Someone stole my phone yesterday while I was working at Warner Brothers. I’m totally broke right now, and couldn’t even buy a much needed $20 blank deck the other day, not to mention phone bill. Just because I’m working at Warner Brothers doesn’t mean I’m above minimum wage.
As my phone was my only computer, camera and connection to the internet, it will probably take me a couple weeks before I can get going again with this blog.
In the meanwhile, keep skating!
Yesterday
Long story short: My wife and I are about to be in between jobs and apartments – we’ve been saving toward a business, but there is a large unknown area about whether or not it will work out. What I do know is that survival mode is about to hit, and I need to make more money than I have recently. This means less time to skate. Oh no!!!
When survival mode hits, play time goes on the chopping block. It’s a sink or swim week for us, hence the calm before the storm. We’ll find a sublet, it’ll all work out, but it is a rocky transition this time.
Yesterday, after working 13 hours on the set of a movie, all on 4 hours of sleep, I was angry at the world. Needed to skate. (Angry because they were supposed to pay me $300 but paid me $90 after changing the paperwork. That’s the film industry for you).
Location: Rite Aid parking lot (all these photos however are from my commute through West Hollywood to Beverly Hills, for work).
Duration: 1 hour.
Pros: Finally alone like Mullen, and possibly almost as geeky.
Cons: More time needed. Also, was exhausted after working 13 hours on 4 hours sleep, and I’d already skate-commuted about 4 miles. Legs tired. Also, razor tail.
Drills
Backside Popshovits
3
Frontside Popshovits
3
Backside 180 Ollies
10
Kickflips
25
New trick practice
Tre Flips
25 attempts. 1 make! Make rate: 4%
Heelflips
I did an extensive heelflip practice routine, as described a couple times recently. Easily spent half the session working on heelflips before I even tried to land one.
·Correct foot motion repetitions: 125
·Correct pop and execution of the flip, just trying to catch it with one foot, not trying to land it: 25 flips.
· Stationary Heelflip drills
25 attempts. 2 makes. Make rate: 8%.
All of my skating drills are done while rolling. Any time I practice stationary I specificy this along with the drill notes.
Am very pleased that I backtracked and decided to get solid with the basics before I try to do these while rolling. Pound for pound I’m already way better at heelflips than I was last week. Basics will help me advance faster.
Notes
1. Been skating on this deck for about 6 weeks. Lots of landing and stomping down hard on tail, flattening it out. Also, lots of skate commuting, trying manuals and grinding the tail. Razor tail. This combination is making it harder to get the pop or timing of kickflips. Or I’m overthinking it.
2. Kickflips. I landed some sweet kickflips, like, really nice. Also my timing was off a bit too much due to exhaustion and the tail.
3. Tre Flips. For sure I’ve been practicing enough to where my perception of time is becoming slow motion. It’s great. I can now isolate and play with the timing and angle of the flip after the pop. Still have lots of work to do, but work is the main ingredient and it’s starting to work out.
4. Heelflips. Labor of love, cuz it ain’t easy for me. Tres are easier than heelflips.
Today
As I write, I’m on set at Warner Brothers. It’ll probably be a very long day, and I probably won’t get to skate. Even without my long work day I am now in a pinch to get my housing and money figured out. Responsibilities loom. Heavily.
However, I hope to get out and do the same exact kind of practice I did yesterday, plus backtail practice.
The day before yesterday
Holy shit, it was my fortieth birthday, and the only thing I wanted to do was skate! And sleep. And then skate again!
First session
I went up to the Hollywood mountains with a friend of mine and we skated at the famous Bronson ditches. It was great fun. Nobody was there. Super hot desert high noon. Second time there.
I would’ve stayed all day but my buddy wanted to leave after only about a hour, which sucked. Wanted to get the feel for doing stuff on an angled wall. Still haven’t landed a flip trick on that ditch wall, but am getting more of a feel for it.
Session two
As I’ve written before, I generally feel unsatisfied when I don’t get to thoroughly practice my drills and work on new tricks. Every day. Even when I get to skate for a few hours, like at a park or with friends, I still feel like I haven’t progress or even skated unless I can do my repetitions.
For my evening session I went alone to my old favorite spot, the Hollywood DMV. Was there for about 90 minutes skating, and had lots of fun just goofing off the curb, and filming some 360 no complies (pictured at the top), and some of my highest nicest kickflips of a curb.
Kickflip on my fortieth birthday!
I think because it was a milestone birthday I wanted to spend more time just goofing and wanted to capture some of it on film for posterity. So it was a great time. Yet when it was time to go home and go the dinner/movie combo with my wife, I was left with a burning desire to do 25 kickflips, 3 Half-cab kickflips, work on my tres, etc.
Day after my birthday, yesterday
Alright. Long blog. In the morning I had to drive forever far away for an X-ray of my finger. It’s been about two months since I jammed it falling out of a 50-50 on a ledge, and I still can’t bend it too much, still is quite swollen.
Immediately after the X-rays, I went across the street and skated a low ledge for a half hour, mostly doing 180 frontside ollies into fakie 50-50s.
The session
After the X-rays and stuff, I got out to skate for another 2.5 hours. Hollywood DMV.
As I said, I was jonesing to get in my drills, dust off the daily dross that accumulates so quickly as an older skater, and then advance. However, I was interrupted by a cool dude, probably half my age, who wanted to skate with me. He was about the same skill level as me, and was totally humble. His girlfriend was down the street working on a Miley Cyrus video, and he was killing time with his old school Guererro.
As a mostly solitary skater who longs to be alone but also misses skating with friends, how could I deny the friendly request of this kid to skate together? I’m glad I was cool about it, it ended up being very fun.
We played a game of SKATE (my first). I won. When he left I luckily still had almost an hour to bliss out and skate alone.
Drills
Backside Popshovits
3
Frontside Popshovits
3
Fakie Ollies
3
Half-cabs
3
Backside 180 Ollies
10
Backside 180 Ollies to tail stall on a ten inch curb
10
Fakie Kickflips
3
Varial Flips
3
180 Backside kickflips
3
Half-cab kickflips
3
Kickflips
25
New trick practice
Tre flips
25 attempts, zero makes. A few were very close.
Heelflips
A little different approach, just like the other day, because I’m taking forever to get consistent with these.
I did 150 repetitions of moving my foot and heel in the correct motion, just to feel it.
I did 25 “flip practice” rounds, where I only focus on popping the ollie and executing the heel motion correctly, getting it to flip correctly. Then I land it with one foot on the board. Stationary. These are helpful. Very.
Actual heelflip attempts: 16, zero makes. My wife showed up and I ran out of time. However, I almost landed a few. That flip spin practice is working out for me.
Today
We’ll see. I’ve been on set for a movie for almost 6 hours so far, and it could go till super late. No idea. I’m in Beverly Hills at the moment, very much falling in love with all the very many skate spots I see.
A recurring photo of my morning spot for the last month and for another 5 days. In the evenings I put my stuff and take breaks on the opposite side of the lot, against the yellow building.
Yesterday
I had a wardrobe fitting in the middle of the day, for a movie I’ll be doing background for on Sunday.
It being the day before a big milestone birthday, my wife was very supportive of me going out and skating!
Location: The skate day was divided into two sessions, both at the Rite Aid in Los Feliz (a few blocks east of Hollywood). Was craving a curb, but the time it would’ve taken to get there and back would’ve taken too much of my skate time.
Duration total for the day: 2 hours!
Drills, session one
Location: Rite Aid parking lot
Duration: 30 min
Frontside Popshovits
3
Backside Popshovits
3
Fakie Ollies
3
Backside Half-cabs
3
180 Backside Ollies
10
Varial Flips
3
Fakie Kickflips
3
Kickflips
15
Manual Practice
14 minutes, all kinds of stuff. Nose manual shovits.
This is a view of the same parking lot as above, leaning against the yellow building facing the spot where I was sitting against the white wall. That's where the shade is in the late afternoon.
Drills session two
This was later in the day, same location, as seen above.
Duration: 90 min.
180 Backside Ollies
10
180 Backside Kickflips
3
Backside Half-cab Kickflips
3
360 Frontside Ollies
3 (270+, clean roll aways)
Kickflips
25
New trick practice
Heelflips
I’ve totally switched my approach in order to speed up the learning time. Been only making one every three sessions or so. Problem is in the flip.
I drilled the feeling of the correct movement by standing on my tail and flicking my heel over 150 times off the front edge of the nose.
Then, without trying to land any with both feet, I ollied and correctly flipped the board (with my heel), 25 times. Often landing with one foot on, in the control. These baby steps were much needed. I’ll continue.
Then I moved onto more heelflip practice:
Heelflip Practice
10 attempts, zero makes.
Stationary Heelflip Practice
(Unless specified as “stationary”all of my drills are done while rolling).
25 attempts. 1 make. Make rate: 4%
Promising: I got both feet on 25% of these attempts, after the flip.
This new method of breaking it down even further, it works!
Tre Flips
Attempts: 50; Makes: 1. Make rate: 2%.
This make was my best make ever if a tre flip, both stationary and rolling. I’ve been honing in on this slowly for about 6 weeks. Over the last few sessions I finally had a breakthrough with the flip action and timing. Been having tons of “almosts” with these. About 20% this evening had it going on.
Notes
I didn’t really skate at all from about 19 to 39. Was lent my first board in 20 years a little under a year ago. At the time I could carve and sort of ollie. That was about it. I love the way, in my last year of my thirties, skateboarding has come along and transformed my life.
I feel younger and stronger than I have in over 15 years.
Yesterday was a great skate session for the last day of my 30s. As I write it’s my birthday but only 2am of the same waking day as the above skate sessions.
Today?
It’s my 40th birthday. I plan on doing tons of skating. May even get up to the Bronson ditches around 3pm, after warming up and practicing in a flat parking lot for at least an hour.
Hollywood Boulevard at 6am. Perfect skate marble.
The last few days
Been working 14+ hour days on set for a few different shows. My favorite recently was being in a couple scenes with Al Pacino. As awesome as it is on set sometimes I’m always looking at the time hoping to skate.
Three nights in a row I got home too late to skate, but by night three I said fuck it, and went skating anyway, pretty late for a working, married guy.
Last night
Location: Rite Aid parking lot
Duration: One hour.
Drills
Backside Popshovits
3
Frontside Popshovits
3
Fakie Ollies
3
Backside Half-cabs
3
180 Backside Ollies
3
Fakie Kickflips
3
180 Backside kickflips
3
Kickflips
25
The gate prevented my entry and better picture, but I was psyched to see this perfect, long skateable ditch in Burbank.
New trick practice
Tre Flips
25 attempts, zero makes
Heelflips
Did something a little different, not trying to land them, just working mostly stationary on getting the flip around. Took forever to get 25 flipped properly. Like, almost half the session.
Notes
1. Tre Flips. Up till now the spin has been great but the flip was week. Been adjusting. Now, the flip has been finally strong, but this left my spin weak. Seems like I’ll be able to put the two together soon.
2. Heelflips. From watching skate support videos, and from admitting to myself how bad I am at heelflips, I chose to stop rolling for the first time in ages and work them. I took it another step, as recommended by Braille Skateboarding. Didn’t even try to land with the back foot, was just doing the tail pop and practicing hitting the angle off the nose with my heel. Saved lots of energy. Was still frustrating.
I still love the quest tho.
3. Everything else. Good. Not enough time.
4. After my session I was skating home on the sidewalk doing manuals. Was doing a long fast one, it was dark, my wheels hit a crack and I have road rash on my elbow and shoulder. This is the stuff that I don’t mind but makes my wife lose her mind. So any given pain gets multiplied by the pain of long drawn out anti-skating debates at home. Oh well. It’s just one of the difficulties facing this adult relearning how to skateboard.
Today
It is my last day of my 30s. I know tomorrow is really just another day. Been through plenty of birthdays. Regardless, am not stoked at all to move into my 40s.
Later today I’m sure I’ll get to skate. I have a very short work day, and a strong desire to practice all my skate drills in an hour and then just goof around with my very untrained yet budding backside tail stalls or slides.
Forever closed Orchard Hardware parking lot
Today
Still loving my newly cleaned and greased bearings.
Was excited to realize recently that there is no longer a constant security guard at the empty lot at the corner of Hollywood boulevard and Western. It was shadeless, but it was all mine.
I wanted to run through pretty much everything I’ve been working on. After that I played around on some purple parking blocks, kickflipping one for the first time.
Did everything I wanted but forgot varial flips, nollies and nose manuals. Busted another single nose manual shovit out, and it was such a sweet feeling.
Location: Empty parking lot, the old Orchard Hardware store.
Duration: 90 minutes plus 25 minutes skate commuting doing manuals.
Purple parking block!
Drills
Backside Popshovits
3
Frontside Popshovits
3
Fakie Ollies
3
Backside Half-cabs
3
Fakie Kickflips
3
180 Backside Kickflips
3
Half-cab kickflips
3
360 Frontside Ollies
3 (clean, controlled Ollie at least 300°, pivot out)
Backside 180 Ollies
10
Kickflips
25
New trick practice
Heelflips
50 attempts. Zero makes.
Tre Flips
25 attempts. Zero makes.
Notes
1. Heelflips. My attempts could be a lot worse, for example I have down the ollie with the heel drag. So the ollies are clean. Otherwise, today I did a lot more stuff wrong that I wasn’t doing before. Got lots of height, but the flip kept going halfway and stopping by bumping my foot up high. Over and over. Very few got around cleanly. Yesterday with the help of the curb I landed two, and I know I’ll get it down consistently, eventually, but at the moment I’m getting frustrated with heelflips.
2. Tre Flips. Looking good. I got both feet on one beautiful clean tre, but they were too close together and I bailed.
I’ve been making an adjustment to incorporate the flip better, and it’s been working but I’ve been overdoing it now, or flicking it away a bit too far.
3. While commuting for about 25 minutes on my board I kept practicing manuals. For the very first time I felt the zone of the possibility of ollieing and eventually kickflipping out of a manual! I didn’t even stop to try to ollie during the manual, but I felt out the leverage point from which I’d spring the maneuvers.
4. My timing with doing kickflips, or fakie ollies and fakie kickflips over or into things is so non-existent. It’s like I panic and flail. That’s a huge focus for everything I’m loving doing and loving working toward.
Not the nose manual shovit. This is a heelflip. Still learning these. They were easier to land going off a sidewalk. At the Hollywood DMV!
Yesterday
Was a big day for me, as a person. I’ve been in theater and have toured as a stand-up comic for years, but yesterday was my first day being welcomed to join the Screen Actors Guild.
I celebrated by going out and buying the stuff I need to clean my slow bearings. 3 in 1 oil lubricant and rubbing alcohol. That’s it. Like $4 total. Watched a few YouTube videos about it.
Holy shit what a difference it made! Also rotated my coned wheels. Was like riding a whole new skate.
Went down to my old favorite skate spot in Hollywood tonight. Old posts show that I was here night after night for about seven months. Hadn’t been there in over six weeks until tonight. It felt great!
Earlier in the day I had a awesome adult skateboard exchange online with another dude my same age whom is also relearning how to skate and to my great delight he’s also writing some down to earth good things about it I his blog. Check it out here: Back on Board
During our comments he expressed admiration for, and I concurred about, my quite technical and methodical skate practice and similar blog style.
So it’s perfect that during my evening session I naturally had one of my occasional sessions where I mostly just goofed around with the curbs (but also was stoked to hit the bare minimum of my drills and new trick practice).
Location: Hollywood DMV
Duration: 90 minutes
Drills
180 Backside Ollies
10
Kickflips
23
Manual minutes
20 minutes manual practice.
New trick practice
Heelflips
33 attempts, 2 makes. 6% make rate.
Tre Flips
33 attempts, zero makes.
Notes
1. Tre Flips. Most promising tre flip session so far. I brought my front foot back further and made a more pronounced flick of the foot right over the left side of the bolts. Made for a super easy spin and flip! Before this the placement and spin was already in the right place.
2. Nose manuals shovit out. I didn’t have a true manual pad to practice. The day before yesterday I practiced these on flat ground and theorized that it would be a long time before I could get these riding off of something. However, it was easy when I learned about keeping the nose down just before the shove.
Was just going off the sidewalk over and over. The curb is ten inches high. Had a fun time trying 360 frontside Ollies too. Rode away from lots of attempts, but didn’t nail a true 360. Close, like 310° Am CRAVING to return to the DMV and get the angle of the tail right and land some more true 360s.
Tomorrow
Once again, am super hoping to get to skate. Entirely stoked. Might get drawn away by career and marriage responsibilities. Broken Fingers crossed.
Here I am again, another view of the old standby, Rite Aid.
Today
Was hoping to get two skate sessions in today. That’s how obsessed I am. I have a feeling this is about the end of a lull in work activities, and my skate time will face some serious life opposition. So I’m skating like a kid at the end of summer vacation. However, two sessions isn’t happening.
Every other session I now devote ten minutes to some form of manual practice. Today it was nose manuals. Flat ground. After getting some nice roll I started experimenting with doing a shovit out. Within a few minutes I landed a couple. I’m sure it’ll be a whole other struggle altogether when it comes to landing them off a manual pad.
Pros: Plenty of sunlight and skate desire.
Cons: Too much sunlight, not enough time.
Location: Rite Aid parking lot
Duration: 1 hour, 10 minutes.
This plant is like me. Thriving through struggle in a hot black parking lot.
Manual minutes
10 minutes
180 Backside Ollies
10
Fakie Kickflips
3
Varial Flips
3
180 Backside kickflips
3
Backside Half-cabs
3
Kickflips
25
New trick practice
Heelflips
50 attempts, zero makes.
Tre Flips
25 attempts, zero makes
Breaking up the text monotony by recycling a photo of a frontside Popshovit through a filter.
Notes
1. Heelflips. Been saying this repeatedly without numerical results: these are coming along quite well. Today the first 10 attempts had everything right, height, complete flip, centering. Only thing a bit slow or low was my back foot. By the end I was getting tired, slower and sloppy.
2. Tre Flips. About 20 percent of these are clean 360 Popshovits. I’m landing them too. That’s when I don’t engage my front foot enough. Only problem is when I add the front foot action I’m often dragging it too much or pushing it forward and not flicking it up. The end result: the board moves too far down and away. For now.
3. Kickflips. It’s all about the Kickflip. Hence 25 per day. They are rising nicely the last few days, way different than a couple weeks ago when I had the Kickflip breakthrough after a struggle. Over half of them today were downright dreamy. Almost time to start drilling them over things, or into grinds.
Tomorrow
Keeping my fingers crossed. What more can this adult relearning to skateboard do?
Spotted these up by the Greek Theater. Sidewalk kills the barrier for me, but I bet there's more! Plus there's some great manual pads!
Today, technically yesterday
Damn was I pissy until I got to skate. Knew I could land a half-cab kickflip if I tried for awhile. Felt great. Only a couple months ago I was wondering if I could just do the 180 backside ollie.
Location: Rite Aid parking lot
Duration: 1 hour, ten minutes.
Drills
Backside Popshovits
3
Frontside Popshovits
3
Fakie Ollies
3
Backside Half-cabs
3
Varial Flips
3
Fakie Kickflips
3
180 Backside Kickflips
3
Backside 180 Ollies
10
Kickflips
25
Frontside 360 Ollies
3
New trick practice
Heelflips
25 attempts. Zero makes.
Tre Flips
25 attempts. Zero makes.
Observations
1. The new tricks. Heelflips and tre flips, are really coming along. My not-often make rate will change. It’ll just take awhile. I had more clean flipping almosts with heelflips than ever before. Including a soaring one. Tre Flips are being narrowed down to the front foot flick.
2. Half cab Kickflip. Done! I love the way it’s a combination of stuff I’ve been learning. What’s really happening is my awareness of the minutia is strengthening, and time is slowing down. I notice this with tres and heelflips too.
Here's where all the fun has been hanging out. Been keeping my eyes peeled for one of these on the street.
Today
Another squeeze play. Was skating within an hour of getting out of bed. Had to get it in early since I’ll be working on some kind of filming from 4pm until maybe 4am at the Greek Theater.
Decided to dedicate a beloved ten minutes to manual practice at least every other session. I’ll call it, “Manual minutes”. Want to advance in those skills as well, eventually incorporating these flip tricks into manuals. Any manual focus: Nose manuals; ollieing into them; learning from scratch how to ride off something in a nose manual; flip tricks out of manuals.
These both look cool, feel great, and are fairly low injury risk. Thing is, I’m so obsessed with learning and keeping other tricks, I’m in a time squeeze.
Gentler practice
On a day like today, when I’m skating in 87° direct sun, and my legs and hip are super sore, manual practice and a more exploratory set of drills was a welcome switch.
Location: Rite Aid parking lot
Duration: 1 hour.
Pros: Was feeling good about my tres and heelflips, and excitedly carved out more time just for these. Always great to have a stoke-factor.
Cons: No shade, not enough time. Was coming close to landing both tres and heelflips, but didn’t have enough time to keep going.
While skate commuting yesterday I found a cool double sided sidewalk ramp.
Drills
Manual minutes
10 minutes. Mostly nose manuals.
180 Backside Ollies
10
Kickflips
25
New trick practice
Heelflips
50 attempts, zero makes.
Tre Flips
50 attempts, zero makes.
Observations
1. Not making tre flips is a lot easier and more fun than not making heelflips.
2. Landed a sweet backside180 kickflip on my third try, but I was trying to only focus on the things I listed above. Am on a chase to break through to landing heelflips and tre flips, while improving my kickflips. I observe that I’m obsessed, and when I don’t land any, I’m a bit bummed even though I know I’m learning.
3. Heelflips: I’m usually getting good height, so that’s good. However, my heel flick is too slow or going the wrong angle, or too soft or too hard. Sometimes I get the heel flick to feel right, but then underdo the ollie. Every now and then I synch it all up correctly.
Been tearing through the shoe goo lately. Nightly application.
4. Tre Flips: I’m getting the board to end up in roughly the right location, but it’s still going only about 270 around with only a half flip. Every now and then I scoop it hard enough to get it around 360. Am learning that feeling. The rear foot scoop is responsible for 100% of the rotation and 75% of the flip. However, about 25% of the flip -as well as some of the height – comes from the front foot. In my case, as with the kickflips, I’m not always flicking out the front foot in as much of an up-and-out action as I need. Sometimes I do more out, or worse, down. Slowly training it.
Every now and then I synchronize a strong rear foot scoop with a nice upward front foot flick, mixed with my front shoulder staying lined up with the front of the board. When all those meet, I’m getting the tre around with my front foot nearly landing. But when the front foot goes out to the left instead of up, it ends up being too far behind me to catch the otherwise decent execution.
Tomorrow
Obsession. No idea when/if I’ll get to skate. Busy-ness is just one of the obstacles for this adult relearning how to skateboard.
Relearning to Skateboard 