The night of the wounded fakie heelflip

You’ve seen this a lot over the last couple weeks, but after tonight it’ll be a rarity. Ralph’s street level loading-zone-only parking garage. It is skating paradise for me right now, but I’m only staying in the ‘hood for one more night.

Off-timing
It is becoming a mantra here, and on other blogs of “older” skaters: rust forms quickly. I noticed it last night, at least with my backside ollies and fakie heelflips, when I finally got back at it. I wasn’t wounded, my fakie heelflips were hurting though.

Timeline:

• Wednesday: Planned on skating a bit despite ankle pain, but locked my keys in the car and it took up my night getting a spare. Life.
• Thursday: Thanksgiving. I had a good session, but I drank a glass of wine during Thanksgiving dinner. In my opinion, alcohol defeats the purpose of practicing technical skating.
• Friday. The war against skating resumed in my household for the first time in awhile. It continues whenever we have financial setbacks. Friday I had to work and stuff to do all day and evening, and by 10:30pm I was actually fearing a cold creeping in. I didn’t have it in me to fight against my sleepiness, my sore throat, my tre flips and fight against my wife. Went to bed early. No skating.

I took this super dark photo just to show the contrast between the inside and the outside of my favorite indoor night skate spot, Ralph’s loading zone. I was standing in the same spot as the top photo. The top photo is looking to my left, this above photo is looking outside, to my right.

• Saturday: I literally woke up to my wife telling me I should quit skating, and focus on my career. I know she’s right about the career, and I know she respects skating, I won’t quit though. I just  need to find a middle path – and it is very hard when the career is already the extra thing on top of work, marriage and life. Once the career becomes the work, like it was in Chicago, a whole new window of time will open up. For now, there is not enough time for so many extra things. A compromise is to have far less skating. Ugh.  My brain just short circuited. I have to change the subject.
  Was gone working and then having a date with my wife, from 9am until 10:30pm. With an early morning today (Sunday), it was a no brainer that I’d go to sleep with my wife at 11pm last night. However, despite the anti-skate sentiment, I went skating.

The session
Duration: 1 hour. Strict.
Location: Ralph’s parking garage. Hauser!
At first I was stoked. Began with some manuals and quickly moved into trying to complete a Drill Set 2.1. Everything was flowing smoothly, with great height and control. Then all of a sudden when I got to fakie heelflips I totally hit a wall. Not literally. I just couldn’t do it. I eventually landed one, but I swear I must’ve spent 20 minutes, 1/3rd of my session, fighting for the other one. Often I can land fakie heelflips, one after the other, without a hitch. Last night I couldn’t get the second fakie heelflip to save my life. I had very many “almosts”. I was leaning toward the tail-side too far, or flicking the heel too quickly, or flicking the heel without the proper drag. I know what I was doing wrong, I just couldn’t correct it. When I looked at the time and saw I only had 12 minutes to go, I had to choose between finishing the drill set and going back to the fakie heelflip, or moving on to my fragile tre flip practice. Didn’t want to go 4 or 5 days without tre practice so….I…gave…up.

In the end I had accomplished a Drill Set 2.1 minus the following: one fakie heelflip; one 360 no comply; two 360 fakie frontside ollies; two no comply impossibles; two fakie frontside 180 no complies. So I was close. Can’t believe I got the other stuff right away, but then spent 20 minutes and dozens of fails on the fakie heelflip.

This was my second to last session (until I specifically commute to here in the future) in this top-notch skate spot. If I were to plan on being around longer, I’d start drilling kickflips over these stacked thingys. Would start with one and work my way up over the weeks. Alas, I’m moving to a different neighborhood tomorrow.

Practice set
Tre flips: Attempts: 25. Makes: 2. Make rate: 8%
Once again, it was a night of about 5 additional “almosts”, during which I got it around and got both feet briefly on the grip, but was usually leaning too far behind me or toward my back foot upon landing. Getting it around 360 is becoming easier. Getting the flip in is still a big weak point. When I manage to do both, the next weak link is the height of the front foot. It is hard to keep it up long enough to catch the board. For now;

This is from my Thanksgiving boardslide session. I especially love that moment of pure potential going into the trick. In this case, I should have already ollied though, if I want to slide the whole thing.

Tonight
It is my last night right across the street from the great waxed, well lit, smooth Ralph’s parking garage. I can always travel this way to skate – especially worth it during our brief rainy season – but most of the time that would eat up most of my skate time. Hence tonight I’ll be getting in a session for sure. Even though I feel like I lost my drill set battle last night, tonight I’ll probably do an abbreviated version so I can get in tre practice and still have time to Carpe Grind em!

Thanksgiving Session! Wedding ring fits again! Skate dreams!

Frontside board slide. When I was a kid we called these backside. Read a bunch of online forums arguing about what it should be. I say backside. But it is officially frontside nowadays.

Thanksgiving session
The night before Thanksgiving I’d decided to take the night off from skating – rest the ankle. Ended up skate commuting over 3 miles anyway, after dropping the car off at the mechanic. Then at the end of the night, I locked my keys in the car and ended up jogging almost 2 miles home to get my wife’s spare key. Thanks to yoga and skateboarding I didn’t even need to stop for a break! Ankle didn’t hurt either. Until the next day.

The next day was yesterday, Thanksgiving! I’ll skip the write up on it. Was done by about 4pm. Decided to catch the last grey rays of the day and bust out some boardslides on a waxed ledge down on Wilshire.

For the first time in about 6, maybe 7 months, I was able to fit my wedding ring onto my ring finger! I banged it falling out of a board slide on a picnic table. My other ring finger broke from a different skate accident about a month earlier, and is still very swollen and won’t bend.

No drills?! Or tre practice!
Skated that ledge for about 35 minutes. Didn’t warm up with any drills, didn’t practice any tres. Time flew by. I rolled smoothly away from a ton of those boardslides, but they were all kind of short. 2 feet. Maybe 2.5 feet. Couldn’t manage to land one longer – needed a higher backside ollie due to the way the ledge was angled. Almost made some 5 footers. Sometimes I got it up and in place but didn’t keep it aligned on the way down, and would rub my wheels on the ledge, falling out of it.
I also needed more balls yesterday. I didn’t commit enough times to the higher half of the ledge.

It was from this session, about 6 months ago, a moment earlier, when I banged my ring finger. I couldn’t fit my wedding ring on it again until yesterday.

After the ledge session, I went and skated the waxed Ralph’s curb for about 30 minutes, goofing around, trying to Varial flip onto it. Came close many times.

Was a very rare session for me, not warming up, not doing drills or working on my agenda. I went into it feeling a bit buzzed from the one glass of wine I had during Thanksgiving dinner, so I didn’t really feel like I had the same faculties and facilities. Reduced drive. I was slower, with less balance, even though much time had passed. Lightweight.

While the shoe goo actually works, and each application lasts 4 days or so, it is getting seriously old. I’m over it. I’d love new shoes but keep dealing with setbacks.

Tonight
I keep literally dreaming about doing a fakie ollie into a fakie 5-0  grind into a backside tailslide and then out. I know I could do it if I practiced for 5 or 6 hours. And then I want to go into it via fakie kickflip. That would be another 4 or 5 hours maybe. We’re talking over two week’s worth of skate time, at the expense of some drills and tre practice. (I could be underestimating it. Afterall, I thought I’d have heelflips within a few sessions. Took me much of the summer). Also, I’d need to be at the right curb. I only have two more nights at the place I’m staying, right next to the perfect curb. Unfortunately I don’t see me placing that much time into getting this trick for awhile.

Tonight, as much as I’d love to skate, I need to do some marriage type stuff, and am so worn out from all the work, I don’t see myself pulling another 11pm session. Oh to be an adult relearning how to skateboard.

Ankle pain, backtail difficulty, schizophrenic homeless shredder.

Frontside 50-50s to shovit out.

Ankle
I don’t actually recall hurting my ankle. I get very warmed up and just keep going after odd landings. Yesterday morning I noticed it was sore, slight sharp pain with certain pressure. Fate would have it I took a 90 minute yoga class and the teacher randomly chose to focus on ankle-strengthening poses. Wore it out some. Then after I cooled down from last night’s session it was like, “ouch.”

Today I already skate commuted about 2 miles on my revived Creature deck with cruiser wheels. Dropped car off at mechanic. That was ok, but for sure I’m a bit swollen with dull and sharp pain. I plan on taking tonight off from skating for that reason.

A tasty daytime view of the Fairfax manual pad I frequent. All locked up and alone! (Very accessible though).

The session, and drills
Duration: 75 minutes
Location: Ralph’s parking garage.
Drill set: Did something new. I did half of a complete Drill Set 2.1. Instead of doing two makes of each trick, I went ahead and did 1 make of everything. Wanted to keep it brief so I could take advantage of the waxy curb and also practice tres. Liked it. Took 20 minutes. I figure I worked on each trick for 1 minute, usually landing a few subpar attempts, trying for more height, etc, before accepting one and moving on.
Practice Set: Tre Flips. Attempts: 25. Makes: 1. Make rate: 4%. There were 4 or 5 other attempts (just like the day before), wherein my feet both landed on the completed tre, and I just couldn’t hold it. Shows promise.
Tailslide practice: I’ve backed it up a few notches, even working out on the unwaxed curb. Practicing doing the 90 to 120 degree ollies into tailstall, with momentum. Practicing placement. I got 3 frontsides to go where I wanted, and I only got 2 backsides. Tried and tried for a third. Not so good at it yet. Easier for me to do a 180 backside ollie to tail stall. Working on reducing the angle so I can get it to slide.

Got some more truck axel nuts, oiled my bearing and am all set to roll!

Homeless shredder
I’ve either lived or worked on Melrose Ave for the last three years. Every day I see the same homeless guy, about my age, walk up and down the street, over and over. I swear I recognize him from Grateful Dead or Phish tour. He always wears green, has dreadlocks, walks with perfect posture, talks to himself, yells at the air. Clearly schizophrenic. Even through violent outbursts one can tell that he is a good-natured person, but a tragic situation. Tried talking to him one time, to ask if we were on tour together, but he kind of freaked out.

He’s stopped and watched me skate before, back at the DMV, but I couldn’t even tell that he was comprehending or observing the actual skating. Seems like he is in his own world. Have seen him hundreds of times on foot, always in the same outfit, nothing different. The other day though, all of a sudden I see him on Melrose in front of a skateshop, Brooklyn Projects. He’s on a new-looking board and he’s busting out huge nollies and frontside shovits, no complies!

Went in and asked the cool people at Brooklyn Projects about it, and later I also spoke with some friends that own a hip-hop shop on Melrose. Turns out the guy used to be in a successful band and also was an accomplished pro skateboarder at one time. Probably not the guy I toured with. He still rides the half-pipe behind the skate shop. His name is Steve but I don’t know anything more. Apparently the awesome people at Brooklyn Projects had enough compassion to set him up with a board. Now, for 20 minutes or so per day, he returns to normalcy and skates it up! I wish I was also in the position to help improve the quality of his life, and the lives of so many other people out there, including my wife’s and my own, and our parents.

Frontside 50-50 shovit out
I had some longer ones but not recorded. I recorded one longer one but it was slower and didn’t have the same shovit pop. I suppose the speed of the approach doesn’t matter since the vid ended up in slow mo anyway. One can tell though in the body language if it was fast or slow. This really isn’t anything much, but here it is, 8 seconds.

First frontside 50-50s to shovit out. Super fun skate night.

Easily my favorite deck since I restarted skating (5th deck). Pausing to skate a big waxed angled ledge.

Slow start, couldn’t stop
Says it all. Part way through the beginning I was like, “This is a joke, I’m not going to work on drills or get wild or even skate long. In fact, it is ridiculous that I don’t put this much love into my stand-up comedy, what the f#ck am I doing?.” (Partly due to craving sleep, and maybe being less jazzed about the constant extensive rust removal process, and contributing too much time to skating). By the end – after I was warmed up and loving it, and with the exploration of three different skate spots and a sense of invigoration I rarely feel during the day- I didn’t want to call it a night.

When I arrived to skate the waxed curb and do a drill set at Ralph’s there were two delivery vans in the way.

The mini-adventure
Location: Wilshire Boulevard between Curson and La Brea. Bank of America lot, street obstacle, and Ralph’s lot
Duration: about 90 minutes! Ending around 10pm.

Underneath Ralph’s
Before leaving Ralph’s to skate without obstruction, I went down underneath the lot to take some pics of the manual pads. There’s a whole world under there: brighter, busier. It makes sense why I’m always completely left alone in the quiet cargo-loading zone on the street level grind cavern. There’s a huge buffer of space and activity.

Underground manny pad. Someday I’ll skate it, but it would probably blow my cover on all my skating upstairs.

Another sweet underground Manny pad, beneath Ralph’s. It’s like a skatepark. Security is lazy, but I don’t skate here since it’s too close to their station.

BOA Drills and Manuals
At the nearby Bank of America Parking lot (one of four where I skate), I did a complete Drill Set 2.1. Took 30 minutes, but probably less since during that time I goofed around with other stuff too. Felt good.

Practice Set
Tre Flips: Attempts: 25. Makes: 1. Make rate: 4%. In addition to that make, there were about 4 others that were “groaners.” Those are attempts that are so close one lets out a cheer of anticipation mixed with a groan.

Some parts of the BOA at La Brea and Wilshire have better lighting. Not this part. This sidewalk makes a good manny pad, once the eyes adjust to the light.

Almost
Before I left the BOA lot, I tried a few nose manuals across the pad. They were super close! I kept putting my rear wheels down for a second, clearing the rest of the pad, and then doing nice shovits out. Felt super good. Kept trying and trying. Almost fell on my face. Didn’t make any, but also didn’t think I’d be coming so close without months of more practice.

On Wilshire between La Brea and Hauser. I’ve passed it before but I don’t think I’ve photographed it. I was all warmed up, skated it for the first time. Unexpected awesomeness!

Backside and frontside boardslides on a waxed incline (or decline)!
At first I was actually a bit scared of the higher, more awkward, angled and waxed obstacle photographed above (and below). I usually just skate flat ground, or curbs. Almost off of my breaks, fractures, tears and sprains have come from pools or ledges, or picnic tables. This is like a ledge. After skating it for a few minutes and getting the feel for it, that fear wore off and I enjoyed some sweet frontside and backside boardslides. (Maybe 3 feet, but still, it felt great). I’ll add here, that what we always called “Backside boardslides” as a kid are now called, “Frontside Boardslides.” And vice versa. In fact, I think it is ridiculous still that the current definition of a backside boardslide is called frontside. What we used to called backside boardslides made sense, as they looked like backside tailslides. We’re traveling backwards. That’s a whole other rant for a whole other blog, and it really doesn’t matter anyway. I’ve seen a bunch of online forums talking about this too. Even the different contributors to Thrasher seem to have different opinions. I notice how some writers define the pics one way, other writers define them the other way. And no, I’m not confused about the pics, am sure none of them were lipslides.

I can tell that other skaters have ollied over the top of this waxed loading/handicapped ramp. Wonder if they bent this on purpose to make it easier, or if they stomped it while trying to clear it.

First 50-50 Grinds to shovit out
After all that other skating, I passed by Ralph’s again. The delivery trucks were gone, so I skated the waxed curb. Each night I’ve been feeling out the dynamics of the little ollie onto it and just how it feels to notch in the with wheels/trucks, grind and then get off it. Eventually I want to do kickflips both into and out of long grinds. The grind zone at this curb is a nice waxed 8 or 9 feet. After numerous makes of frontside and backside 50-50s, I started to play with positioning my feet to kickflip out. It’ll take me another bunch of sessions before that will happen. Like, many. However, I was already warmed up with the shovits from the manual pad, and so when I tried to shovit out, it was super easy. I repeated it a few times, each time getting actual air as though it were a popshovit. Coming out of a grind, doing a combo trick, even a shovit, feels like just about the coolest thing in the world.

Tonight
Don’t know. Will see.

Zombie fakie backside tailslides

Was hunched over about to ollie into a long frontside 50-50 when my front truck hit a pepple and I fell onto my stomach and chest, face landing a couple inches away from the curb. The white streak in this photo is rock dust from the incident.

Last night
It was a total zombie session at Ralph’s parking garage. That means I was acting with no brains, kind of sleep walking. Worked from early morning until 10pm, minus 20 minutes for my blog post this morning (technically yesterday, as it is past midnight as I write). Skated from 10:34pm until 11:40pm, despite exhaustion all day. My craving was to stay in with my wife but I have these skate goals and thought it would be good for me to get exercise and to feel some long grinds. I theorize that it is best to break a sweat each and every day. I had barely enough energy to muster a mellow session, but I built more as I skated.

Drills
Did a Drill Set 2.1 minus the 360 ollies. Didn’t have it in me to flail that much, plus I ran out of time. I was so tired (yet so jonesing to skate), my balance and focus were reduced.
Fakie Heelflips took forever. They became a serious battle, although in previous sessions they were easy.

Practice set
Tre flip practice
Attempts: 25 Makes: 0. Had about 6 really close ones! Am in the correct realm, so for the first time I don’t doubt a complete success in the future.

There is an entire subterranean world beneath the indoor cargo delivery area of the Ralph’s parking garage I’ve been frequenting. Just discovered it. Even better lighting, and there are two sweet manual pads. Maybe a security guard risk. Will photograph the manny pads next time. Tried this time but my shitty craigslist phone froze up on me.

Tailslides and 180s
I’ll preface with this: I am horrible at tail slides. I have fallen more in the last week while trying tailslides than I fell in the last few months combined. A bit frustrating. Most of the time the board flies away from under me, but when I make contact it either stops (not enough speed or wax, or too square of an angle), or I connect and the board flies away in the direction of the slide and I fall. (Too much speed or wax or too obtuse of an angle).

Just watched a youtube video covering backside 180 ollies, backside 180 kickflips and their combo: kickflip backside tailslides. Though I’ve been doing backside 180s and backside 180 flips for awhile now, I don’t think they are even in correct realm in order to be able to do them into a tailslide. Not even without the flip. Doing a backside 180 tail stall is the closest I come, and at least I can work on that. Yet I’ll say, “Damn, I have a long way to go.” I love how the better skaters get air in their ollies before moving them into 180s, frontside or backside. I want that.

Fakie Backside Tailslides
Played around on a curb and did a couple longish fakie backside tailslides. Felt good. They are way easier than regular frontside or backside tailslides. It’s because the tail is already in alignment before and during the ollie, and one can see it the whole time. No blind areas, no 90 degree turn of the tail.

I think I may have done a little 3 incher fakie backside tailslide months ago but didn’t mention it since it was more like a tail stall, it was so small. But last night I busted a few foot long or longer, beginning fakie, and now I had to mention it. Fakie tailslides are about as easy as regular noseslides, since like I said, the tail begins in a lined up position and there is almost no turning or timing involved.

Tonight
Due to Thanksgiving break I noticed that the public schools are closed. If I can coordinate it with my wife, I’ll be hitting the Fairfax manual pad for an hour tonight. I got about 7 hours of sleep last night, so I should be good to go.

Brevity is the soul of shit

One of my favorite skate spots ever: Manual pad at Fairfax High school. I recycled this picture from a previous post. I already uploaded way too many similar photos of this place. 

Brevity is the soul of shit
The actual quote is, “Brevity is the soul of wit”, but I’ve changed it to reflect my partial attitude toward short skate sessions. Especially for adults relearning to skateboard, the rust gathers quickly and it seems we need more time to warm up and tune in. It is a generalization. Usually when I only have a little time to skate, I don’t do it so gracefully and I tend to fall a bunch if I try to incorporate curbs and other obstacles. I eat shit if I don’t warm up enough.

However, that is only part of my attitude about short skate sessions. On the other hand I absolutely applaud any of us skaters who seize the opportunity to roll, no matter how brief. Every little bit adds up, every moment helps. Also, regardless the skill, a huge smile spreads on my face the moment I start to carve around. In that sense, the benefit of short sessions is immediate, as happiness is a boon.

The full gamut. As I wrote yesterday, I loathe the pads while I also appreciate them. They mainly protect my wife from skating (from the reality of the brutality). I know the elbow pads recently prevented what could’ve been a shattered elbow. The wrist guards are indispensable (talk to my $3,000 hospital bill). The shin guards take a beating but don’t get in the way. The knee pads make it so my wife doesn’t have to change bloody sheets any more. All the same, I feel like a leper in these pads. It’s my 14 year old ego surviving the decades.

The session
Duration: 45 minutes.
Location: Fairfax High School manual pad.

Was busy working all day, and busy being married most of the evening. I only managed to slip away and squeeze in this abbreviated session. Remarkably, despite the relatively short session, I made it well rounded and came away feeling light and accomplished. Didn’t expect anything of myself, and so every moment of balance and insight was considered a gift. I’ll add here that I only lost about 30% of my session (those 15 to 20 minutes), but that’s usually the part where I’m the most warmed up and that’s when I tend to experiment and grow the most.

Drills
I practiced about half of a Drill Set 2.1. Was theorizing that I could have done one make of each thing in the entire set and called it a “half 2.1 set”, but instead I did the regular 2 makes of about half of the tricks. I did two of the following tricks: ollies; fakie ollies; backside 180 ollies; frontside 180 ollies; fakie backside 180 ollies (half cabs); fakie frontside 180 ollies; nollies; kickflips; heelflips; varial flips; fakie kickflips; fakie heelflips; 180 frontside no complies.

My tire self-destructed while my wife was driving yesterday! First thought: Are you ok?! Second thought: There goes my new shoes and skate wheels.

Practice Set
By keeping my drill set short, I had time to play with the manual pad and to work on tre flips. About 13 minutes each. As per the manual pad: Did a bunch of runs just doing regular manuals across it, no ollie out or anything, I’m not there yet in the skill department. The other half of the time I practiced getting up on the pad and rolling into a nose manual. Have only ever made it once across a manual pad in a nose manual, but had to come down on all four wheel and sort of firecracker my way out of it. Since then, I’ve gotten good at doing a shovit out of a nose manual, but it’ll be awhile before I’m able to combine the entire ride and the shovit across and off a manual pad. Work in progress.

Tre Flips
Attempts: 25. Makes: 2! Make rate: 8%!!
This is like my 4th or 5th session in a row of landing at least one tre flip. I can hardly believe it myself. Rolling. I’ll add this disclaimer: They are so very tentative right now. Like I wrote yesterday, I could easily go another 5 sessions without landing one. Have learned a lot about the timing and angles and intensity of the back foot action, and am still in a grey zone about the timing of the front foot flick. Feeling it all out and trying to remain non-attached yet diligently focused about the outcome. Playful mixed with mindful.

Tonight
Keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll get in a session. Sundays have become one of my busier days lately. All the things that take up my time are in fact lovely, but I start to resent them when they take away from my play time. I’m 40 years old but haven’t grown up yet. Yeah that’s one of my eternal themes: My inner Peter Pan versus work, marriage, church, marketing, writing, stand-up comedy, networking, social interactions, meals, family and all other things that are wonderful and necessary but also, aren’t skating.

Second wind courtesy of The Talent Code

One of the most inspirational books I've recently read.

Daily building and maintenence of nerve pathways
I’ve already lauded the book, “The Talent Code” by Daniel Coyle. Consistently I draw inspiration from it, both to get on the board and in the way I focus my attention once I’m rolling. It’s one of the hugest assets to my recent success relearning how to skateboard.
The book discusses brain chemistry and the building of pathways along which signals travel through the nervous system. He relates this to specific techniques for practicing anything, to the way we focus and analyze, and how it aids in the actual physical development of the sheaths around the neurons. Then he gives numerous examples worldwide of hotbeds of talent, and how those cases are all related to this type of practice and neural health. Kind of out there – especially for someone like myself who tends to skew more toward books about yoga, meditation, visualization, positive mental attitude. Yet I’ll say this: these schools of thought don’t exclude each other. They go hand in hand.
Also, there is a whole chapter in The Talent Code about Dogtown, and about the Z Boys.

Another rainy night, headed toward a lucky find, an indoor parking garage!

The session
Duration: 1 hour
Location: Ralph’s parking garage, Hauser north of Wilshire, Los Angeles.
I was tired all day after under-sleeping most of the week. Lots of this is due to my late night skate sessions. I craved sleep all day, but when I got home around 7:30pm I began craving skating. My wife even floated the idea of a nice dinner and early night, but I kept thinking of how easy it would be to just have a nice mellow, productive hour-long skate session beforehand. Kept thinking about my fragile tre practice, very much in it’s infancy. Needs steady nurturing. So like a sleepwalker, inspired by The Talent Code, I stumbled toward my skate stuff and out into the chilly, rainy night.

A rare selfie depicting my beat-up and newly dude-sewed pads. I dislike them, but appreciate them.

Drills
I managed to practice a complete Drill Set 2.1.. Took about 40 minutes, but I goofed around with mostly unsuccessful backside tailslides between rounds. Got one unexpectedly to slide and I rolled away with joy. Otherwise, just like the previous two nights I either failed to connect or slid too fast and slammed down on the ground whenever I’d make solid contact. Takes balls to keep getting back at it.
Notes
1. Glad I do these bare minimum drills. They add up. I might notice something that requires extra work, but even if I don’t get to do it, the honing occurs slowly over time.
2. Weak points: A) Straight ollies. I keep turning frontside a little bit. Haven’t really focused on these. B) Backside 180s ) Backside 180 flips.

The end of the curb: my target for 5-0s. Kept sticking. More speed and more wax needed.

Practice set
My practice time was split between tre flips and playing with grinds. Took 10 min for the former. Got about 20 min accumulated grind time.
Tre Flips
Attempts: 25. Makes: 1. Make rate: 4%
Third night in a row landing one. Could easily not land one for the next few sessions. That’s how tentative and experimental they still are. Yet I am onto something. Learning more and more about the angles and how most of the work is on the back foot. However, after almost landing about ten of them, and then landing one, I got further and further away from landing the rest. Problem was, during the last third I didn’t focus enough – not even the needed little bit – on the front foot flick and I kept almost doing 360 popshovits as a result. Then I’d overcompensate.
The grinds
Little of this, little of that. Mostly I observed the following: when I’m tired and mellow I just don’t have the same balls (for speed) patience or commitment needed to really pull off good grinds. Even tech stuff suffers. All the same I’m super glad I played with them, just feeling out the curb. The highlight was a nice 3 foot backside 50-50, and two 7 or 8 foot frontside 50-50s. Otherwise it was a bunch of flailing and falling.
Tonight
We’ll see! Kind of a heavy day at work and in life, some bad news here and there. Takes some of the wind out of my sails. I’m a grown man, I can handle it, but if I need to instead compensate by working longer or comforting my wife with more home time, I will. At the expense of my skate time. Knowing me though, I’ll manage another tight 60 min drill set mixed with tres and grinds. I love it!

Carpe Grind ’em

Fakie 50-50 from the night before. A month ago I couldn’t even really time a fakie ollie into anything, especially not into a grind.

Seize the grind
For only a couple of weeks I’m staying right across the street from a parking garage with a sweet waxed manual and grinding pad. It’ll always be about a mile from my business, so I can always return. Any time I am lucky enough to be at such a great skate spot I figure the motto is “Carpe Grind em”. Make best use of the opportunity. After all, by virtue of time constraints my skate sessions are usually in the nearest, flattest, best lit parking lot, without a manual pad or a waxed curb.

It was already sweet. I sweetened it much more by adding tons of new wax.

The session
Duration: 65 minutes. 10pm until 11:05pm. Could have gone on forever, but had website work to accomplish back at the apartment. Took until 2am, but pausing to skate had to happen, that’s how much I love it!
Drill Set: I did 95% of a Drill Set 2.1. Left out the frontside and the backside 360 ollies. Wouldn’ve taken only 2 to 10 minutes more, but I seriously wanted to save 30 minutes for the combination of tre flip practice and grind time. Part of me felt that I should’ve been practicing grinds the entire time – that’s how sweet this place is. However, it is always a conundrum when it comes to sacrificing precious warm-up, dust off and practice time.

Above video: Instead of getting fancy with tricks to grinds, I just wanted to accumulate tons of straightforward grind time! The first one is actually an unintended 5-0 slasher. 

10 minutes regularly adds up
This subject line pertains to tre practice. It takes me about 10 to 12 minutes to attempt 25 tre flips. A little each night. Sometimes I resist practicing them as I don’t anticipate landing any and it seems like sigh material. As in, take a deep breath in, and exhale, this is a heavy trick and takes serious focus. As though it loses the fun. Yet in reality it only takes 10 minutes and if I just do it with inquisitive focus I actually have fun. When I come close to landing them, I have tons of fun.
Tre Practice: Attempts: 25. Makes: 1. Make rate: 4%.
This makes two nights in a row of landing one. About 10 of my attempts last night were in the right neighborhood. I feel like I had a mini-breakthrough about the action of the back foot. I was hitting the tail with the proper angle, but in a way that almost felt like a back foot no comply. Feels less like an ollie, more like a shove it but with a dramatic jump. The action of the board after all seems to be 70% scoop and only 30% of the focus on the slap down angle. Hard to describe. Harder to do. Still a work in progress.

Yet another skate spot. Mini pad. Sheltered from the rain. This is on Hauser about 2 blocks north of the Ralph’s pad and Wilshire. I’d skate it.

Friggin’ Pads
Seems about half the skaters whom are about my age wear pads all the time – having been seriously injured without them. The other half, like myself, disdains them fiercely. I disdain them but I wear them when I’m doing drills, practice sets, and learning something new on an curb or other obstacle. I tend not to wear them when I’m skate commuting or trying to video record something. I never mind the wrist guards as I’ve broken a wrist (childhood) and torn ligaments (adulthood), both skating.

Last night I was practicing backside tailslides (with no successful makes) and I slid too fast on the wax, and slammed down on my wrist. No pain at all thanks to the pad. Recently I also slammed on my elbow very hard – no pain or scratch. My knee pads and shin guards (always concealed) take serious beatings regularly, and I almost never get a scratch. The pads are extremely dented, scratched and even torn up – and very little of it from pool skating. It is all just learning flip tricks. In a very real sense, they help me to commit more fully. So I’m grateful for the damn pads – not just because they prevent injury, but also they prevent quite a few skateboard-related arguments at home.

The velcro was shot on my pads. So for $1 I sewed on new velcro and now the pads stay up better than ever!

Sew time, shoo goo time
Although I’m no fan of the pads, I mind them less and less as time goes on. I still always feel like a leper – or like the pads might as well be a pair of Depends adult diapers, or a walker – but at the same time when I take my ego out of it and accept the reality of me being a 40 year old man who cannot afford to miss work due to a skate injury, I can deal. Lately however, the velcro on the pads has been worn out, so they were slipping down off my knees in between each and every trick attempt. Super annoying! The above pictured velcro sewing session took care of that problem!

Shoe repair under the car!

Our apartment is too small and unventilated to shoe goo in there. Our business, a yoga studio, had too much going on inside of it for me to shoe goo in there the other day. And yet, I needed those holes filled by skate time! So I inventively patched them up and stuck them under the car to dry. Worked out! These shoes have lasted about 6 months, probably 250 hours of skating, and 3 tubes of shoe goo. Yeah I could splurge on a new pair – and will need to – but every time I have a discretionary $30 bucks or so it goes into a deck or something else. Next up: gotta get new bones sft wheels. I’m thinking my 54s are 49s now.

Another session, another manual pad

New skate spot. Oval manual pad coming out of the side of an empty security booth. At first I thought it was just a curb, but after awhile I realized it was a pad! Game on!

Skate vision
Even during the 20+ years when I wasn’t skating, my eyes kept tracing lines and recognizing skate possibilities. Any skater knows this, but it is more remarkable how strong this habit is even for older dudes, even when skating isn’t on the forefront of the mind.

That said, skate vision isn’t always 20/20, sometimes takes awhile to focus. Last night I skated at a new location, another Bank of America (probably the 5th in this blog), this time on La Brea and Wilshire. I accepted it as just ok, lit enough to skate, with ample flat ground space but too much traffic for 9pm. (Construction workers were using it as a holding area for big rigs. I chose it out of necessity in this new ‘hood). I didn’t have a lot of time, and I wanted to warm up somewhere and then switch to the Ralph’s parking garage, on Hauser, north of Wilshire. So this BOA lot had to do.

Only after 30 minutes I realized that part of the sidewalk bulged out like a proscenium arch. With the proper approach it was a perfect manual pad! The spot went from being a weak 6 to being a solid 8.

Setting up some drawers I found. The rear drawer prop up my camera for filming. The front drawer is a buffer in case my skateboard flies away and hits it

The Session
While at Bank of America I managed my fastest ever Complete Drill Set 2.1. 30 minutes. I trimmed off 15 minutes, due to getting better at the new additions. Before it took 45 minutes. I used those extra 15 minutes to goof around with manuals and tre flip practice.

Had insights.
1. Easier to get a fuller rotation in the 360s if I keep my hips square with my rotating shoulders until I’m past 180, ideally at 270, and then do the old hip twist rotation at the end rather than the beginning of the trick. This is both for straight forward as well as Fakie versions.
2. For longer manuals I’m realizing in my case how much the heel-side weight affects the board’s ability to go straight. 

Practice set
Tre flips
Attempts: 25. Makes: 0. Work in progress.

Bright lights. Waxed pad. Super flat and smooth. Not much traffic. Haven’t been kicked out after 3 sessions.

On Wilshire, west of La Brea, on the way from the BOA to the Ralph’s curb. Another slick, waxed and painted beauty! Right behind it is a long wide section of smooth marble tiles, perfect for manuals.

Switching places
Left the lot to head to my new favorite spot, an indoor parking garage off Wilshire, with good light and a very waxed curb/pad. Wanted to try to accomplish a varial flip to curb stall or grind. I tried for about 30 minutes, without success. Came very close a few times. Was super fun.
I over-skated though, according to the parameters of time restraints, and it wasn’t cool. Over by about 40 minutes. Was obsessed tho, couldn’t stop trying those varials to curb.

This pic is from a few days ago. A rail I will never skate, but has been skated, and cries to be skated again. Immediately after taking this photo, at the top of the stairs, in the door to the left I ran into Steve Olson for the second time in two days.

One last random shot that caught my skater’s eye. It has been grinded in the past, and will be in the future, but not by me.

Daylight Savings Time? More like, “Skatelight cravings time”.

Just found this new SWEET indoor parking garage super waxed low curb! Security is on site but far away and I haven’t been kicked out yet! Night skating solution!

Overblogging! Underskating!
I’m wordy sometimes, so this is a challenge. Having a hard time focusing on work right now, but if overblog it will cut into my skate time tonight while I’m compensating for my online skate fascination time. I already used up my limited blog time watching youtube videos of people doing blunts and bluntslides on curbs. Not interested in the transition version for now. (Last night I dreamt I was doing blunts – not smoking blunts, but doing the skate version. I’ve never done a blunt before but after my dream I’ve got a new fixation). Also used up way too much time reading and commenting on a virtual peer’s blog. Check it out, he’s a great natural writer:
http://not2old2sk8.wordpress.com/

Sunday night’s skate session: due to friggin’ daylight savings I drove out of my way to sneak into this closed middle school where there are lights. There’s a cool old Koston video of him skating fast in here, doing a manual variation on each mini-pad at the base of each support post.

The last couple of days
I posted yesterday that I met Steve Olson – I met him on Saturday though. Just took me awhile to find time. Then today I ran into him again. This time I didn’t say anything, didn’t want to come across like a stalker.
Sunday night I managed to get in a session after work. I work 7 days a week, at least. Darkness fell early. I wanted to skate the new waxed pad in a parking garage that I’d found, (the top picture on this post), but I knew I’d get kicked out if I was there too long. So I drove to the school in the above pic, hopped the fence and over the course of 45 minutes busted out a Complete Drill Set 2.1. Lots of tricks, but that time it was an easy session. Not always the case.

Also did a Practice Set of 25 tre flip attempts. A few close ones. No makes.

First Varial Flip to Truck Stall
Then I drove down to the parking garage and skated for about 20 minutes. I was getting close to landing a varial flip to axel stall, so I tried to record it. I got one but rolled up onto the pad instead of off of it, reducing the coolness factor by about 80%. In the replay of the vid, I saw that the camera decided to auto focus unnecessarily right when I was flipping. One can still make it out, but I’ll have to return to do it properly! Am obsessed with not only making the trick, but figuring out how to do it so consistently that I can grind with it too.

I’m posting below a 5 second vid of that first varial to curb stall.

Had to work downtown yesterday (LA). Every block has 100 skate spots. This picture shows the most elaborate and overkill attempt to block skater’s roll away zone.

Backing up, breaking it down
Last night I didn’t get done working until about 11:30pm (6am to 11:30pm). I had another 6am this morning, so I only managed to skate about 15 minutes at the awesome waxed indoor, lit parking garage pad. I admitted to myself that I suck at grinds, and part of the reason for that is I’m trying to do too much too soon. Kickflipping and varial flipping into a grind when I’ve hardly practiced 50-50s or 50s in my adult life. So, during those 15 minutes I TOTALLY LOST MYSELF DEEP IN LOVE with little regular grinds.

Benches and ledges like this are eyepopping and mouth watering, but for real are too high for me for now. I know! I’m a 40 year old ancient skater! Yeah I could ollie into a grind, but that’s it, and it would be sketchy anyway. Better off practicing with a low curb. All the same, a marble ledge like this makes me CRAVE to get better before I’m too old.

More Video
I was pleasantly surprised that my first attempt to embed youtube video worked here on wordpress. For some reason I thought I’d need to upgrade to pro for that. To celebrate, I’m posting a couple more short vids from the last few weeks. I like slow motion because it gets dramatic, but also because my phone app sometimes speeds it up if I try to do it just regular speed. Looks shitty, like an old fast motion silent film. When I slow it down too much, I lose the audio.

Above: A few new flip tricks. 

Above: Rocking the 270 no comply to tail.