Squaring off the shoulders

Pollo Loco lot, in the nebulous zone beside a Valvoline. A viable plan b in Los Feliz. Never, ever been kicked out. Pepples and cracks, but it is better than the little spot I skated the previous couple days. Time constraints dictate my spots.

Life behind the session
In my post yesterday I expressed that I was feeling claustrophobic due to life and work pressures, and how I am even increasing the weight by adding another job. Well, trying to add one. Trying to get a paycheck before the end of the month, so we can save our new business and eventually prosper. This has a negative impact on my skate time.

Am just coming off of a foot injury which already kept me off the board for almost a month. It is anti-climactic to start skating again and then have to stop. One thing I can’t stand is stopping and starting and only skating occasionally. It is no way to progress. I feel that 5 minutes a day is better than an hour once a week. Of course, 5 minutes a day doesn’t cut it either.

The Session
Just by skating last night, even though it was only about 50 minutes of practice, it cut into my sleep by about 75 minutes. (That’s cuz of commute time, plus dealing with pads and clothes). So last night instead of sleeping about 7.5 hours I slept 6 hours. A few days in a row of this and I’m cooked. Especially because I’m a super light sleeper – lots of shit on my mind – and it was really like 5 hours of sleep.

I managed to get in a pretty sweet Practice Set 2.2. My nerves feel too shot these days to even play with the games. Yeah games are supposed to be fun, but I tend to push myself too hard, so I just wanted to goof around and hit the tricks.

Also managed to do one round of  Tre Flip Component Practice. Landed 2 tre flips! I need to keep the front foot high enough and also far enough toe side to land when the board comes a full 360. My shoulders need to be square (so, chest parallel to the toe-side edge of the board), and technically the front foot just needs to be in alignment with the length of the board. However, I note that when I jump up and kick the front foot out, spreading the legs wide, it almost feels as though I need to pull my front foot an extra 10 inches or so toe-side. This compensates for the tendency to land with my front foot behind me, landing in more of a straddle instead of proper position.

Wacked my foot again last night. Same one I broke about a month ago. Just a little bone, maybe a fracture. I have a nice new bruise on my heel now, but it isn’t nearly as bad as the one from a month ago. This habit of smashing the foot like this seems to be a common bi-product of the motions of the feet and board when learning tre flips. Another friend confirmed this problem. Ouch.

Anti-climactic, but that’s just my addict brain

A couple days ago, on Sunday, ended up skating again on this little uneven, cracked corner of pavement by Fairfax High. A flea market bogarted my spot, and time prevented me from going elsewhere.

Not taken for granted, but still…
I had my first session in about 3 weeks the day before this session last Sunday. Now it is Tuesday and I still haven’t been able to skate again. Time constraints of adult life. I seriously have a hard time with this. It’s my ego and my resistance to work. I even beat myself up if I sleep an extra hour – making it 7.5 instead of 6.5 hours of sleep, and then later I realize I can’t skate because I need an extra hour to finish a job. So kids, do not take your skate time for granted. If you grow up and have jobs and families, you’ll see what I mean.

So I didn’t take Sunday for granted, however, I’m still agitated that I didn’t skate yesterday and today looks busy too. I might blow off a meeting and I might blow off my career tonight, but there will be repercussions. Yeah, I’m addicted to skating, but I know I can’t be blowing off life so much. All of 2013 was enough.

The session
The session itself was an hour long. I squeezed it in and sacrificed something else to make it happen. I enjoyed it a ton. I got in a Practice Set 2.2, as well as a couple components for the upcoming Practice Set 3.0 (I’m jumping up to the 3s as soon as I decide it is time to add the tre flip). These components being the 360 shovit and the backside nollie popshovit. This part felt great, even if it took a long time to land some of the tricks. I’ve patience for that since I’m just coming off of a foot injury.

Then I did a round of Tre Flip Component Practice (about which I JUST created the link to explain it better). Good times. Actually, it was good times, and I enjoyed practicing, but I didn’t land any Tres. The day before, on my first session back in 3 weeks, I landed 3! Didn’t expect to land any. However, my addict brain totally judged my inability to land the tres on Sunday, even though I came close. Even though it was all good, and it is all for fun anyway, I have to say that judging myself and being critical and pushy made the not-landing of tres more unpleasant.

Admittedly, I am a bit more reserved about it after breaking a foot bone a few weeks ago while doing tre flips. It is still swollen too. And then on Sunday I actually wacked my foot again in the same way and place that caused the break. So it makes my commitment a bit less. However, even through all that, I found myself practicing the components and training my brain to do the right thing.

Just a random fs tail slide. I’ve already posted this before. I just needed an image to break up my very Peter Pan-like rant.

The angst and a story about youth
Some of the “anti-climactic” title comes from the fact that I started skating again on Saturday, barely managed to squeeze in a session on Sunday. And now the week is looking too busy for skating! Plus I’m looking for a new job! OH NO!

While being very patient, I am also very impatient. I’m a perfectionist who has no fun if I don’t feel progress or perfection. I had a memory of the days when I was phasing out of skating as a teenager. I had placed second in few tri-state contests, but I was getting more into guitar and girls, and was not at the top of my game anymore. This was even before drugs and drinking.  Skating was getting huge, as were the tri-state contests. I’d been having fun as a skater, but then I put pressure on myself to compare and compete, and the fun diminished. During the last big contest I attended before quitting, I didn’t even compete. I knew I wouldn’t win or place in the top 3, and my ego wouldn’t allow that. I couldn’t do heelflips. I couldn’t do half-cab kickflips. I couldn’t do 360 no complies. (Proud to say I can now do all of these!) I went off and skated alone or with a couple of other dudes who kind of sucked at skating instead. I have a hard time with mediocrity.

I’m writing with more angst today, as I have way too many commitments and deadlines and expectations and this is causing me a bit of life-claustrophobia. So, that’s why if I can, I will skip out on some responsibilities tonight and go skating. If I don’t manage to do that…ugh. Regardless, having had this rant, I will be sure to just fucking chill out and work on my tre components without being hard on myself. After all, isn’t this all supposed to just be for fun anyway?

These are just some of the challenges of this adult relearning to skate.

Timeline and Milestones
I also updated my milestones page over the weekend. Got caught up on a few months of these noteworthy events, culled from this blog.

First session back on board!

After a 3 week hiatus to at least partially heal my injured foot, I got in a session today! I’d commute skated, ollied and yesterday I kickflipped, but that was it. So I’m rusty. However, it mostly came back. My backside 180s were actually tighter and higher than normal, as were my variable flips. You’ll see below that I even landed 3 tre flips. This was a big surprise to me, especially since I injured myself with tres, and I now feel a bit tentative in my newish Vans. As though I’m skating in flimsy hi top slippers. Unprotected. I like the intimate feel of Vans, but with so much non-skating work stuff at stake, I now know I prefer the better support and padding of DCs.

The session
Location: Fairfax High school. When I first arrived there were some young kids skating at the manny pad, so I stayed away, finding a little patch of sidewalk on the other side of the school until they left.
Duration: 1 hour
I did a Practice Set 2.2 plus bs nollie popshovit and 360 shovit.
Tre Flip Practice
1 set of tre quality control reps. Landed 3! I explained in an earlier post what this means, and shall soon post a page with a description of it. Basically, regardless of how many attempts it takes, I do ten executions of the board spinning and flipping properly, and not higher than knee height. I do ten where I properly spread my feet wider than hip width (ideally bolt distance apart), with my shoulders square. Again, regardless the number of attempts. And then I do ten where I properly combine both of these subsets, regardless the number of attempts.

The foot and the pad
The foot was ok. Hurt a little but not bad. One “almost” tre flip wacked my foot again, same dynamics cause, but hit closer to the toes and didn’t break anything this time.
At the pad I quite blissfully did 3 fs and 3 bs tail stalls or tail slides, a few manuals across the pad, and a couple nose manuals across it. I ended with a nice backside kickflip to axel stall on the curb.

I noted a session back at the end of December wherein a group of 12 or 13 year olds gave me the best tre flip skate support ever, my breakthrough really. I super appreciated them and wouldn’t mind skating with them again if we run into each other. Wouldn’t be surprised if those boys today were some of the kids from the December session. I just didn’t feel like skating with anyone today. It wasn’t just my pads (which I perceive as only slightly better than leprosy). I wanted to skate alone to preserve time and properly dust off and practice without judgement or discrimination.

Felt great to be back on my board!

Now the challenge will be to keep finding the time and also the energy. It is in my heart! I’ll always be a skater, regardless of what else I’m doing.