About this guy
My first board was in 1979. I was six years old. I was skating way before Mullen’s flat-ground ollie changed everything. Growing up near Portsmouth NH, my best friends and I skated daily and grew with the trend. In the early eighties we started with bonelesses, and just riding off high ledges, and by the late eighties we were busting 720 early grabs off ramps, wall and rail riding, double kick-flips, 17-foot long ollies. All on huge old boards. Very Natas Kaupas influenced.
I skated almost daily for 10 years, kept coming in second in contests, got free stuff, had a shop sponsor, sort of. It wasn’t broadcasted to the others in my crew. He gave me free trucks and decks when I showed endless passion, but largely because I was poor as shit and John really cared.
Around 16 years old I slowed down (after tearing my meniscus snowboarding, getting a car, chasing girls, joining a band and let’s just say constant experiments with the nature of reality). I still skated, mostly bombing hills, until I was about 23. That’s when I went rogue and literally lived and worked in the wilderness for ages.
Through a long series of awesome events I became a nationally touring stand-up comic and in 2010 moved to Los Angeles.
Los Angeles brought back my lust for skating. Skating is part of my DNA. Since I was a child my eyes trace mental skate runs and lines in every parking lot, plaza, bench, curb and bank. Los Angeles has more skate spots per square block than in the entire state of New Hampshire where I grew up.
I started skating again at 39 years old, around Halloween of 2012. Due to a life of yoga and hiking, I feel good, strong, light and flexible.
I burnt out on the hustle of the competitive comedy scene when I lost touch with the art of it and my comedy love became too product oriented. My creative life, including comedy, was saved by skating. Skating came back in my life just in time to find focus on creativity with no concern for the buyer. I saw someone do a tre flip, and even though at the time I could hardly ollie, I was like, “I want to do that”.
When I started this blog, I could hardly ollie straight, had zero board control. It even took me a few weeks to know the nose from the tail. As of this rewrite, a little less than 2 years later, I’m landing tre flips, fakie 180 backside heelflips, 360 ollies. Last night I got a 270 no comply to backside lipslide on a parking block. This is to say, it is totally possible to have fun and for an old dog to learn new tricks!
Blog project
Not sure how long I’ll keep this blog. It started as a private, paper journal and then turned into emails to myself, and then into a private blog. It was all just places where I could keep track of my own notes on how many attempts I was making at tricks, observations on the dynamics and angles, notes on progress, to keep myself stoked. Then I started collecting cool photos. After awhile I decided to make it a public, yet anonymous skate blog. Already (about 2 years in) I’m stoked I went public, as I receive emails and comments constantly being told that this is an inspiration.
Boneless. Maybe 1985.
Adversity
The adversity of getting back into skating is not just the hardness of the pavement, or the quickness with which rust forms these days. Other harsh factors include good-but-distracting things such as marriage and various career paths and other joyful life pursuits.
Even though this blog and my skating is just for me, and for fun, I admit that one big point of adversity is my own ego. I compare myself to what I did last week, and I give myself a hard time when the rust sets in. Even more than that, although I started to relearn how to skate, from scratch and have come a long way, part of me had to totally let go of any attachment to the type of skating I did as a kid. I can no longer do the big, fast, high stuff. I’ve gotten more small, flat ground, tech, and low ledges and curb oriented. And sometimes I wear friggin’ pads when I’m learning new stuff. This is to increase longevity and to make it so I can actually still go to work. I’ve broken a few bones in the last two years, and so I have to be careful.
Check out my Wishlist of tricks page, for occasional updates on what’s up. It keeps changing.
Also check out a more bullet-pointed page of my Timeline and Milestones.
Relearning to Skateboard 
dude, this sounds exactly like me…will be 40 in less than 3 months…..exact way i grew up. The funny thing is that even though i started skating again 5 years ago after almost a 15 year hiatus i still looked at curbs,banks,walls etc with that skater “eye” i don’t think you ever get rid of.
keep shredding dude.
Thanks man! Very cool, same age! I didn’t think anyone read this and now you’re the second completely relatable guy. We’re out here!
Yes!!! I turned fifty this year started skating again last year and it’s all coming back including the pain haha but its a blast mostly street skate ,hills and any driveways that I can surf style or slide. Bronson ditch is a blast!
Everywhere I look there is something to skate. Nice to see more of us older folks…
That’s great Randy, thanks for letting me know there’s more of us out here! Carving around is eternally fun and less painful than some of those flips to shins. I especially enjoy all the driveways in Hancock park or Larchmont, I pretend they are waves.
When you skate Bronson, what size and durometer wheels do you prefer?
Hey man, I just wanted to touch base and thank you for the comment. I plan on checking out your blog, too. If I manage to get back into skateboarding shape, this will serve as inspiration. I always love reading about people my age and older still getting by on a board (especially when there’s no money in it!). Anyway, thanks again and I wish you the best.
– Jason
That’s so cool you wrote back! No, thank you! You inspire me too, being a survivor and keeping a good ‘tude. Reminds me not to be a baby about mundane stuff.
I laughed when you wrote something like, “especially when there’s no money in it.” Not only is there no money in it, but my passion for skating has kept me away from my career peers and cost me money. Maybe it’ll all come full circle.
Started skating in 86. I’m 37 and just started a comeback last week after a 12 year break! Just found your blog while doing a google search, awesome!
Spent the last year losing over 60lb and I’m almost back to high school fighting weight. Just started skating again last week… Zero everything other than power slides and one Indy boneless. Pretty much starting from scratch here too!
Just wanted to let you know that people like us are “out there” and thank you for the blog! I’m totally adopting your training drills and methods. Looking forward to progress and nights of icing my knees! Lol!
Awesome Manny, congrats on the comeback! Not easy to do. Thanks for letting me know you read this blog and are also out there getting stronger and better and are keeping creative unlike so many of our friends or former peers.
Keep me posted occasionally on your relearning. It inspires me in return! Glad that this blog came up in a Google search and it even inspired you, with the drills and all. It’s cool to start with almost nothing and really see it progress with subtle changes and then leaps (and yeah, unfortunately some injuries here and there).
This is so cool to find. I too am working on a second comeback. During my first one I discovered Yoga and was skating better than when I was a teen at age 30. I got side tracked by drugs and it really took a toll on my body. I’m using skateboarding to ragain my health. I am now combining yoga, snowboarding, bicycling, and weights to get ready for my final video part before I get too old. I’m working on developing a rock solid core/mid section to take my skating to the next level. I really want to kickflips/treflip some decent stairs sets and gaps. I never thought of doing drills or quotas like you do and I think I will try it. I will be forty-one in Dec so the clock is ticking for me. Thanks for the inspiration!
Greg
Austin, TX
Awesome! Yoga saved my life too, and it keeps giving back so much, it has enabled my skating comeback as well.
Knowing that you got inspired by my blog in turn inspires me to keep up with all the posts and details.
I look forward to your video when you finish it. I figure at the rate I’m going it will be about 9 months to a year before I’m doing tres down stairs. Stay posted!
Hey ancientskater, you posted a reply on my post of Half Dead a few weeks ago about not my whining about not being able to land so many tricks that I had in the bag only a few years ago. I read what you had to say and then came to this awesome blog! Really inspirational. Especially since you do Yoga. I’ve been dealing with so much stiffness, soreness and tightness that for years I thought yoga would be the key. Now at 40, I’m going to try and commit. The other benefit that I see with Yoga is mental. As I had mentioned in my post on Half Dead, I recently started freezing on drop ins. Maybe it was from breaking my fibula, maybe from life with two kids, maybe is just my lack of balls! But, either way, a little focus and breathing when my tail is on the platform would be useful. I read here that you are opening a school soon! congrats man! can you recommend any style of yoga that would help heal brutally tight hamstrings, Achilles tendons, and hips?
thanks – you now have a follower.
Skate or die!
Dude, it makes my day when I find out that someone actually gained inspiration from this skate blog. Thank you for letting me know! Really. I find it doubly awesome that you and I both share the same age and also respect for yoga. About 16 years ago I was temporarily paralyzed after an accident, and this is what led me to yoga. Not only did it help to heal my back, it made me stronger and more flexible than I was before the accident. (It was a fall off the side of a cliff, way up in the mountains). Thanks for the support and enthusiasm for my wife and I starting our own studio. It’s a huge undertaking with tons of babysteps, not unlike trying to advance as an adult skater!
I totally completely relate to the way that yoga helps with both the mental objectivity as well as the physical side. Absolutely. I’m also a fan of Vipassana meditation , (non-denominational, 3,500 years old, changed my life), but I’m not going to preach about it.
What style of yoga have you explored thus far? I don’t think you can go wrong with any style that involves regular stretching. Ideally (in my opinion) the best type also involves some breathing mixed with movement so you can oxygenate your cells, get toxins out, and even get a little cardio. Most yoga you hear about involves most of those aspects. However, if you have a kundalini yoga center near you, it’s cool but it’s almost all only shoulders.
Whatever you do, it’s a good idea to understand the proper alignment before you start doing it more vigorously. So any “yoga basics” would be a good start. Any physical yoga you do falls under the umbrella of “Hatha yoga”. So that’s Bikram, Vinyasa, Jivamukti, Iyengar, Integral, Anusara, Ashtanga, Desikachar, etc et. They all have their own flairs and focuses, but they are all technically “Hatha yoga.” (Non-hatha would be like, bhakti yoga, all chanting and devotion. Fine for what it is, but probably not going to help much with your hamstrings.
Iyengar yoga is mostly non-moving, non-cardio and really teaches alignment. There’s a great book you can use to teach yourself lots of poses, as well as has an index so you can pinpoint the areas you need to work on (for extra tightness, injury, etc). It’s by BKS Iyengar, it’s called, “Light on Yoga.” It’s really a handbook for the fundamentals. However, I like yoga that combines breath with movement, builds up some body heat and it better for the old short attention span. Ashtanga is awesome for that. So is Vinyasa Flow.
Bikram classes are mostly forward folds, great for the hips and hamstrings, and are nice because they are affordable and everywhere. However, I have about zero respect for Bikram and his school. Heat can be built up from within. Also, something like ashtanga and vinyasa is more well rounded.
To reiterate though, any yoga basics place is a great place to start, no matter what the school. All these schools will definitely teach you what to do for your hamstrings, etc. Anusara is playful and gentle, non-intimidating. Ashtanga can be intimidating, I find. Vinyasa is awesome but you must find a basic version of it. I’ve spent hundreds of ours alone in a room with my Iyengar book. Good times.
As far as poses for the present time, standing and sitting straddled forward bends are awesome for all three areas you asked about: hips, hamstrings and achilles tendons.
Hey dude, I’m so glad I found your blog! I’m 35 and have started skating again after nearly 10 years. I was inspired by a co-worker who used to be a sponsored skater when he was younger but he still skates everyday and rips it up. After watching him I knew that skating was the thing missing in my life. Like you I also have a heavy work schedule and a wife concerned about the health of my knees. But even so I’m determined to re-learn some old tricks and work on the ones I never finished.
Went for my first solo skate 2 days back. Felt so weird! But just rolling around on my own in a big empty parking lot felt awesome! Ollie’s were tricky at first my then stared coming back surprising good! Nice and flat! Took so much more concentration then I remember though! Popshuvits were nearly there! But kickflips have completely gone, and riding switch just felt plain scary!! My ankles were so sore the next day though!
However I feel like I’m on a new journey, and like yourself I feel its come a just the right time. I’m so glad there are so many responses to your blog! Keep ripping guys!!
Hey Lozza! Thanks a ton for letting me know you found and like this blog. I keep thinking how it is a virtual skate community, all of us 35+ yr olds getting on the board again undrer entirely different circumstances than childhood. Helps knowing there’s others still at it, struggling and striving and loving it.
It was a weird feeling for me too when I first started up again, just skating alone. It was always super weird to totally start from scratch. For sure tho, constant obsession with skating leads to as-frequent-as-possible sessions which has led to improved skills. The first month or so I was also SUPER sore. Every muscle, ankles, hips. That’ll go away. Keep skating and keep me posted!
I turned 40 back in July and have been wanting to get back into skating after a 25 year break. Finally went out and got myself a setup and am trying to get my ollie back, lot tougher to do when I’ve put on 40+ pounds and have 2 bad ankles, but I love skating so much. Thank you for this blog, thought I was kind of alone
You are so entirely not alone. There’s tons of us! I didn’t know that until I started blogging it. There’s a whole forum called “half dead skateboards”. It’s awesome. Dude you’ll be surprised. You’ll lose those pounds and strengthen your ankles just by skating as much as possible. A year ago I couldn’t even hardly ollie, so I’m right there, I know what it is like! Don’t stop! I too love it so much!
Just stumbled on this blog, I really like it man! Gives me good insight on what guys like you are going through to help make my tips better (been planning on making some trick tip/common problem extension videos lately). Keep at it dude and best of luck! Hit me up if you ever need any help.
Mike – I hope you see this response. Let me know you saw this or I’ll resend it as an email. Am super stoked to have seen your comment. Dude you are one of my biggest inspirations so this was like getting a comment from a celebrity. Not that I care about celebrities, only great skaters.
Your videos have been massively instrumental in my struggles and victories to relearn how to skateboard. Seriously. Not a night goes by when I don’t isolate a problem and then remind myself of the corresponding tips you’ve suggested. I’ve shared a few of your vids on this blog as well as have commented on your youtube vids a few times. I love your attention to detail. Last night while landing tre flips with only one foot I kept looking over my shoulder to be sure you weren’t tracking me down and killing me. But at least for the first time I was getting everything else correct so am not worried about bad habits. Work in progress. Thanks to your vids I know I will be landing them very consistently with two feet…soon. Also thanks for the emphasis on keeping my shoulders square and not trying to land the 270, but instead just fixing the problem and making the board go 360.
You crack me up. “Guys like you.” Older guys. I like the euphemism though. Dude, I have a small network going of other 30+ yr old skaters and they all talk about your vids on their various blogs. Later I’ll email you specific problems associated with learning new tricks after having an old school foundation (kickflips for example, used to be more like front foot current day late flips, for everyone riding large old boards). Also will let you know about specific problems for those of us who learned on the old 10.5″, single kicktail boards, trying to learn on the lighter double kicktail. (Nollies for example, didn’t exist back then, but sort of for those of us who liked to do switch fakie ollies). Also I like how you emphasize writing questions with proper spelling or grammar in your vids- I believe that was you. Hopefully this quick response isn’t too butchered.
Yeah I’ll have questions too, I’ll contact you as they arise. One thing I’ll say right now though is that all of the many tips you’ve presented seem valid and correct – and almost any problem has a solution you’ve presented. You’ve helped me not overthink my tres when I wonder if my tail is too beat up; you’ve helped me get the right scoop; the right speed, etc. But sometimes there is so much info that an over-thinker like me will obsess over the wrong aspect. That’s why sometimes I love your feedback which is more generalized. For example you are pretty mellow about the first half of the scoop motion with the tres. But then I seized the info about the secondary back foot motion of pushing the tail under and forward, and it looks like you do it heelside. That’s one thing that initially helped but then I over-thought (and set myself back). For tre flips, the way you talk about first scooping the tail and then sort of pushing it forward toward the nose (and it looked like you were doing it with a heelside angle)…it helped. I learned no comply impossibles and this seemed like a similar angle (but with the no comply impossibles the tail goes even more straight under, less heelside). However after a month of landing tres a couple times per night I started to over-focus on the pushing of the tail underneath and toward the nose, and underfocus on the scoop first. Not the fault of your vids. From memory I think you mentioned the scoop once, but you emphasized the secondary motion more, so I over-emphasized the secondary motion. There was just so much info, and that part stuck with me the most. So until I unintentionally had a skate session with a bunch of tre-flipping twelve year olds I was overdoing it with the pushing of the tail under (heelside) and noseward, and was too sharp on the contact of the tail so it was more of an ollie. I’d have to be Michael Jordan to land those. (Old school reference, sorry). I had to mellow out with both actions and now almost all my attempts are within 10 inches of being landed.
If I’ve misunderstood or wrongly remembered any of your teachings, that’s my bad. While I’ve watched the tre support vids over and over, admittedly I haven’t watched them since maybe late-October, so my paraphrasing may be off.
Sorry this reply took a little long, been pretty busy lately
I greatly appreciate it man! It always feels amazing being an inspiration to people, even though it feels like I don’t really deserve it as I’m just an average dude, haha. But yeah, I seriously can’t thank you enough for the kind words man! I’m speechless.
As for when I said “Guys like you”, I just meant beginners in general really, haha. The problem I frequently run into virtually everywhere is that people barely explain their problems correctly. Many, many times I end up with comments giving me too little information about the problems people run into and whatnot (but I really can’t blame them, as the average age of the people who watch my videos are pretty young). However, you (and a few others out there) are much more literate and very detailed, which I love; and I can learn from that (it’s getting harder for me to remember being a beginner and the struggles I went through as I’m getting older). And yup, that’s why I implore everyone to use solid grammar and spelling and all that great stuff in my videos, because not many people do it, so it sucks.
And yeah I know what you mean by the over-thinking aspect, I give loooooads of information on my trick tips. That’s pretty much why I give that re-cap at the end. Like, how I kind of think of it is I pretty much give you all the knowledge and physics, and you keep that in the back of your mind; so when you enter the “re-cap” section, you won’t be confused about such general information I give out (ie: “What is the proper way to drag up the board? The re-cap says to ‘drag up the board’, but I don’t know if I’m doing it properly…” So you check out the full video to clear that question up!). The re-cap kinda serves as the main fundamental concepts to be thinking about when you go practice the trick. It’s kind of like taking a test: studying the super specific topics can be a little counter-productive because there’s just so much information, no brain can function like that; but when you have the fundamentals in your head, you don’t have to think that much. You got the roots of the trick sort-to speak, the general form of everything necessary. The whole super specific stuff just sheds light on every nook and cranny of the trick that people can get lost into so that we are all on the same page and don’t have any second-guesses on what to do. The “re-cap” is what should be going on in your head. You know a few fundamental concepts well already? (ie: dragging up the board and flicking). Then you don’t really need to concentrate about that anymore, go for the stuff that you are a little dusty on. That’s how I kind of think of it. I’m at the point where when I do 360 flips, I barely have much thought in my head as to what I’m doing because of the muscle memory I have built up (much like the muscle memory that is built in the previous example about dragging up the board and flicking).
Hopefully that all makes sense, kinda rambled a bit here.
As for scooping the board forward, I “believe” I said somewhere in the tip about scooping the board diagonal-ish when you do it? Which would be heelside, like you said. I may have had a freudian slip on some section to make you think I have said to just push the board directly forward… gah, hate when that happens. I do tend to emphasize the whole “pushing the board forward ” thing though. With that whole concept, I was probably hoping that since everyone is accustomed to shoving heelside (for bs shoves), if I say to start pushing the board forward, people will still end up shoving the board heelside without conscious and out of pure habit. So I may have tried to cheat the brain in the section where you may have fallen in – which I should have made more effort to say that you really do push the board a little heelside, but more forward than usual.
And to be quite honest, after a few weeks of making any trick tip, I never watch them again. It just gets awkward and cringe-y when I see myself talking on a video, it just… feels too weird. I would only force myself to watch them if I’m making a common problems video or I need to find a place in the video to help someone out. So you may know more than me about my own trick tip videos, haha.
Again, my apologies with all the rambling, my thoughts are all over the place now
And if you have any other blogs you recommend, let me know!
Wish you luck on your 360 flips!
Mike! Me too, apologies for this response taking so long. My first priority is always to skate (of course after survival), so social interactions – even in person – often take the back seat. I love the format of your vids – the finite details and then the recap. I’ll keep in mind that this is the structure as I make sure to learn the details and then keep the overview in mind as I piece them all together. My muscle memory is improving with every session, but I wouldn’t know where to begin without details like you’ve provided. In fact, as I over-emphasized the back foot action too much and too hard for too long I’m actually proud to say that I now can do that with mostly muscle memory auto-pilot. In other words, no practice ended up being a loss of time. Right now I’m mostly focusing on kicking out higher and further with the front foot so it is in place to land the tre flips. One thing that helps me keep out of my head about it is the way you explained that the set-up foot positioning for the tre is actually very similar to the varial flip.
One of my favorite other sites of an adult struggling to relearn how to skate is: http://not2old2sk8.wordpress.com/
Also, Half Dead Skateboards.
I shall hit you up when I have any specific questions for sure. I already have a few in mind, but man I tell you, I am obsessed with tre flips right now. Landed about 30% of my attempts the other night, and that was after literally about 2,000 attempts over the course of the year. I’m slow but I’m stubborn.
Wow I had no idea there were so many or any other at all guys my age once again enjoying getting back on there skateboards. Im 43 and after almost 20 years of not seriously skating put together a new setup and have been skating again. I measure my ollie progress by RedBull cans, start and finish every session switchfoot, and made a list of both short and long term goals. I got my eye on the handrail at the Harley dealership by my house, its a ways off but I WILL own that rail one day. Thanks to all you older guys who still love the feel of the board under your feet and keep on skating as long as its still fun and F@#% anybody who gives you grief over it, or tells you you are to old.
Hooper! Am stoked that you found this blog and took the time to let me know there is another one of us! I know, it is amazing, us “older” skaters are coming out of the friggin’ wood work! There is actually an awesome blog/community forum just for us, created by a great dude, Lee Bryan. Check it out: http://community.halfdeadskateboards.com/
Good idea, with the red bull cans! I am going to try that. I just do cardboard boxes, but they get smashed too easily. It seems to help when we have a target height, plus I like the idea of cans cuz then one can slowly add it the height! Nice! Thanks!
I never care when anyone tells me negative shit about being too old, whatever. Never have. However, as indicated in my blog, it is a constant battle in the marriage. It is a battle which is actually raging right now – this very week, in anger and in silence – as I just broke a bone in my foot doing tre flips the night before last.
Wow thanks for the reply. Sorry to hear about your foot and the friction on the homefront. I just got home from work pouring concrete, and have to take my daughter to ballet tonight, but gonna try to fit in a session after that. Here in the greater Seattle area you gotta get yer skate on when you can this time of year because of the rain. I do skate a covered area by the school by my house when its to wet though. Its just me and my daughter at our house and she thinks its pretty cool that im skating again, she just doesnt like me to pop ollies in the house when she is doing homework. Anyways hope yer foot heals up fast, and keep skating every chance you get. I know when ive been getting my nuts kicked in all day at work there is nothing like a good session to make it all good for a while anyways. Ill let you know when I finally work it out on that rail at the Harley shop. L8r Hooper
What’s up Greg?! Been meaning to respond to your comment for a good minute. Yeah thanks. The foot seems like it’ll also take a good minute to heal…meaning, a while. Managed a manual-only session the other day though. Maybe not a good idea. I know it, nothing feels quite as good after a tough day like a good skate. I had a couple jobs pouring concrete, damn I couldn’t imagine skating after a day like that. That’s funny that you even attempt to pop ollies in the house. About to post a foot update, first post in over a week. Take care. Keep skating!
Great blog,
I’m almost 40 as well and started back on the journey a few years ago as well. Sounds like there is a more than a few that thought they would give it one last go before we got to old. I always have to remember and tell myself that I am so thankful just to be out skating, and to quit telling myself that I still can be pro if I take it serious enough. You think your scrapes get you into beef with your wife, I thought it would be a good idea to open a skate shop before I’m to old so I can “liv it” one last time. Man I love ordering stuff for the shop that I could never have when I was younger though.
Was excited to read this comment when I was on the go the day you wrote it. Dude, I just mentioned in my most recent post about how I’ve been busting out these 19 hour work days and it has put a damper on my skate time. I feel the same as you, we are not too old, but we need to take advantage of our 40ish still-strong and healthy age in order to skate when we can. I laughed to myself when you wrote that you have to quit telling yourself that you can still be pro if you take it serious enough. That’s cuz I used to fantasize about that as well, and for awhile during the creation of this blog I was thinking that I could be marketable as an adult skater, for the older demographic. That was my old youth attachment creeping in and pushing myself. But then I was like, “Whatever, I’m just a chill 40 year old skating having fun.” Makes it so much better. I do push myself pretty hard though. Hey keep me posted on everything. Congrats on opening a shop!
Thank you for sharing your experiences. Your blog has finally inspired me to give skating a shot again. I’ve recently turned 38 and while I haven’t ollied up a curb or dropped in for over 20 years, I still think about skating and how much fun I had doing it.
I saw a video on Jason Jesse who summed it up perfectly about how skateboarding has offered him some the most memorable times in his life. I can totally relate to this video and the things your write in your blog.
So after reading your blog and lurking online stores to find the best deal possible, I’ve finally got my board and I am eagerly waiting like a little kid for that package to arrive on my doorstep.
Thanks again.
Blake! I hope you get this comment! It was awhile ago that you wrote to me, but as I just mentioned in my most recent post, I’ve been stuck in EXTREME workaholic mode lately. Trying to dig my wife and I out of a tough economic crunch and save our new business (it will succeed if we can just survive the first year or so). It is killing me as per not being able to skate as regularly as during the previous year of this blog.
Awesome! I will look for that Jason Jesee interview. Am stoked to read that you are about to start skating again, or have started by now. Perfect. We aren’t too old. Just chill out with it and don’t try to do too much too fast. Build a foundation first. Keep me posted!
Thanks for your response. Yes, I’m starting off slow (painfully slow), but I know my body isn’t ready to dive in too quickly. For now I’m just working on making my ollies feel more natural and then I’ll work up to manuals and flip tricks. My body feels so sluggish and the muscle memory isn’t quite there, but I have a plan thanks to your blog and I’m setting small goals along the way to keep my confidence level high.
Financially my family was struggling for the past 4-5 years. I’m sure its nothing compared to what you’re going through, but it did delay my dream of taking up skating because I felt too guilty spending any money on a hobby even more so when that hobby could potentially injure me and put me into greater financial distress lol.
As crappy as things were around me, the camaraderie of my friends and the challenge of progressing kept my mind off the negative things around me. That’s some of the things I cherished about skating. As adults we sometimes forget that we need this time to release from that everyday grind.
I’ll definitely keep you posted!
while i gave up skating 20 years ago and got back into it about 2 or 3, the one constant, the one thing that was forever ingrained in my head was that when i would be out whether driving, or walking or whatever, unique structures or curb design or architecture or “ollieable things” would always catch my eye, even when i went through my first skateboard retirement, some people just call it the “skaters eye”..it never left.
36 here and just started again yesterday after 15 years off the board! My nephew asked me if I could show him how to improve his ollie kickflip about a week ago and to my surprise I still could kickflip after a few tries. When teaching him how to ollie, as I squated down on the board, it all came back to me, all the memories, I just felt so good I had to get a board. Got a beaten up one for cheap from a local kid for cheap lol just to see and Im hooked. My skills are not quite what they used to be tho… what was just instinctive or routine seems almost impossible… when i got that deck, went to a nice spot and was like im gonna start easy, ollie up this little sidewalk and manual across it and shove it down the other side… damn i can barely ollie it up!! let alone land in manual… so i pretty much praticed the basic last night, getting a bit more pop and feel for the ollie, nollie-side shove-its were easy but still have a hard time on pop shove-its. kickflips are not consisent either so i didnt even try a 360flip. But after 2 hours I landed an awesome trick, nose manual to shove-it to tail manual. the nose manual was rather short but it just made my night! The only thing is I feel a bit awkward when other people are around, be it teenagers or adult, it seems i dont fit in any categories lol oh well I’ve always been going against the grain.
Julien! Seems like we are of the same tribe! I am totally jonesing to do manual combination tricks. Nice going with that one! I can’t wait to do that. I know that feeling of awkwardness when surrounded by all the teenagers and younger kids while out skating. Especially at times when I’m feeling the need to be extra safe (or my wife is demanding it) and I wear pads. That’s why I almost always just skate alone, at night, somewhere secluded.
Hi there! Your site is so refreshing!
A little bit about myself. I’m not here to evangelize you, but I have to give credit to Christ for getting me back into skateboarding. I was walking along a ditch one day, and I noticed a skateboard lying there. On a whim I took it and realized that I could still perform an ollie.
This was back in 2010, when I was 31 (I’m 35 now). With that inspiration, I realized skateboarding was a muscle memory skill. That I didn’t have to get it right the first time. That over time I would get it right. Being a dad, this was important because I had always thought that rigorous consistency that a teenager could invest was the only thing that would keep you skating. It’s not. Once you nail it, you nail it pretty much. My kickflip has been in the making for 4 years and every time I step on the board, I filter out more things I’m not supposed to do.
But anyway, I also learned a couple of other things.
I’m a skateboarder. I gave up the dream of ever getting sponsored, and the next day, I still had to skate. As the lust for sponsorship and recognition went away, and i began to consider myself in my current state, I noticed that I just kept on skating anyway. And it didn’t matter if I would ever go down a handrail, I just have to skate. This was the biggest liberating element in my getting back into skateboarding. I have learned to take joy in little improvements and tweaks that turn into permanant ones that get me towards the goal of finally nailing a trick.
What I like about your approach is the workout sets you do. I do that too. Even though there is no standard in skateboarding, you can improve your basic tricks infinitely. I always find ways to improve my ollie, and I always attempt several every skate session I do. When the bag of tricks grows, this will be harder, and since I’m not a pro, there’s not the pressure to do only the riskiest tricks, so I can take my time. I will skate until I’m unable, Lord willing.
When it comes to the chance of injury, I learned that I don’t have to be reckless and be subject to as many slams as I thought I had to. My approach works on perfecting the motion of the trick from start to finish, so I minimize slamming. However, I do slam. I thought I would have to slam millions of times to get to a decent level of proficiency, and that only teenagers had the body to endure the slams it would take to get there. But you don’t have to be a badass to be a skateboarder. You just have to get on the board and skate. I get joy from skateboarding that doesn’t involve putting myself at serious risk.
So thanks for making the website. It was nice to see your progression, and good luck on your progression in the future.
I LOVE this response of yours! It all sounds very familiar! Skating for me in this phase has definitely been a gift from a higher power. The timing was cosmic. Also, yeah, perfecting the motions in all their baby steps from start to finish reduces injury. Hosoi wrote about that in his autobiography. He’s never been hurt!
Just read about your injury :(, get well soon! You are very inspiring to me and I guess to many people! I skated as a kid in Madrid but didn’t get too far. I picked up skating a year ago when I moved to LA, I am now 36. I love your blog and your progress!
I love your story! It’s a lot like how I’ve fallen back in love with skating. I started skating in the early 90’s. Skate culture has always been part of my life. Now I’m almost 31 and have been living in LA (moved from Massachusetts) for the past 2 years. I really want to get as good as I used to be, or maybe better! It does suck to have to think twice about things like throwing yourself off a set of stairs because you have to go to work etc… Anyways, your story inspires me to not think of age as a reason to give up on my passion. Shred on, brotha!