First K-grind Ever

Fresh K-grind lipstick.

Today

First Ever K-Grind
When I’m practicing K-grinds I’m basically stationary, either frontside or backside, about 6 to 8 inches from the curb, almost parallel. Then I ollie up and try to land on the curb in Krooked grind position. New to me. As a kid one of my favorite tricks was something that’s now extinct: Ollie nosepick. This was back in the day when the nose didn’t look like a tail. On the Natas deck I used to ride, the nose was about 2 inches long. There was no K-grind. But I loved rolling up, ollieing high and stopping in a nose balance on the front truck. Practicing K-grinds is similar, and is similarly fun.

Today I was mostly practicing doing stuff off of a nice 10 inch tall painted curb with actual old school coping, I began goofing around with slowly rolling K-grind stall motions to get back up onto the sidewalk. To my surprise, I notched one perfectly (frontside) and grinded my truck and my nose at the same time for the first time! It was only about 6 inches long, and instead of popping off back to the street I popped up and rolled onto the sidewalk. Yet still, it was definitely my first K-grind, and it felt great.

Completed at least ten each of the following building blocks:
Stationary Backside K-grind practice
Stationary frontside K-grind practice
Stationary Kickflips
Rolling 180 Backside Ollies off a curb, how fun!

Drills
Tre Flip Practice
3-22
Make rate: 12% Almost make/not make: 88%

They are were clean around 360 but with weight on front foot more, balanced, poised, just like the K-grind practice stalls, or better, like nose manuals. They count though, to me.

Observation: When I don’t get the 360 around all the way, or when it flips only halfway, I need to kick it faster with my back foot.
But when it lands behind me that means I have kick it harder.

Two hours just isn’t enough

State mecca in sunset. The dmv again.

Today

In addition to writing the long post prior to this, I experimented and skated for two hours, completing at least ten quality makes of the following:

Stationary Nollies (Switch Ollies)
Stationary 180 backside Ollies
Rolling 180 backside Ollies off a curb!
Rolling Popshovits
Stationary frontside K-grind (K-stall) practice
Stationary Backside K-grind (K-stall practice
Stationary Kickflip Practice
Rolling Varial Flips

Drills
Stationary Tre Flips
1-24
Make rate: 4%

Had some other real close ones with tre flip practice. Was very psyched to land one. Was more like 300, but no hands down, clean The Varial Flips did not come easy, but the last few were one after the other. Would’ve loved to practice even longer. Feel like I ran out of time.

I would love to practice only tre flips, before running out of time. Yet, as an adult relearning to skateboard, I’m acutely aware that I ONLY JUST recently learned all the component parts and I really super need to keep getting better and smoother with all this other stuff. (Popshovits, kickflips, varials, etc). On top of that, I’m doing this because it’s FUN. Tonight I spent lots of my two hours just doing stuff for fun (like backside 180s off the curb) and wasn’t obsessed with getting all my drills into the equation.

Patience, Persistence, Visible Progress

Kickin' it hard. Tre Flip. Make.

Yesterday and Today
Was on set for a tv show from early morning until beyond midnight. After midnight had to go to sleep so I could wake up 3.5 hours later and show up to the set of Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia. It’s 6am, on set at CBS studios right now waiting to get started.
Am very much hoping to go skating tonight. Quite sincerely jonesing for some roll time. Madly in love.

Day before yesterday
Huge day. In 3 ways.
1. The main way it was a huge day is simply because I skated. Practiced. Slow and steady. Just showing up. Whenever I can put in a little roll time, even when I’m feeling rusty or heavy. In that sense, every day is a huge day. Talent Code. Playfulness.
2. I feel like I have superpowers. It was a big splurge, irrational. Eviction happening, bills unpaid. Industry work slowing down as pilot season wraps. It’s the calm before the storm, but I figured before the storm hits I better upgrade to some real wheels. It was an amazingly wise purchase. When I got my own setup initially, it was piece by piece as I replaced the ancient big heavy setup my soul brotha lent me last September.
The wheels I got when I initially completed my own setup was like a ten, dollar Deathwish set. Slippery but not even hard. It seemed. They worked. Got me started. They are super slippery in skateparks, they are slow in the pools. Very slow. I had completed my own set up, including the Deathwish wheels and returned all the other pieces and deck to my buddy by last Halloween. Just in time to tear my wrist ligaments and spend till mid February in a sling.

So last Saturday I finally bought a set of Bones STF, Mullen wheels. 53s. I FUCKING LOVE THESE WHEELS. Fast, hard AND grippy. Best of all worlds. New Reds bearings. I feel like I was doing practice swings for 6 months and now I finally have the real deal. Feels like I just shot to a new plateau. Amazing. I celebrated by busting a ton of stuff off curbs. High (for me) 180 backside Ollies, and Varial Flips and kickflips off the curb. Until then, I’d only ever landed one Kickflip off a curb and never landed a Varial Flip off anything. I’d landed 180 backsides, but not as high or stylish and I would only roll away if it was a perfect landing, straight down. I’m thinking those Deathwish wheels were DTF, maybe 95a. I’m very grateful that those Deathwish wheels exist at such a great price. All the same, psyched to push everything further with these superpower wheels.
I also love these Bones STF wheels cuz of the noise they make. OG. Cool screechy. It’s the soothing screechy sounds of skating.

Catching a tre flip, about to land it!

3. Remember this is a list, not a Bones wheels product review. So the third reason it felt like a huge day was because it was the second day – not in a row, but ever– that I landed tre flips. About a week ago I landed my first few and though I tried hundreds of times since then I hadn’t landed another until the day before yesterday. During the week of practicing I knew it was all refining, adjusting and learning. Wouldn’t be surprised if my progress goes like this for weeks or months before I’m consistent. Zero makes, 1 make, 5 makes, Zero makes, 3 makes, and growing and bettering until next thing you know I’m busting tres off ledges.
On Saturday, at the end of a fun, mellow practice of not doing many percentage drills, I landed 6 tres.

Drills
Stationary Tre Flip Practice
6-69
Make rate: 8%.
It was broken down like this: 0-25. Decided to keep going. Then 1-24. Decided to keep going. Then 5-20!

Also landed at least ten of the following, while working on doing them higher, faster and for some of them, off curbs.
Stationary Nollies (Switch Ollies)
Stationary 180 backside Ollies
Rolling 180 backside Ollies
Rolling Popshovits
Stationary frontside K-grind (K-stall) practice

So like I wrote above I also had tons of fun busting rolling kickflips, rolling Varial Flips and rolling Popshovits off a curb.
Toward the end of practice I self recorded some of this stuff. Including side decent tre makes. My observation about my tres is I sometimes have the correct angle and intensity of striking the tail to also get the height. I need to constantly remember to both hit it and push it with my back foot a little harder and faster. Faster. If I minimize the angle of the tail to like 15, maybe 25 percent tops, I don’t have to hit it as hard. Regardless I need to shove fast,v fast, fast.
Can’t wait to get back out again. Since I’ve been working on tv background and skating more than doing stand-up, I’ll have to balance out my day with stand-up, script writing, housework or networking for a job before I go skating. That is, if I wish to avoid yet another skateboard related argument with on the home front.

Kicked out of home and skate home

Yesterday
Gravity got the best of me towards the end of the day. It won out over everything.

Today
I have an all night commercial shoot tonight, so I got up early, (10 am) and went directly out into the spring desert air, beautiful day. Got coffee and went to my favorite skate spot in the hood. My curb and smooth patch being CVS. Never really skated it in the day. I skated for about an hour and twenty minutes before 3 armed security guards drove up, jumped out of a truck and told me to never return. Hmm. I don’t know about that.
I was also court ordered out of my apartment the other day. Losing two homes?
Before getting the boot I landed ten solid makes of the following:
Rolling Popshovit 10
Rolling 180 backside Ollies
Stationary 180 backside Ollies
Stationary nollies
Drills
Tre Flip Practice
0-75

A good number of those 75 non makes had lots of good things going for them. I had a few really close ones and about 10 got around all right but I stopped it with only the front foot. Had fun trying. Didn’t get frustrated, felt experimental.

I didn’t just land any tre flips!

Today
Rolling Kickflip Practice:
17-5-3
Make rate: 68% Almost/Spin fix: 20% Ollie fix: 12%.

Rolling Varial Flip Practice:
9-13-3
Make rate: 36% Almost/Spin fix: 52% Ollie fix: 12%

Stationary Tre Flip Practice:
0-100

Also landed ten each of the following:
Stationary Backside 180 Ollies
Rolling Backside 180 Ollies
Stationary Nollies (Switch Ollies)
Rolling Popshovits

Spent way too much time writing about yesterday while supposedly working today on other things. In keeping this brief, tonight was a great straightforward, sweaty skate session where I analyzed, experimented, over-thought and also lost myself into the motions.

At the beginning I smashed my foot so hard I was nauseous for about five minutes. Now as I write it’s all bruised and hard to walk without a limp again. I did this about a month ago too.
Tried 100 tre flips, plus a bunch warming up. No makes. Toward the end I was getting more and more around with the proper spin and landing one foot. Am still very much learning, so not much is in my muscle memory, or neural pathways. Yet.

Just landed my first tre flip!

In this crack, right where I started, after 6 months of relearning to skateboard, 3 of them in a sling or a brace, I just landed my first tre flip ever.

Today
I landed my first tre flip tonight! Euphoric. I feel like a different man, walking around with a special secret. Like a new class, like someone who just lost his virginity or someone wearing silk underwear on the sly.

Stationary Nollie (Switch Ollie) Practice:
14-11
Make rate: 56%. Not make: 44%.
Still quite awkward and fun. I know I’m always playing, but trying things switch stance makes me really feel like I’m just out goofing around. I jumped the gun on lots of these. Odd timing.

Stationary Tre Flip Practice:
3-47!!!!
Make rate: 6%. Not make rate: 94%
I decided to commit to landing a tre flip instead of going back and forth between feeling like I had to first commit to the 360 pop shovit. I was thinking that the tre flip might actually be a good stepping stone to the pop shovit it, since it gets me using that back foot to get it around while having more stability with the use of my front foot. On my 27th attempt I landed one! It was a clean landing, in the same spot where I began. Only non-clean thing about it is that I actually landed with a steady balance on only front trucks, like a nose manual. But it was poised. Then within a few more attempts I landed a couple more wherein the board itself travelled about 270 to 300 degrees around but I landed on the front trucks and so I pulled it around the rest of the way, to 360 before putting the back trucks down. It was still clean, landing in the same spot where I began.
I finished out the drill with the 50 attempts. But then before I left, already running late for something, I tried another 25 or so, not drilling myself. Didn’t land another one, and already I noticed a subtle difference in my over-trying it again, trying to muscle it around with the back leg and hence thudding it somewhere else.

Victory lap. Personal history.
I must now take a blogged victory lap here with the first landings of the tre flip. Seeing a video of a tre flip, right around the time when my friend lent me his extra board for my transportation, was one of the big kickers that made me want to skate again for more than just transportation. Simply put, seeing a tre flip about 7 months ago really made me want to learn how to do a tre flip. It became my back-of-the-mind goal. I even wrote it in my goals on New Years Eve. I said I wanted to learn the tre flip by the end of the year.
During the 6 or 7 months since I first started to relearn skating, I spent about 3 of those months wearing a brace or splint for my wrist ligament damage. When I began again I couldn’t even land a moving ollie, as I kept kicking it out to the right, in front of me. That was my first correction.  At the same time I’d retained 180 frontside ollies, which are the easiest thing ever, it’s all pushing and it’s all in front of you. Then within a couple hours of practicing I could do a nollie popshovit, but I didn’t even know at the time that’s what it was called. Someone told me. Funny how I’d retained that nollie popshovit and could do it easily long before I could do a regular popshovit and even longer before I could do a nollie. I only this week began Nollie practice and I still can’t really land straight nollies while rolling. I’d retained this from childhood even though back then there was no nollie-able nose. Only pug nose 80s boards for street. As as kid I was doing it on my freestyle board and also while rolling backwards after a shovit. We didn’t call it a nollie. Instead all my friends were like, “What the hell is that?” And I’d say, “I don’t know.” Back then shovits weren’t usually popshovits, and so pressing down on the nose was just part of the regular shovit. As opposed to popshovits which are all in the back leg. So it wasn’t a stretch of the imagination when I was rolling backwards in switch stance to use my tail to pop the shovit. That’s like, ancient history on ancient innovation.

The first new trick I struggled to learn when I began skating again, was the popshovit. I vaguely recall doing these toward the end of my childhood skating years, but they weren’t ingrained into my dna. I basically started from scratch. Big time. I was clueless. For the first few weeks back on a borrowed board I was even skating it backwards, trying to learn popshovits while standing backwards, thinking the nose would be the smaller side. That’s how reentry clueless I was. All my early attempts were just thuds, with the board careening off behind me a few feet. Hundreds of attempts later, day after day, while also breaking my toe trying, I finally got the popshovit down. But in the meanwhile there were many days and weeks of not landing. And then 1 out of 100. Built slowly. It was bliss. Amazing. I still practice it, trying to get it higher and higher, and remembering not to be lazy with the back foot.

In all this history I was also practicing all kinds of no comply stuff and also little board slides, tail slides, wall rides and grinds on curbs. I’m talking more about the progression of this technical journey leading up to my milestone tre flips.

Next I decided to relearn kickflips, but I did it wrong at first. I started with stationary and then moved on to rolling kickflips. Since I already knew them as a kid I didn’t start with weeks of zero percent, but instead had weeks of 12%, 18%, and then built over a couple months up to about an 80% make rate with the stationary kfs, and much less with the rolling kfs. Then I saw a youtube video of Kickflips and realized I was doing it right for the 80s but wrong for the popsicle stick boards and all the modern tricks. Nobody kicks their feet off the side of the board by the truck bolts. It’s not even a kick anymore. It’s a flick, a light flick off the front of the board. Doing it off the side reduces the possibilities of what you do with the trick, and it also reduces balance while rolling. Also reduces height. So I had to start all over again. From scratch with a much lower 10% make rate for ever, and built from there again. Good thing is, once I had the stationary kickflips down, it wasn’t that big of a difference to do them while rolling. That was not to be said of the old school style on these smaller lighter boards. It was easy to roll fast and bust a kick flip on a 10.5 inch wide board when I was a short kid with small feet. Adjusting the stance and front foot flick for my height and the smaller boards was essential.

The next step in the progression was Varial Flips. More of the same, slow build with zero success for a few weeks. Then I had a 5% make rate and it build from there. Right now I’m still learning them, and I still often under rotate or over spin the board, and I can work on height. But my make rate went from a long cold 0%, up to about 50% make rate. Sometimes better.

A couple weeks ago I started trying to get down the motion of the 360 popshovit, knowing it would be needed also for those cool Natas no-comply tre flip tree plants as well as regular tre flips. I tried at first doing them only while moving, then switched to stationary. I tried for awhile (maybe 200 attempts over a few days) to do tre flips and then decided that 360 popshovits would be a better building block. After a couple weeks of getting them around or not, I landed one and then spent 4 or so more sessions not landing one. So I decided to experiment to see if it would be easier to get it around and landed if I went straight to the tre flip. Within 27 attempts of that experiment, as I mentioned above, I landed a tre flip. And then two more.

So it does seem that tre flips are easier than 360 pop shove its, for me at least. I’ll keep refining the rotation and then bring it all together.

The future of this.
I do anticipate, as with every new trick, that I’ll have a bunch more days of not landing it again, and then I’ll land a couple and then a few and then my make rate will slowly increase to 10% and gradually to 50%. I’ll keep practicing them stationary but at that point I’ll start practicing them rolling.

Once I get them very smoothly rolling I will still keep working on some new tech tricks (Ollie Casper, heel flips, nollies, nollie kickflips, nollie heel flips, ollie impossible) but I’ll also switch focus to taking the tricks I have and learning how to consistently do them off the curb and after that off small ledges and stairs.

After this, starting with popshovits and kickflips, I will practice on precision landings so I can take my flip tricks to the curb and into grinds.

Also practiced today
10 stationary 180 backside ollies.
10 rolling 180 backside ollies
10 rolling popshovits
10 rolling kickflips
10 rolling varial flips

During the above practice I had another hard time getting to 10 with the varial flips. I was experimenting with height, and I’ll say that getting the height and timing into the spin kept throwing me off. Still a work in progress. Am very glad I evolved to begin practicing in sets of 10 instead of always just drilling myself. It allows for growth and experimentation without always pushing myself.

I feel that one of the first areas to go for me when I miss a few days of practice or when I get into a bad mood or am otherwise generally sluggish, is the pop of the ollie. In the kickflip and even the pop shovit I found myself not engaging the back enough. Lazy foot. So not enough pop. Note to self. More pop. But when it comes to varials, kickflips and tre flips – remember not to over spin the board along with the more height. Just a flick, thanks. I tend to simultaneously increase the strength of the flick with my front foot in proportion to my increased pop of the ollie in the back foot.

First time Nollie drills. And more!

At Stir Crazy coffee house in Hollywood, working on this blog and my budding career. Board patiently lays dormant.

Day before yesterday
Didn’t skate. Too heavy in body and spirit. Too much damage control going on in life outside. Skating would’ve made me feel better, but I basically was with the wife all day and then depressed about the eviction and not managing to come up with the money to know what we’d be doing about it. I wanted to skate. But also given the circumstances it also made sense to rest my inner groin for a day. I’d pulled it (over and over) trying to overpower my 360 shovits and/or tre flops the night before. So just by staying home with my wife – even though it wasn’t like I was super bonding or doing productive stuff for my marriage or career – it was damage control just by not skating while she’s at home kind of very upset at the quality of our life, with no food or entertainment ( we have not tv or radio and often no mobile network on phone).  She is a reader, and is awesomely patient and supportive – and even asked me if I wanted to go out skating that night because she does respect it. Also however, skating is often a huge target and example she uses when we fight about me not “making it in Hollywood” yet. So I tread lightly and choose my battles. That night, I also chose to rest my pulled muscle and also go to bed early for my big day in court.

Yesterday
Stationary Nollie Practice:
13-12
Make rate: 52%. Not make rate: 48%

Stationary 360 Pop Shovit Practice:
0-25

Stationary 180 Backside Ollie Practice:
19-6
Make rate: 76%. Not make: 24%

I also landed 10 each of the following: (While doing all these “complete 10” I am not as anal about just focusing in and landing it with a high make rate. I’m playing around way more with dynamics, trying to do it higher, faster, etc. But I want to land at least ten to grow and keep it fresh).

10 Rolling Kickflips (noticed I was lazy on the ollie part of this last night).
10 Rolling popshovits (at first I was lazy on kicking it around 180 with back foot. When I corrected that it was a joy).
10 Varial Flips (I initially was only going to land a couple before moving on to a second round of 360 pop shovit practice. However all my varial flip dynamics were off, too lazy, lots of thuds. And then I’d put my all into it and then I’d get a high ollie, get it around 180 but I’d over flip with by 1.5 or 1.75 times). So I just dug in and kept at it, sweating and refining and learning until I got 10 nice makes. No matter how it may feel like I’m back tracking with this sometimes, I’m always still very thrilled to land even one. When I first began relearning skateboarding about 6 months ago (mixed with 3 months in a sling during that time) these seemed like the second most coolest, distant trick away from my repertoire. (The first most lofty being the still elusive tre flip). Of course now I’ve upped all those antes again, but am still totally stoked about varial flips so I’m not frustrated that it took me so long to land 10 even though previously I was at a 50% make rate.

More on yesterday and analyzing other stuff about practicing
Went to court. Was there most of the day. The result was a fair compromise. We leave the apartment, we don’t pay back rent, and we have 60 days to vacate. The pros of course, no rent or back rent. Cons: Am attached to how great of a deal/location we are leaving and also don’t have first/last/security deposit as well as good credit any longer. Pilot seaon is wrapping up and so is my blissful but underpaid months of tons of background work. Maybe back to survival phone job for awhile. NOOOOOOOOO! We have time, but there are challenges ahead.

I note this stuff in my blog about relearning to skate, as these challenges sometimes inspire me to skate, and sometimes they detract from it.

In the evening – with a sense of relief that our verdict wasn’t worse, we treated ourselves to a nice meal and some wine and then I was off the hook, my damage control and legal and household duties done. But at that point I started fighting myself to get out and at least show face in the Hollywood stand up comedy scene of which I’m a part. Like I’ve written before, I never thought that I’d be actively fighting against myself on whether I should practice stand-up comedy or go skateboarding. I really really just wanted to go skating for two solid hours. However, in trying to build up some lost momentum in the career, I went out to a stand-up show, leaving only an hour to skate. I didn’t perform, I just watched. “Showing face”. Boring. But I laughed.

Practiced Nollie drills for the first time. I’d messed with them before, usually only 5 to 10 at a time between other things. Each time I’ve noted how terribly I suck at them and that it’ll be a whole learning process. Last night I had tons of fun trying. I was practicing them stationary and so I switched my perspective and acted like I was just practicing switch stance ollies. Oddly, as soon as I did that, they became easier, even more fun. I suppose it’s because that perspective switch suddenly made the motion not so foreign. When I was a kid skating there was no Nollie anything because there was no big nose or double tail. We were inventive though, and so lots of times after doing a shovit we’d be riding backward and would play with what now are “nollie” tricks. That’s how I learned nollie popshovits which were the first trick I regained after the ollie when I returned to skating last Autumn. But the nollie popshovit is a bit different than the nollie. On top of all that, when I was a kid we used to occasionally joke around trying to ride switch. It wasn’t a “thing” like it is today, it was just something we did while goofing around. Apparently my body still remembered the motions of switch ollie practice. Hence most of my attempts last night were actually a good 10 inches off the ground, some higher. I do know I’ll have some big adjustments once I switch to rolling nollie practice.

The night before last night I really pulled something in my right (back) leg inner going trying to overpower my 360 popshovits around, and I wasn’t even getting many around cleanly at all. But at the end of the practice I realized that if I lean forward toward the front edge of the board (Not the nose) a bit, and almost do the kick motion behind me, it spins around way easier. Last night in practicing, I got about 20 of the 25 attempts to spin around 360. Not always landing upright, but also not landing too far away from me, still landing out in front of me (which is cool considering how it feels like I’m leaning in that direction to begin with). Am still in the thick of it trying to learn these and so I’m sure I’ll be changing some of these techniques as I go. What I did observe last night is that I still need to be pretty centered over the board, can’t go out of control leaning back and forward too much.

Another thing about learning tre flips/360 popshovits: I’m still not absolutely committed to learning the 360 popshovits before tre flips. Part of me isn’t committing fully to either because I keep changing my mind about which should come first. Theoretically the 360 popshovit would be the first stepping stone, but then again the tre flip may be easier because at least with the tre flip I can stabilize it a bit with my front foot as I flick it. This brings up questions about the amount of the role the front foot plays in both of these tricks. Either way, I would’ve done another round of 25 last night if I had time. However, I thought it would be the marriage diplomacy to not be out till past midnight skating. Ironically though, when I got to bed by a decent hour (1:30am) and up by a decent hour (9am), what  do I do anyway? I spend the morning overwriting the skateboard blog.

Today
Will see. It is 12:30pm, I’ve got tons of other stuff to do. Again tonight I’ll be battling it out between stand-up comedy and skateboarding. I’m sure I’ll manage to get away for at least an hour. If so, can’t wait to practice more nollies, backside ollies and 360 something or others. Of course to warm up I’ll bust out 10 of this, and 10 of that.

Beautiful day to Thud

View of side street on way to CVS back parking lot.

Today
Stationary Backside 180 Ollies
15-10-0
Make rate: 60%. Not makes: 40%
Rolling Popshovits
18-5-2
Make rate: 72%. Almost/Spin fix: 20%. Ollie fix: 8%
Rolling Kickflip Practice
18-6-1
Make rate: 72% Almost/Spin fix: 24% Ollie fix: 4%
Rolling Varial Flip Practice
12-11-2
Make rate: 48% Almost/Spin fix: 44% Ollie fix: 8%
Stationary 360 Popshovit Practice
0-25

Warmed up for rolling kickflips with drills of landing 10:
Stationary kickflips

Every day is a beautiful day in LA, but today had that spring day quality, and it was 420, and there was a slight breeze.

My roll time was limited to a little over an hour. Did the slow steady practice-everything approach. Could’ve used more time, was just getting into it. Was also injured a bit.

I'm always depicting the place where I now mostly skate.

Before I started blogging my journey to relearn skating, I did it on paper for a few months. These were months of the wrist injury, the broken toe, trying for days and days just to land a Popshovit.
During this time, as well as during some of the beginning of this blog I kept over-trying my Ollies into things, putting too much muscle into them wherein the brunt of the force just goes into my leg, or outer hip or inner upper thigh.
In other words, while learning Popshovits and kickflips I’d often write about slapping the tail down with a thud, not being light enough on my feet, not getting air and instead I’d be taking the force of it in my leg just as I would if I were just stomping my foot on the pavement. It’s about timing being off and over trying.
I was doing that trying to get my 360 Popshovits around. Pulled my inner groin. Again. It was like that quite a bit over the winter. So I know I’m learning.
At the end of not making the 360s, I made an adjustment. Started being centered over lengthwise axis but leaning forward a bit. Just a bit. Before I think I was leaning back. And I lightened up the pop and put more of a 40 degree angle instead of 80. The last few attempts spun lightly, easily.
I had to go and was hurting anyway.

Smashed my phone skating!

The day after I severely damaged my wrist, I received these much needed wrist guards in the mail as a gift from my dad. I doubt mind them like the other pads, and I beat them up.

Yesterday
Loving and then loud and then quiet. That’s how it goes at home when you have almost no possessions and tons of bills, facing homelessness and yet have a kickass new best android phone available and then your skateboard shoots out from under you on a 180 backside ollie (which was almost perfect except I landed leaning back too far), hits your backpack where the phone was safely hiding, smashes the screen and then you tell a wife who is already fed up with the way skateboarding has dominated free time that one “should” be using to profitably dig out of this mess. So, loving, loud and then quiet.

Last night after doing that tv background work mentioned in my previous post, I commuted, organized, talked with wife and instead of deciding to go skating I committed to performing stand-up comedy at a nearby open mic. Trying to balance it all and I never thought I’d see the day when it’s seriously hard to keep myself away from skating and instead focus on being onstage, honing my money craft.

A burrito was still in the mix though, and so before going out to perform comedy, I ran a quick errand to the burrito stand on the corner. On the way I went right through my favorite CVS parking lot with the curb I waxed, the wall to ride. It’s been my skating home. I called in my order and then skated for 10 minutes. I put my backpack down about 12 feet away, but partially around the curb bend, out of danger. I put my phone in the backpack to keep it protected, and then I enjoyed much more height, spin control and faster “make rate” on 10 of the following:

180 Backside Ollies.

On one of the Almosts, the board shot out from under me and hit my backpack hard. Shattered my phone screen. Spider webbed it out. It was, in the yelling words of my wife, my, “One nice thing!”. Her anger was longer than that and mostly directed at skateboarding. Said I’m delusional and it’s time to grow up and not be doing stupid stuff a 10 yr old would do. In general I know she respects skating, but again, given the fiscal and housing situation (and my work instability as well as hers) I do understand her stress.

My feeling though, while on the board, in those brief ten minutes of skating and skate commuting, was one of skate power. The board and my feet felt as one, I felt light and in control. Strong and patient. Yet there was no time to keep skating, didn’t get home from the comedy show till about 1 am, making it a 19 hour day for me. And today I tell you, I’d love to go skating, LOVE it. I just may get away despite the gauntlet of responsibilities and the household sore spot it has become.

All the same, whether on the board or off the board, these are the challenges that face this adult, relearning to skateboard!

Solitary practice in exile.

Yesterday
Stationary 360 Popshovit Practice
Don’t even know if that’s the right name.
0-60

With slow mechanical focus I had fun not worrying about the outcome -nor personal stats – as I trialled and errored my way through landing at least 10 each of the following:
Backside 180 Ollies
Stationary Kickflips
Varial Flips

Awhile ago I read a great book called The Talent Code. It’s about how nerve linings slowly grow and contribute to skill, and it covers the best way to practice. In essence, break down the steps into baby steps, smaller and smaller. A fresh curiosity about the minutia actually contributes to the best growth of “myelin sheaths”. It makes it more fun and speeds up learning. Been thinking of this as my skate routine evolves.
I still intend on regularly doing, “drills” where I count my “Makes” and “not makes”, isolating the latter into problems with either the spin or the Ollie (if applicable). However, I don’t want to feel aversion to competing with myself, nor aversion to digging deeper and retooling dynamics. I want to freely deconstruct tricks so I can do them better and better while not avoiding this due to temporarily lower stats.
Hence I’ll be posting less juicy notes about competing 10 makes of various tricks.
So it’s for no pressure, encourages experimentation, discourages procrastination and keeps the building blocks fresh. Smart to constantly review while saving time for new stuff.

Despite my slow and steady approach I gotta say I was really hoping to land another 360 Popshovit last night. I’d landed my first the night before, and had a bunch of Almosts. Last night I didn’t have as much control or height until the end of practice. If I’d tried 100 to 200 I would’ve landed one.

It was way easier for me to bang out ten Varial Flips than it was to land ten 180 backside Ollies. I saw some great video of 180 backsides and I’m really back to the drawing board. I was weak at this as a kid too. It’ll be awesome eventually.

Reason why I mention exile: last night my wife and I stayed in a hotel, way on the east side. As part of the eviction process the landlord had our apartment painted and glazed, it was too toxic to stay there. Won’t know till next week if we’ll be facing homelessness. THAT would be a serious impediment to fun.
Last night then was the first night we spent in 2.5 years in a real bed, and had a tv. Didn’t watch it though. Nope. I went out and skated. Wife tolerated it. Barely. Her aversion to skating grows as it becomes synonymous to procrastination.

Also yesterday I had an instagram comment conversation with Jeff Grosso! It was an awesome thing. I geek out more about my skater heroes than I care about acting celebrities.

Today, at this very moment as I write, though having nothing to do with skating, I’ll add that I’m working as paid background for a tv show taking place in a strip club. Never been to an actual strip club. So I’m sitting here being fed and paid while actresses dressed as strippers dance all around me. Funny. Well, better get back to “work”and pay attention. Ha ha, more into blogging about skating than drooling like the other background extras. But am still totally macho.