly without worrying about exact foot placement. Also, it was so much easier to tell where the board was in its rotation, whereas on the freestyle board you've got to be more delicate as it's so easy to overflip. Landed a kickflip my first try on one of the street boards like ten seconds after stepping on it!

April 5th: Bailed hard for the second time since starting back up. Didn't hurt *that* bad at the time, I almost kept skating even. But by the time I was ready for bed that night, my whole left side was in agony. I had to psyche myself up before turning over each time in bed that night it hurt so much. Even breathing. Thought maybe I'd cracked a rib, but it's been a few days and getting better so probably not. Sucks, in my younger days I could have shrugged this off, but now I'm lucky I didn't break something and takes much longer to heal.

But goddamn I love skating. Sounds gay, but it's really enriched my life and I've been so much happier since I started again a few months ago. I can't imagine giving it up again and these stupid injuries remind me there will come a day when I don't have a choice. Landing tricks is the best feeling in the world and *trying* to land tricks is very therapeutic and mentally stimulating. While it can be frustrating it's never so much that I actually get upset or want to throw my skateboard or whatever. Maybe it's because of the quick-load nature of skating. I can fail and be back on my board trying again within a couple seconds. No loading screens. No treks through easy sections just to get back to the challenging part. Always secure in the knowledge physics isn't out to get me. I'm screwing up, it's just a matter of figuring out how and then executing.

July 2nd: Third bad fall: like a sack of potatoes from a railflip that flipped unexpectedly back around to the wheels instead of back to the rail. Board shot out and I went straight down on my palm. Pain was serious. Will probably be wearing wrist guards from now on. Was lucky not to break my wrist this time.

[Josh]

Massive respect.

edit: I put my skateboard away for good after eating shit at a concrete park in Baltimore a few years ago. My shoulder will never be the same.

[icarusfall]

I used to be quite good at skating. I was more of a gap skater than anything technical though. Doing a 7 stair rail I had the board spin out under me, I hit my throat on the rail, then my face on the pavement chipping some teeth. Kind of lost my nerve after that and not being able to progress made me lose interest. Still have a deck I'll pull out once or twice a year and knock a few flips on.

[Fe 26]

I stopped when I slid down a sidewalk on my gut while twisting my leg. When I got up, it dawned on me that no one was around and had things been worse, there was no one around to take me anywhere for help.

[No One]

Compass is a hardcore skater?

Mind blown.

[Satsuki]

A bought a longboard over the summer, fucked up me knees, and got scared of it again I'm a pussy.

good for giving it a go though!!!! those boards are killer.

[sedition]

skateboarding hurts.. good luck.

Seems like you are already a badass though.

[icarusfall]

No one can touch a skater in the pain department.

[Josh]

I can vouch for that, and I played ice hockey for a decade.

[Josh]

Old Men Reflect: Best Trick Edition! I believe my crowning achievement was a kick flip (a proper kick flip, Compass...) to 50/50 to board slide with one of those little half assed flippy do things at the end. Might be a shove-it*, I never really learned any trick names.

If we are talking about fingerboarding it's a different game, but let's not talk about it.

*from a board slide you kick your board out 90 degrees in one direction whilst you turn your body 90 degrees in the other direction (feet off the board) and land like a graceful ballerina.