Graph inspiration. Wax inspiration.

Using an app on my phone I entered 20 dates, 2 shy of my total. This represents my Make rate for rolling kickflips.

Today
Rolling 180 Frontside Ollie Practice
10-15
Make rate: 40%. Working on it: 60%
Stationary Kickflip Practice
17-5-3
Make rate: 68% Spin Fix/almost: 20% Ollie Fix: 12%
Rolling Kickflip Practice:
16-5-4
Make rate: 64%. Spin fix: 20% Ollie fix: 16%
Rolling Varial Flip Practice
10-15-0
Make rate: 40% Almost/Spin fix: 60% Ollie fix: Zero percent!

I also skated the curb. Tried Kickflipping in about 25 times, zero makes. Fun. Flipped out and Varial Flipped out too, got vid.

Varial Flip off curb

Ollie off curb.

A cracked out vagrant dude covered in sparkles sat nearby and cheered me on until he said he was going to masturbate to me, and left.

From scratch till now. Varial Flip Practice success rates.

You’ll see above graphs of my Make rates since I began practicing rolling kickflips and Varial Flips. Awesome! (Graph app is limited to 20 results until I upgrade. Will probably just report in 20s).

Math and YouTube: My skate buddies

My new creation behind the CVS

Today
Stationary Kickflip Practice:
18-6-1
Make rate: 72%. Almost/Spin fix: 24%. Ollie fix: 4%
Rolling Kickflip Practice:
16-5-4
Make rate: 64% Almost/Spin fix: 20% Ollie fix: 16%
Rolling Varial Flip Practice
6-16-3
Make rate: 24% Spin Fix/almost: 64%. Ollie Fix: 12%.

Totally blissful, a couple hours of skating. Totally continued pimping out curb with wax, and started digging out behind the curb. Using a rock. Pretending I was out on my phone.

Most of the Varial Flips that I didn’t land sailed well, but I got such good easy lift, I over flipped it.

The other night I posted saying I’ll be making CVS my home spot, and I sure have done just that. I love it cuz it’s well lit and away from houses, security, business front door and free of most traffic from other skaters.
Last night when I was there I took off all of a sudden when I heard other skaters coming.
Hence. I get all my technique from YouTube. And I get my push to do better, normally inspired from being around other peers, I get that from math. Keeping track of my number of attempts,

Random day between work, before injury

These cool slanted planter seats are great, outside North Hollywood Metro.

That day
Stationary Ollie Practice:
20-5
Make rate: 80%. Off balance: 20%
Stationary Kickflip Practice:
14-7-4
Make rate: 56%. Spin Fix/Almost: 28%. Ollie fix: 16%.

Today
Stationary Kickflip Practice:
16-4-5
Make rate: 64%. Almost/Spin Fix: 16%. Ollie Fix: 20%
Rolling Kickflip Practice:
14-9-2
Make rate: 56%. Almost/Spin Fix: 36% Ollie Fix: 8%.
Rolling Varial Flip Practice
5-4-1!
Make rate: 50%. Almost/Spin Fix: 40%. Ollie Fix: 10%.

What’s up
Spent long days and nights on set as background of sitcoms for pilot season. Home super late. Up early. After four or so days like this I went out at 10:30pm, tired, after drinking and smoking weed. Was fun, goofed around with all new stuff, just playing, seeing how it lands. Did the drills noted above, fell a few times. Felt a super sharp and quite painful sensation in my middle right side of back, after a hard wallride attempt.

Then back to set and busy-ness for three more days. Sometimes making me cringe and wince. I actually completely feel this was a psychosomatic event, based on my worries and anger. All these court orders, eviction, job changes, unexpected shit. But yeah, pounding it triggered it.
So tonite, even though some movements are sharp, I went out. Loved it. No pain while skating. Total bliss. It’s setting in again as I write this at home. But it shall pass.

Varial Flip Practice. The fifth one was AWESOME. Probably my single best looking moment on a board since I began relearning. It was still rising up to my feet after it spun a clean, even flip and 180. So happy.

Also, today I bought some wax and began transforming the curb behind CVS. It’ll be awesome eventually. I’ll dig out the back. For board grinds and Smiths.
I hope I don’t get evicted from our place. I’m digging my skate neighborhood.

Think I’ll call this home

Little smooth patch of parking lot near a curb at CVS

Today
180 Backside Ollies:
4-21
Make rate: 16%. Almost/fix: 84%
Stationary Kickflip Practice:
20-5-0
Make rate: 80%. Almost: 20%
Rolling Kickflip Practice
12-6-7
Make rate: 48%. Spin fix/almost: 24%; Ollie fix: 28%
Rolling Popshovit Practice:
16-8-1
Make rate: 64%. Almost: 32%. Ollie fix: 4%
Rolling Varial Flip Practice:
6-14-5
Make rate: 24%; Almost/Spin fix: 56%. Ollie fix: 20%.

I plan on waxing down the curb adjacent this smooth almost flat patch of parking lot.
Yeah my frontside 180s are hurting.For now.

Time Warp. Still here.

Kickflipping off a curb. Can't wait till I can flip on and off.

Yesterday
Stationary Ollie Practice:
19-6-0
Make rate: 76%. Almost/Spin adjustments: 24%.
Stationary Kickflip Practice:
17-6-2
Make rate: 68%. Almost/Spin fix: 24%. Ollie fix: 8%
Rolling Kickflip Practice
22-12-16
Make rate: 44%. Almost/Spin fix: 24%. Ollie fix: 32%.

Skating has super been on my mind. Watching slow mo video over and over to break down the many things I want to learn. Watching Natas Kaupas video, especially the no comply tre flip off a light post, over and over and over. However, I’ve been out of the house from super early till after midnight the next day. All public transpo to television studios where I can’t bring my board.

I’ve been wanting to skate so bad, I keep planning on getting up at 7am to skate before work, after very little sleep, but I haven’t. If I were single I’d probably go out to skate at 1am. Harder to do with a wife you haven’t seen really in days, who also supports but doesn’t really support skating.
Regardless, I did get home at 10:30pm last night and still got out to skate the above stats. It’s 3am right now, technically 2 days later, and I’m just getting home from Disney Studios.

Ollies?
I decided to start practicing straight up high Ollies. I can always land low or medium. But I’ve seen the cool footage of super high Ollies with the back tail rising higher than front. And I want that! Like 2.75 feet high. Controlled. Any time I don’t land the high Ollie, it’s because I’m pushing myself to a point where my center of gravity gets thrown off initially.

I also practiced Varial Flips. Only for 15 min. No makes, but a few close ones.
Overall I think I need to be kicking my front foot straight out more, just for kickflips, and to flick my foot up at the end of the foot roll. So my Kickflip will appear to plateau as I adjust. As I carry this over to Varial Flip Practice, I also see faltering, and more flops. As I relearn. Not just because of changes for physics, but because I’m in my head a bit more. Muscle Memory is huge, and mine goes strong, all the way back to the 80s. However, I am deconstructing this stuff, and rebuilding, so I understand plateaus and apparent set-backs.

Tomorrow
I’ll probably sleep in, get laid, go straight to Universal studios for a taping, and then get home late. So I’ll either have to skate as soon as I’m out of bed, maybe forfeiting the lovin’, or when I get home late at night. Either way, I want it. More of the same, but also want to nail the 180 front side Ollies and some variation of a Varial no comply off of obstacles, like Natas Kaupas.

So many moving parts! Small adjustments make crazy changes.

Flipping out of a grind. Casper Half Flip.

Today
Stationary Kickflip Practice:
18-6-1
Make rate: 72%. Spin/almost: 24%. Ollie adjustments: 4%
Rolling Kickflip Practice
19-18-13
Make rate: 38%. Spin/almost: 36%. Ollie thuds: 26%

One of the best days, as far as making landings and keeping the failed Ollie out of the picture.
I spent a bunch of time playing around with 360 Ollies, tail stalls, grinds. Also, it took me forever to get the kickflips going. Especially rolling. I probably tried 60 with 2 makes before I honed in on the pop first.

Skated for almost 2 hours, but didn’t do Varial Flip Practice. I wanted to, but ran out of time just playing around like I’m supposed to.

Low curb, tail slides.

I put down the phone and recorded myself doing a few flips off the curb. Fun. Hadn’t done that before.

Tomorrow
Very likely I won’t get to skate. I’ll be doing work all morning, and then in a tv show taping, paid, in the evening till super late.
More Kickflip practice, Varial Flip Practice, and practice flipping onto and off of curbs.

Sunday afternoon at the dmv

A side of the library with previously skated curbs, which I never skate. Yet.

Today
Stationary Kickflip Practice:
16-7-2
Make rate: 64%. Spin: 28%. Ollie adjustments: 8%
Rolling Kickflip Practice:
13-5-7
Make rate: 52%. Spin adjustments: 20%. Ollie adjustments: 28%
Rolling Varial Flip Practice:
2-15-8
Make rate: 8%. Almost/Spin adjustments: 60%. Ollie issues: 32%

Overall a great fun, focused workout and practice. I’m seeing progress, especially in learning how to break down and fix the problems, adjustments.
Lower Varial Flip make rate, but also had not practiced it for 5 or 6 days while I’ve really focused my limited time to kickflips. However, it’s all practice, it’s all building the neural pathways, muscle memory.
The way to get more height and Spin easier, as I wrote in last night’s post, did increase my make rate today in kickflips. The same experiment also gives me a new balance point to work on in varial flips.

Keep breaking it down, putting it back together.

On way to perform stand up comedy downtown.

Today
(Technically yesterday)
Stationary Kickflip Practice:
15-5-5
Make rate: 60%. Almost/Spin: 20%. Ollie/height adjustment needed: 20%.

Probably 15 of those Almosts were just my back foot not making it into my board as it flew away in front. Or away and down. I figure it’s me trying to control the flick too hard, and am flicking it down and away. The solution I’ve already started playing with is one that also should solve height problems. So let the front rise up way more and more the foot more away from me as a flick instead of a kick. Just in practicing a bit tonight after my show I noticed the cool effect of the front maxing out and the back rising yet a little higher, naturally. Naturally, because my front foot isn’t weighing it prematurely down.

Rolling Kickflip Practice:
9-10-6
Make rate: 36%. Almosts/Spin adjustments: 40%. Ollie adjustments: 24%.
I know that after the adjustment of the Ollie I’ll see a cool improvement of v this too.
Was skating at the dmv.

Skateboarding may break my bones, but your words don’t mean shit.

I didn't get to cross the street to get a closer picture. My bus home from Southland taping.

Today
(Technically yesterday)
Stationary Kickflip Practice:
22-20-8
Make rate: 44%. Almost/Spin problems: 40% Ollie problems/thud rate: 16%

About 14 of the “almosts” were when I came super close to landing but my back foot fell off. 3 or 4 were 1.5 spins. One of these crushed the hell out of my right foot. Right next to the 6 month swollen toe. It’s going to be a dark bruise tomorrow.

Rolling Kickflip Practice:
7-7-11
Make rate: 28%. Spin adjustment/almost: 28%. Ollie Thud: 44%

Can’t wait to get better and better. It’s coming, slowly.
Today a guy, maybe 20 yrs old, walked passed and was like, “Hey man, I can teach you how to ride that thing!” He yelled it a couple times and he sounded like a dick.

Set to skate

Yesterday
Stationary Kickflip Practice
9-9-7
Make rate: 36%
Today
Stationary Kickflip Practice:
14-6-5
Make rate: 56%. Almost/Spin problems: 24%. Flop/Ollie fail: 20%
Rolling Kickflip Practice:
9-10-6
Make rate: 36%. Almost/Spin adjustments: 40%. Flop/off-time Ollie: 36%.
Rolling Varial Flip Practice:
5-5-15
Make rate: 20%. Spin adjustments: 20%. Height and Ollie adjustments needed: 60%! That was a very interesting statistic.

Yesterday I had an hour to skate and half of it got wasted with biz. No more of that. Mostly played around with frontside Ollies into stairs.

Today I was on a tv series shoot, and got out for an hour. Started practicing 360 Ollies. Was getting them under somewhat control till about 220, and then could land with back foot up to 270. Twisted my ankle. Tried maybe 25. Landed none.
Also played around with 360 frontside no complies. Landed none.