I was irrationally excited to return to the Rite Aid in Los Feliz. I skated over 100 hours there over the summer – I estimate, and didn’t know I’d return.
The blog has paid off!
The other day I reread the first couple months of this blog (January and February, 2013. Nine months ago). Holy shit it blew my mind to see the struggle, patience and growth.
Some things haven’t changed. I’m still totally stoked to learn. Still suck at transition, still not ready, or too chicken, for rails, or anything too big or too fast. Already been injured enough. Still prefer to skate alone at night. While I love it and blog it, skating is a very private thing otherwise. Maybe it’s that I just don’t skate well with other folks around, and I’m a hard critic. Or I’m not used to the pads yet, make me feel like a leper.
Those posts reminded me not to take anything for granted.
When I first started relearning to skateboard, I could ollie, 180 frontside ollie, shovit (not popshovit), nollie-popshovit (don’t ask me why). That’s it. That was about last September. However, I count my real “start again” date as the end of October because until then I was borrowing a mix-matched old set up: 7.5 board, no tail, with 7.75 trucks, no bushings, and 20 year old bomber wheels. On October 20 last year I got an 8″ deck, and it took until the beginning of November for me to afford the right size trucks and wheels.
Little ledge across the street from my business on Melrose Avenue. These cool street obstacles are everywhere!
The thrilling struggle, and more to come!
My drills and practice sets, now very long and variable, used to consist of only “100 popshovit attempts. Zero makes. 100 kickflip attempts, 1 make.” Over and over. Then it grew. I learned Kickflips by the middle of Febrary, but they were old 80s style, not conducive to grow upon. (Side and downkicking the front foot). I had them up to about a 75% make rate before I realized I had to start over with a brand new foot action. At the end of February I was down again to a 0% make rate. Hundreds and hundreds of attempts. Varial flips, weeks of zero makes, hundreds of attempts. Then there would be one landing of one of the tricks. And then not again for a couple of weeks. Just hundreds of non-makes while seriously trying.
I wish to put the same amount of patience and persistence into my struggle with tre flips, and to learn how to incorporate all these tricks into curb tricks, grinds and slides, and eventually get them up onto ledges. After I round out my catalogue of all these flips tricks, I have a life ahead of me to get them smooth, with cool combinations. But first, get that tre!
The Practice
Last night was my first night staying back up in Los Feliz. It was an unexpected return to an old ‘hood where I skated nightly over the summer. I knew exactly where to go: Rite Aid. Smooth lot. Well lit, nobody cares. I’ve been putting in very full days working on our business, so it was a no brainer reward for me to go skating.
Duration: 80 minutes.
Pros: Great skate spot. Plus I’d watched an awesome tre support video, and it gave me some encouragement to examine tres with a different perspective.Cons: No cons. Well, I’d have loved a manual pad, but I could skate for a decade on flat ground and not get bored.
Drills
I managed to practice a Complete Drill Set 2.0. Everything was super smooth, and it went down in record time: 30 minutes. Took 10 tries to get my first heelflip, but then I got 3 makes consecutively, each one high and tight. Got the 180 backside flips and half cab kickflips with only a few extra attempts each. The nollies and frontside 360 ollies took the longest, but they are progressing. Also goofed around with nose manuals.
In an earlier post I actually made a chart of my varial flip progress! How geeky and encouraging for tres!
Practice Sets
These are developing and changing. Eventually they’ll get incorporated into a different Drill set. It would be so long I’d have to only do 2 makes of everything. I can’t believe how much I just kept banging out sets of 3 of so much super fun skating. The only thing I didn’t do was 360 non complies. I tried for about 5 minutes at the end, but I ran out of time. I was honing back in on it after not really doing those since the late spring.
Below, in some cases I just did 3 makes instead of tracking it based on percent. Just like with drills. The sets of 25 are for my weakest links.
Tre Flips
25 attempts, 1 make. Make rate: 4%
180 Frontside kickflips
25 attempts, 1 make. Make rate: 4%
No Comply Impossible
3 makes
180 Frontside No comply
3 makes
Fakie 180 Frontside No comply
3 makes
Fakie 360 Frontside Ollies
3 (Some were 270+ rotation, with a revert. Still learning).
Fakie Varial Flips
3 makes
Fakie Tre Flips
10 attempts. Zero makes. After I felt like I had a breakthrough with the technical side of tre flips, I thought I would just see what it felt like fake. To my great surprise, it was super feasible! 3 out of 10 made the complete rotation and spin and ended up exactly where it needed to be. I just wasn’t high enough in the air to catch them, I didn’t expect them to even be there! A few other attempts where in the right neighborhood. I don’t know if I’ll commit to learning these until after I get tres down rolling forward. However, it will be fun to play with them from time to time.
Notes
1. Was super stoked to land that one tre flip. It’s the first one I’ve landed since the end of August. Now that I’m getting heelflips down, and now that my living and working situation is getting into a better routine, I can focus again on tres. I want to give super credit to the skate support video I saw on YouTube, by slowmomike. The part of this video that helped me the most was where he says to scoop and kind of kick the board with the back foot, to go almost straight up! Yeah he showed it going around in the backside direction, but he made it seem as though he was trying to kick it under toward where the nose was at the beginning of the trick. Meanwhile the nose rises almost to a vertical position while the front foot gives it a full slide. Good video. I had quite a few attempts that came close because of it. Super helpful tre flip video.
Relearning to Skateboard 