Trying to skate, “The Middle Path.” Plus, a couple “firsts”

Mine! All mine! I had to hop a fence, trespass at a closed public high school, and keep my eyes out for the cops since they kicked me out last week, so it was risky. Manuals are worth it.

Tonight
As mentioned in my notes on my session last night, I’ve been increasingly wondering how to strike a happy balance between maintaining what I’ve already learned, learning new things, and of course just goofing around and playing on my skateboard. When I was a kid, skating 5 or 6 hours a day it was never an issue. As a busy adult with a burning desire to get better at skating, it’s more difficult to juggle these three distinct skate objectives.

“The Middle Path,” as described by the Buddha but which is also just common sense, seems like a solid approach. Divide up the time, a little of this, a little of that. However, there are a couple immovable variables that make simple division a non-solution. For one, unless I only want to do little 180s onto a curb or manuals, I need to warm up. These days it takes a good 45 minutes before I’m warmed up enough to really jam out and improvise with obstacles, or move on to satisfying more complicated technical tricks. So unless my goofing and playing is going to be all sloppy (and unsatisfying), and if I want to maintain what I’ve already learned, I need to warm up. For too long.

Well lit flat ground spot, next to the above manual pad. My heaven. Even when I have a hard-sought manual pad, due to the nature of my obsession with betterment, I often spend the bulk of my time with flat ground tricks. What?!

Every time I’ve ever gone to a skate park or session with friends, and try to just skate, I seriously suck and can’t land anything even if I skate for a couple hours. No, I first need to practice in succession at least what I call a “Basic Drill Set.” Or an abbreviated version of it.  30 minutes, minimum. More like 45 minutes. A “pre” session. If I don’t, I feel like I’ve wasted my whole day.

I will say, these are wonderful, I mean WONDERFUL  problems to have. I’m lucky to skate. Lucky to be healthy. It is all for fun, and so there is no reason to fret. Also, I truly have a ton of fun with the more rigid drills anyway. It’s always fun. (Unless I occasionally get frustrated, like last night with my kickflips).

As soon as I started skating tonight, I busted through my right shoe. I’ve already done a few reconstructive shoe goo surgeries, but this one is serious.

My “middle path” kind of falls apart for me because I can’t really just play around with any skill unless I warm up, and warming up/maintaining takes up about 3/4 of my skate time. (My wife and schedule usually just tolerates an hour). So for the remaining 15 minutes I’m either working on new stuff or I’m just goofing around. The last few sessions I opted for just playing around in between the parts of my drills. Which left zero time to resume practicing and landing new tricks (heelflips, tre flips, kickflips from tailstalls). Twice already since friggin’ March I was up to 40% landing tres and heelflips, but once due to injury, and once due to being too busy, I lost both of these. And now, for the third time I’m losing my new grasp of these gems.

Again, these are good problems to have. Yet frustrating nonetheless.

I always keep my wax hidden, and only put the fresh wax on as I leave – to skate it next time – so that I don’t get arrested for vandalism.

Sort of solutions/Tonight’s session
Location: I’m not saying. Shhh.
Duration: 90 minutes
Pros: Playful mood, and I unexpectedly busted out a “basic drill set”. Despite a hole in my shoe.
Cons: Initially I was going to just goof around on a red curb, but that area was too dark. Initially I was buzzed from a little dinner wine (I’m not a big drinker, but our dinner was a big celebration), and at first I tried doing kickflips early, fell hard a few times, and was bleeding from my back between my shoulder blades for the whole night. Plus, I guess my shoes are getting to be a huge drawback.

I love to intersperse my “drills” with the playing around. That way it doesn’t get old and doesn’t feel so rigid and mechanical. Like tonight, I decided to mostly just play around for the whole night, only doing manuals on the above manual pad, and practice nose manuals on it (any time I have even a glass of wine or one beer it basically kills any technical stuff for me). However, as time went on, each time I skated back into position to re-approach the pad, I would do one or two tricks from my “basic drill set” on the way. Just naturally, it was fun, but it was also very productive practice. I got to skate for 90 minutes (because my wife was sleeping), and by then it was actually 3 or 4 hours since dinner, so at the end I did my 25 kickflips and actually managed to inadvertently complete a “Basic Drill Set“.

However, I still didn’t get to work on heelflips, tre flips and other stuff. It’s all good. I think I’m just super excited to improve and I’m being impatient with the limited time I have.

After I got home – and yes, I’m back in a home again – I tried to fix these shoes again. Will see how it works out.

I believe another part of my sort-of-solution will be to make more of a schedule. I don’t get to skate every night right now, but maybe I’ll be like this:
3 or 4 of 7 sessions I’ll do what I’m doing now. 45 minutes of drills mixed in with about 15 minutes of goofing.
3 or 4 of 7 sessions I’ll have alternative trimmed down drill sets. I’ll figure out the minimum warm up I’ll need to be able to devote at least 30 minutes to new stuff, or just playing around.

Shout out
Tonight I read a similar post which sort of inspired me to continue this rant (about time management and skill-building determination) from a fellow skater whom I’ve never met. Feels like a bro to me. He’s got some great posts and wonderful enthusiasm for the minutia. Also 40 years old. Also driven to improve, and a great writer. Check out his blog: Back on Board.

Last Thoughts and oh yeah, the new stuff
I wonder if Mullen, who is a HUGE role model for me and was (is) also quite militant or “rigid”, ever went through this. He probably did, when his dad was putting the squeeze on his skate life. I suppose time management is not a problem for him, he’s a multi-milliionaire now and can pretty much skate as much as I did when I was a kid.

For me, again and again I’ll say that these are wonderful problems to have. The weirdest part of it is when I’m in a spot with a great manual pad or something not always easy to find, and I feel compelled instead to do my 1,000th kickflip of the year. Like tonight, I did those 25 kickflips instead of taking advantage of the manual pad for more nose manual practice.

Tonight I landed (attempted and landed) my first fakie 180 frontside ollies. I just never tried before. I was always obsessing over the fakie backsides (halfcabs). I floated these so well I bet I’ll be able to grab these into melons.

Also, after a few sessions of sort of trying, I was able to bust out my first long fakie manuals. SOOOOOOOOO FUN. Can’t wait to do more.

Angry at kickflips: wait isn’t this all for fun?

Waxing up. Getting ready for slappies and tailslides.

Yesterday
All these photos are from the same Chase parking lot in LA, at Vermont and Sunset.

Sometimes I have great floating kickflips, 2 feet high. Sometimes every attempt is a perfect make. Sometimes my kickflips SUCK! Often my varial flips, fakie kickflips, and even halfcab kickflips (fakie 180 backside kickflips) are more consistently sweet than my regular old kickflips. I think it all has to do with my timing. The flick of the foot has to be a split second after I get to height. What I do know is that I’m a stubborn dude, with limited time to skate, and that I want so badly to just consistently have awesome kickflips so I can build off of them. Last night after skating, regardless all the sweet stuff, I was bothered by how long it took me to get 25 satisfactory kickflips (as part of my militant drills).

On top of that, I super badly bruised both arches of my feet by landing 3 or 4 of them “primo” (on the side of the board due to only a 3/4 spin). The physical pain added to the mental frustration.

Well-lit flatground spot.

Plateau: Fun versus Improvement
Sometimes when I’m frustrated I remember that it is all supposed to be for fun, and I figure I should just move on to something I can do, and just enjoy my limited time. However, I know that my satisfaction will actually skyrocket if I can instead stick to my practice and actually learn something. I suppose I just have to keep reminding myself that all the hours of suck are actually adding to future hours of awesomeness.

I did recall this last night, briefly, when I was done with kickflip practice. I immediately floated the higest, best front and backside popshovits and a few incredibly sweet varial flips.

I like to ollie from a 45 degree angle over the side of this into a backside tailslide. Good practice spot. For me. Low.

Desire leads to suffering. So Buddhist.
I desire to kickflip over gaps and especially I desire to kickflip into a grind or tailslide. Since I relearned proper kickflips back in the early spring (after relearning wrongly over winter, an old front foot late-flip style reminiscent of the 80s), I have landing hundreds of high, tight kickflips that would have been perfect for fulfilling my desires. Yet when I go to actually do them into grinds, I always flail and bail. What to do? More practice. More time.

Tiny gap to 50-50 grind spot. Over and over. For fun between frustration at my kickflips.

Drills and Practice and a rant about the friggin’ pads

Location: Chase parking lot, Sunset and Vermont, LA
Duration: 65 minutes
Pros: I got to skate!
Cons: Don’t get me started about my non-skating life situation right now!

Between the sets of my drills, I tried to do slappies again. Busted a nice one, but only did like 15 attempts. About 10 of them were more like “crappies”. Learning is easier when I have more time to do so. Slappies or crappies, either way, they are super fun.

Busted a few nice front and backside tailslides, 50-50s, noseslides. I don’t always wear my pads when I skate. Not for manual practice or light stuff. Usually I put them on when I’m working on flip tricks. Last night I banged the hell out of those pads. All of them. I still can’t stand pads, but on nights like last night I know they prevented some bruises. I don’t mind the bruises, but I do get tired of the fights they cause at home. I think one of my falls (on my elbow) would have been a break. So, even though I feel like a leper, I am sometimes grateful for the bulk. Eventually I’ll get some different pads that omit the plastic. Like wetsuit strips. Just to prevent bruises and scrapes, not breaks. I rarely fall hard enough for breaks anyway, and I feel those lighter, less stupid looking pads will make me less shy of other skaters and also prevent the types of bumps and bruises that cause strife with the wife. Of course I’ll still wear the heavy pads for stuff like gaps, stairs, bowl skating and eventually rails. I just don’t need them for manual pads and little K-ginds.

Last night, to my own surprise despite the time, I managed a nice Complete Drill Set.

Same as above, just a different angle.

Didn’t have time to work on Tres or Heelflips again. I hate that. I want at least 2 hours per night to A) Do a little of everything I’ve already learned. B) Goof around with curbs and C) Work on new stuff. Oh, my inner-Peter Pan just resents the grown up life.

Round the bend grindable low red painted curb, for round the bend grinds.

Gap. I saw another skater actually ollie the bush as part of it.

Gap.

Gap. Out of my league. I can imagine.

Gap with sweet no-comply option over the parking block.

Trying to stave off the many skateboard-related arguments with my wife. Febreeze.

5 months old, with 4 complete Shoe Goo surgeries. About to undergo another reconstruction. No skate shoes in the budget for awhile.

First Slappies

Approx One Year Mark
As my skate revival now hits or exceeds the one year mark, I’m feeling super stoked at how far I’ve come. Couldn’t have done it without a life of yoga or without having strengthened up my resolve to practice regularly in babysteps. That resolve came from the book, “The Talent Code” by Daniel Coyle. And Rodney Mullen. Big time. Oh yeah, and playfulness. That’s from within but also gotta say how much I get lighthearted inspiration from Mark Gonzales.

Ancient Skaters Novelty
My day was made yesterday morning by a blog comment from another skater from my generation. Rob. (Hey I responded to that thread). Only us lifers returning to active skating can appreciate the thrill we each take in the otherwise common details.

I still receive huge satisfaction from simple events like going into a skateshop, landing a new flatground trick, watching a youtube skate support video, breaking something, hopefully not bodily. Too many simple pleasures to list here.

Last night before my skate session I stopped and spoke with two separate groups of skaters. Very rare me, a self-conscious “older” skater. (I don’t look 40. Maybe 28, 30. Bla bla. But still, I feel kinda lame and separated from the community by my skill, marriage, age and especially pads when/if I wear them).They each taught me about where to skate and which fences to hop in the ‘hood of my new biz.
Came away from those friendly interactions feeling on top of the world just for having briefly interacted with the community.

Last night
My whole body aches from over 120 hours of hard physical labor in 10 days, renovating a retail space and not getting much sleep. Still wanted to skate. That’s the context.

Location: Fairfax High School
Duration: One hour
Pros: Mellow mood created a smooth flow and effortless execution.
Cons: Not enough time.

Drills
I did a Basic Drill Set, plus a few varial flips.

Notes
I did about twenty-five 180 backside ollies to tail stalls, and one actual backside tailslide on a 6″ curb! Coming along. Only the other day I mentioned that a 9″ curb was too high for my skill at backside tailslides. By last night I was making it around and getting my tail onto it. Slap! Slid one too, just didn’t land that one. Did quite a few 180 frontside tailstalls at 9″.

Slappies
Easy oldschool trick, but takes lots of practice. For me. Like a 50-50 without ollieing into it. Sort of like wallriding into it. Third time practicing. I’ve only once kind of pulled one off. Last night I did another couple, and they were for real. Slappies are awesome.

Tonight
After another long day of work, could have easily crashed with my exhausted wife. Went skating.

Location: Chase parking lot, Sunset and Vermont
Duration: One hour.
Pros: Awesome skate spot, no injuries, no distractions.
Cons: Don’t want to talk about it.

Drills
Identical to last night with the Basic Drill Set and three varial flips. Also 3 fakie kickflips.

Also added a couple nice backside tailslides and my nicest slappies so far. Even better than last night.

Notes:

1. Good thing I’m still super uptight about doing 25 kickflips each session. A few were awesome, but the majority were too low. Still landed them. Potentially frustrating. My halfcab kickflips are sometimes better than my regular kickflips. Problem is I’m flicking it too soon, and not always off the front side by the nose. Must drill it into my head to pop the ollie and then do the trick.

2. Even after I accomplish tres down stairs and other great things, I can already tell that I’ll be beyond stoked to have an old age filled with manuals, no complies, backside tailslides and slappies. Simple. Safe. Super fun.

Fairfax High Manny pad, curbs, ledges, gaps

Fairfax High manual pad. 2 blocks from my new business!

Last few exciting, tiring days
I continue to work most days in the TV and movie industry (as the lowest rung), and recently got to work with Clint Eastwood, Al Pacino, and also did stunt skating for the MIndy Project. Except for the stunt skating it is all minimum wage. I made much more than that when I toured the country nationally for five years as a stand-up comic. This does pertain to skating, as my happiness, workload, marital lenience and financial freedom directly influence my ability to skate.

As is, the future looks bright for all freedoms involved, as well as for a return to more breathing room to once again perform stand-up comedy in clubs and hopefully TV again. In the meanwhile, I’ve had to pull upon all of my maturity to devote myself to all of the non-skate work that will allow this freedom. I’ve had to suppress my inner-Peter Pan

After the TV work, every night, for 8 to 12 hours I’ve been working on starting up a small business on Melrose Avenue, in Los Angeles. Been doing the design, website, negotiations with landlords, insurance companies, utilities companies, business license people. Been stripping and refinishing the floor, scrubbing and cleaning the ceilings and walls, fixing holes in the wall, preparing to paint.

In short: For the last seven months I haven’t earned enough money to remain housed without miracles (we don’t get financial assistance), but I had tons and tons of skate time. We were housesitting and subletting for great deals during that seven months, and we continue with great rental deals. However, I clearly see that it is time for me to somehow start using more of my industry resources and natural talents to earn the type of income that will make for a happier wife and more skate time.

And I’m sore as shit.

Faixfax High school. Lower lot. Many red curbs and gaps.

The Skating
The industrial sized orbital sander which I used on 12,000 square feet of wood floor, twice, may as well have been a jackhammer. All the same, twice during the last few 18 hour days of this work, I went out and skated.

In my previous post I mentioned finding Fairfax High, and the perfect place to practice slappies and anything on a 20 inch tall curved ledge. I’d spotted a manual pad inside of a gate and lower parking lot, but the sign on the gate threatened arrest and at the time of my previous post, I stayed out. A few nights ago, however, I ventured in to the forbidden area and was hooked.

Duration: 80 minutes
Location: Fairfax High School
Pros: Alone. Good pavement for flat ground tricks. Nice manual pad, perfect size to practice tail and nose stalls/grinds. Great lighting.
Cons: Ominous gate threatening arrest. Near foot traffic of crazies walking down Melrose Ave. Was distracted for about 15 minutes by a European longboarder whom (nice guy) whom had a hundred questions about skating.

Drills
This session took place on the day after my last post (must’ve been the 20th). So I was kind of warmed up a bit. I managed to complete what I call a “Full Drill Set 1.0“. It took longer than the night before, but I had many higher, tighter and better kickflips and two of the sweetest halfcab kickflips.

Heelflips:
3 makes. Lord knows how many attempts.

For the first time since my forced hiatus, I dusted off and resumed work on heelflips. Still stationary. Everything in the blog is always rolling unless I indicate otherwise. I’d gotten my make rate (stationary) up to about 40% before, and was about to begin practicing rolling. When I tried to dust off the heelflips they were more like heelflops. Instead of counting the percentage, I stayed productive and went lightly on my ego by instead just landing three stationary heelflips.

New toys in the mail! Gift Certificate from my sister! For the first time I’m riding a brand new deck with another new deck on deck. Plus I got a rethreading tool for my beat-up Independent trucks.

For my MAYBE one reader, I wanted to show you the bane and future boon of my existence: This darn wood floor I’m refinishing, which snakes my skate time. Note the pool of hardened wax by the shop vac hose. Difficult to remove.

Play session. And Backtails.
Been enjoying more and more control with my backside ollies. I love the feeling of floating it around and landing on my tail. Orgasmic. I’m still focusing on the control of it, to tail stall, and am not trying to do the backside tailslides again yet. Just a few attempts here and there. For now it’s more about control. So the other night, in addition to the heelflips and complete drill set, I enjoyed maybe 20 backside 180 to tail stalls.

Duration: 60 minutes
Location: Fairfax High School and later some side street.
Pros: Plenty of curbs! Ample light. Playful ‘tude.
Cons: Had been doing physical labor for over 12 hours, was whooped. At the end of it, over dinner my wife brought home a tall boy beer for me and said, “You’ll be mad. This will affect your skating.” I almost never drink beer. I enjoyed it. And yeah, it totally ruined the last scrap of finesse I would’ve had. More cons: The gate to the forbidden manual pad was locked, so I skated the other spots until the cops showed up and watched me until I felt uncomfortable. I went down the street and was skating on the side walk (just manuals) and then the cops showed up there too, and asked me to leave.

I could have gotten new shoes with my gift certificate, but instead I got the above pictured Element deck! However, these DCs are now 6 months old and are almost all shoe goo.

What did I do, exhausted and buzzed? 
Between getting kicked out of places, and too buzzed for flip tricks, I enjoyed manuals, nose manuals to shovit out, 10 backside 180s, a few backside tail stalls, boardslides, practiced slappies a ton (still learning, just able to get small ones), tried some tailstall to kickflip out (came close the other night), front side tail stalls. Just goofing.

No way am I throwing this out! Everything is a construction zone right now, the sawdust so thick I’ve kept my pride and joy under wraps until I can go skating!

I’d been hoping to wax up the lower manual pad, but the gate was locked. This 16 inch curb is too high for my back tails, but I enjoyed waxing and working on nose slides and front tails. Gotta dig out the dirt in the back for easier board slides. The coppers kicked me out.

The future
Who knows. Maybe I’ll skate tonight again. Might be tough to squeeze it in. I have a busy week planned, but I’ll be skating when I can. In tough times like these, skating takes precedence over blogging about it. Damn, I’m already way out of synch with my time budgeting just for having stopped to write this long blog during my limited wi-fi time. I’m out here though, skating when I can!

Skateboard addict stuck working

Busy, busy business startup.

Ten Days. One session.
Serious skate withdrawals. Over the spring and summer I was skating 1 to 2 hours per day. During the last year since I began skating again, I’ve only missed 2 consecutive days of skating. Even with torn ligaments, brace, broken fingers and toes, fractured heel, doctor’s orders and marriage pressure to earn instead of play, I never went this long without roll time.

Been working 20 hour days with a tv and movie job and also a business start up. Renovation phase. These are just more of the challenges facing this adult trying to relearn how to skate. Fun job and promising future business. But still. Responsibility. Ugh.

First session in ten days. Fairfax High School, Hollywood.

Yesterday
I escaped the grueling work and got in a session. Could have easily slept instead, but have been jonesing for that feeling of floating a backside 180 to a tail stall.

Duration: 75 minutes.
Location: Fairfax High School parking lot.
Pros: I got to skate!
Cons: Was RUSTY after only ten days.

Drills
It took 45 minutes to do what I call a “Complete drill set 1.0“.
That is standard. The rustiness came through mostly in my two major areas of focus: kickflips and backside 180s.

I added to the mix a bunch of backside 180 tailstalls. Bliss.Working toward better backside tailslides.

Also enjoyed a bunch of backside 5-0 grinds on a low painted curb.

After losing my board before under a locked door, I took serious precaution while grinding this curb.

Also started practicing tailstalls to kickflip out. Didn’t land any, but I started the process of learning.

Near my new business, perfect for slappies, which I can't really do, but haven't really practiced.

All these photos are at the same location. Nearby. Much better than the convenient Rite Aid parking lot from summer. Psyched.

Around the bend boardslide terrain. Busted out my first ones on this new Toy Machine deck. Waxed.

Notes and observations
1. Am getting some sweet halfcab kickflips, sweeter than my backside 180 kickflips. With all these, as well as fakie ollies, I just don’t have any control or confidence on the timing of them to do them over or off things. Must find time to start practicing these.
Same with doing tricks into grinds. Still not good enough, or haven’t focused enough time yet, to even do a kickflip into a 50-50 on a curb. Jonesing to start practicing, but I keep feeling like I need to be more solid with the basics.
2. Prior to this month I was making great progress with heelflips anf tre flips. Could’ve worked on them last night, but I feel I developed too much anticipation, overfocus and even self-competitive anxiety on these. Like I blew it up to be a huge thing. I over-focused, and seriously crave to land these consistently. So on my first night back skating I just wanted to dust off with a complete drill set and then just play around. Right? It is supposed to be super fun.
Sometimes I must battle through impatience and adversity for a bigger payoff. In life as well as skating.
3. Just learned that my closest childhood friend, the guy whom I associate with skating even more than Natas…I just learned that he also just picked up skating again!!! Awesome! Yeah he’s 3 thousand miles away and I won’t get to skate with him for quite awhile. Yet I’m psyched at the prospect of getting to skate with him again.
I only somewhat miss the fearlessness of my youth. I used to do gnarly stuff, less technical but higher, longer, steeper, faster. I somewhat miss my faster healing time after injuries. What I really miss, and perhaps the only true longing and nostalgia, is the endless sessions I had with my bros, never surrounded by a care in the world. The apex of this feeling can be deduced to one boiled down sentiment: wanting to session again with my old best friend and neighbor. And now it shall be possible!!!
Hey reader, don’t be thinking I have regrets or look back much. It is just a consistent feeling I have after exceptionally strong solo sessions. It is so much better to share it with a friend.
I do have a couple skate buddies out here, but they are 15 to 20 years younger than I and I can hardly get them to skate a real street spot. And never late at night. And never just chill and work on something, never really experiment and develop. Damn, these younger kids are in part domesticated by skate parks. No street. And while at the parks it all seems like exhibition time, very showy with very little working into new stuff. I’d rather skate alone, or with one of my original buddies.

Hired as a stunt skater on Fox!

Upon seeing this mural in Echo Park, Los Angeles, I couldn’t resist but do my first “wall crawl” to handplant in over 25 years. Cheesy. Fun. Easy. Why not?

The last few days
My last post mentioned that a few fruits are ripening as a result of my recent sacrifices. I’m starting a business with my wife. It’s in the same field that we’ve very successfully operated other people’s businesses for about 30 years combined experience between us. So it’s time. And life is good, getting better. Still lots of risks out there and tons and tons of work to do.

So that’s my biographical note for the day. Onward to the skating.

The skating
Oh dedicated readers, all 10 of you, but really 2: I was hired by a major show on the Fox network to do some stunt skating. It was for the Mindy Project. Just in the background, but I was featured quite prominently. Some ollies off a jump ramp (hadn’t done that since I was a kid), some popshovits, kickflips, a weird backside boneless.

I’d submitted a video of myself the week before and apparently I was their first choice over a couple hundred other videos and stills. HOLY SHIT I was so excited. And this news came on the same day that we learned that we would be signing the lease on our retail space! Big day.

I was cast in Mindy Project as someone in their young 20s. How funny. I just turned 40. It was a compliment.  Can’t really say anything else about the show though. I don’t have a TV, I don’t know when it airs and I probably won’t see it.

These photos have nothing to do with the skating I did on the Mindy Project. These were a few days later, during one of my only sessions this week. This was a boneless off the wall, but it was all front leg looping behind, kind of a Per Welinder inspired motion.

Preparation for the show
When I learned I’d be skating on Fox, I was on set for a Korean Bank commercial with celebrity look-a-likes. My set up at that point was my flexy yard sale Creature deck, and I can’t ride it for ollies. Knowing that I was about to be paid for a few hours of skating, I expensed the a new deck. I actually called the board shop (Pharmacy. A great company) and they explained what they had in stock, and then I had my wife go and pick it up for me, since there was no way I’d be able to make it before they closed.

My new Collin Provost 8″ Toy Machine!!! I wanted an Element or Plan B, but that wasn’t happening. I friggin’ super love this deck. It is the most symmetrical board I’ve ever seen. Nose and Tail are almost exactly alike.

Practice
While skating my Provost the night before the TV shoot, I managed a long and difficult Complete Drill Set. Took me awhile to get used to it. Even though I could tell from the graphic which side was the nose, I kept trouble myself over and over and double guessing about which side of the board was in fact the nose and which is the tail. Yeah, leave it to an old man ancient skater to do that. Seriously though, the symmetry of this board is awesomely ridiculous.

Before even riding the deck, I covered it with some Pharmacy board shop stickers. I love the deck and the colors, but not a fan of Camel cigarettes so I don’t even want a parody. I don’t mind the weed thing, but I covered that too since I was about to be on tv with it.

Sweating it but not sweating it
During the last 5 days since the TV shoot, I only got out to skate twice. Been putting in 18 hour days of sanding and scrubbing and business negotiations, legal work, design, web. Real sweat. I miss skating as much as I did before, but I’m not sweating not skating as much because I know eventually I’ll be right back at it.

In the two sessions I enjoyed, one was an hour long, and it was all manuals and 180 backside ollie practice. No drills. Due to work and life obligation I had had to scale it back.

The photos from the above mural session were when I had 45 minutes to skate the other day. Instead of drills I just wanted to have fun at the wall, which I did.

Los Angeles rules. In a one block area near Vermont and Santa Monica I counted about 30 skate spots.

Cool dudes
It might be a week or so before I get back to blogging. I’m sure I’ll get out to skate a little, but probably nothing to write home about. In the meanwhile I want to share with you a few blogs about which I am genuinely excited.

1. Back on Board. A grown man’s attempt to recapture his youth through skateboarding. Sound familiar?

2. Gone Skating. One of the nicest dudes I’ve met online. Helps developing skaters find sponsors. Was sponsored himself as a youth of my generation, and rolls with dogs so big feel like a pup.

3. Half-dead skateboards. It is an older skaters discussion forum and also a budding business with original decks and a great mission.

No surgery! New biz!

Last few days
Anyone who’s read my  blog lately knows I’ve been obsessing about skating even though my wife and I have been struggling to kick off a business while working jobs and saving money by stringing together a series of cool housesitting or sublet gigs.

However, it has been increasingly hard to fit in skate sessions. Especially since the contrast to reality is so stark.

Manuals to the rescue
A couple times over the last few days ago I managed to do some nice stationary manual practices for over an hour in a parking lot. No movement, no sweat. Just putting my wheels in a crack and balancing. That was on a flexy Creature deck I got for ten bucks at a yard sale along with brand new Indys, Bones reds and Powell cruisers. The deck was just a substitute until I could get a new deck with pop (recently snapped my Covert deck).

Limbo about to end!
Then the day before yesterday was a HUGE day for the betterment of my life outside of skating, as well as my skatelife.
My wife and I had finally pulled together enough money for our business! I’m very certain I’ll be pulling many all nighters in the near future!

Hospital
I had an orthodontic appointment for my fractured finger there in the morning.

No cast!
Good news: No surgery. This is contrary to my prior diagnosis. He said the bone fragment that splintered off when I fractured my finger skating would just stay there. He said it in fact isn’t in my knuckle joint, and that with proper physical therapy it’ll heal over a long time.

For those who’ve read about my months of fiscal ups and downs alongside and partially because of skating, I’m super joyous to write that it’s all turning around. Rites of Passage.

Super cool skate related news
In addition to the above great news about securing our own retail space, I got some great news about skating: I was selected to work as a stunt skater for a major prime time comedy show on Fox! No joke!

This post is getting too long, more on that later!

No surgery afterall!

Last few days
Anyone who’s read my  blog lately knows I’ve been obsessing about skating even though my wife and I have been struggling to kick off a business while working jobs and saving money by stringing together cool housesitting and subletting arrangements. Smart, but tough to do.

In the meanwhile, it’s been increasingly hard to skate

A few days ago I managed to keep it courteous by doing a stationary manual practice for over an hour in a parking lot. No movement, no sweat. Just putting my wheels in a crack and balancing. That was on a flexy Creature deck I got for ten bucks at a yard sale along with brand new Indys, Bones reds and Powell cruisers. The deck was just a substitute until I could get a new deck with pop (recently snapped my Covert deck).

Then the day before yesterday was a HUGE day for the betterment of my life outside of skating, as well as my skatelife.
My wife and I received a substantial investment for our business. A yoga studio. We are career yoga studio managers and teachers, and this was a natural progression.

That night, last night, with the studio nasty dirty, no electricity, and super hot, and no furniture, we knew we had a mountain ahead of us. Couldn’t start working, had to rest up for my hospital appointment in the morning, for my fractured finger.

Good news: No surgery. This is contrary to my prior diagnosis.

For those who’ve read about my months of fiscal ups and downs alongside partially because of skating, I’m super joyous to write that it’s all turning around. Rites of Passage.

Oh snap!

Last Night
Duration: 2 hours
Location: Some parking lot in Antelope Valley, an hour north of LA.
Pros: I got to skate!
Cons: My deck had a big crack in it, making it harder to pop an ollie and do a trick.

In the two above photos, you’ll see that I snapped my deck. Luckily, at the end of the two hours. The Creature deck, I got for ten bucks at a yard sale recently. Perfect Independent trucks, Powell cruiser wheels and bones reds bearings. The deck is a bit flexy, so won’t be good for ollies. But it’ll be an ok interim deck until I get a new one. No other choice. I already switched my wheels over, got rid of the risers.

The practice
Amazing difference it makes to practice after resting a night in a super posh bed, and when all is harmonious in the marriage and life. Stronger, clear, focused and fun. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes skating is a pure catharsis, but I like it more when it’s playful.

Our plans for the future are slowly coming together, and we were spending our second consecutive night in a hotel. We’ve got some great deals while in between sublets. So with her relatively relaxed disposition toward skating (especially after the stuff I wrote about yesterday), I went out and played.

During my session I managed a Complete Set of “drills”. Note: Instead of doing 180 backside ollies and rolling away, I did them to clean, super feel good tail stalls on the curbs. Something I couldn’t do to save my life two or three months ago.
Also, my frontside “360s” were more like 270s or 290s. Just keeping the motion alive until I can once again devote time to it. These were flat ground. I can bust the full spin off a curb hip.

Above: The parking lot of my practice
Below: The sunset while skating.

New trick practice
With all this limbo lately I’ve let go (again) of tre practice. Just when I was getting it. A bit. It’ll all resume. Chose to focus in on heelflips, just to keep it simple in my limited time. Plus, I might be in a cast starting Thursday, so I figure I’ll work on heelflips, which are more likely to develop faster, sooner.
Note: I was previously very frustrated by heelflips, and felt more progress with tres, and had more fun trying tres. Since I began breaking heelflips down into their component parts, I’ve actually super enjoyed the challenge and payoff.
Stationary Heelflips
(All the stuff I write about is done while rolling unless noted otherwise, like here with stationary heelflips).
First, as I’ve done during every recent practice, I did 25 clean flips using my heel, but only focusing on the flip, catching it and landing it with my front foot.
Then, as per actual (stationary) heelflips:
Attempts: 25. Makes: 11! Make rate: 44%!
Note: I used to only land 1 or 2 every few sessions. Since my heelflip breakthrough, I’ve now had a 56%, a 16% and now this 44%. These are only stationery. I had to slow down and learn the baby steps to get this “breakthrough”. After a bunch more sessions with progress like this I’ll rev up and start trying them while rolling again.

Above: Once it got dark I moved to this lit part of the lot.