Sub-navigation links here? or on side bar?
Text
Growing up playing Skate 2 and 3 skating was always in the back of my mind, but I ultimately never really took it up. I had a longboard, which was fun to cruise around on, but because I didn't have any friends that skated, I instead resorted to scooter and bmx (both short-lived), because that's what kids in my neighbourhood had.
Over the years I have been drip-fed skating, in that I would sometimes see people cruising and doing tricks around my city or university and thinking "damn that looks fun", or I'd see videos online. At these times I'd think "man I wish I took up skating", which was inevitably followed by thoughts of "It's dangerous and scary. I'm too self-conscious. I'd look like a tit starting and being bad at it in my 20s". However, within the last few months the world seems to have upped its hints. I saw a group of people in town doing tricks and having fun, the new Skate game just released, and the YouTube algorithm has been funneling me skate vidoes. So I thought I'd finally take the hint and buy a damn skateboard.
I spent 150 of of my greatest british wage-slave bucks on a Girl Emergence 8.5 deck with mob tape, Venture V light trucks, and 53mm Birdhouse 99a wheels with Bones Reds:
[Image here soon]
It arrived and it was time to try it out. I used to longboard a bit, and always had decent balance on a surfboard; how hard can it be? Holy balls I was humbled lmao. I went out at night just to cruise around and found myself flailing and flapping around just trying to push and stay balanced on the board. Not very graceful. Now being a few weeks in I am luckily a bit smoother.
Tricks. TRICKS. As any self-respecting naive idiot does, I immediately started to learn how to ollie. With this I actually had some success. Putting the board on a foam yoga-style mat, I found that I could actually ollie decently high (maybe a monster can high) and bring the rear up after my first 2-3 days. "This isn't so bad", I told myself, before moving the board onto actual concrete and almost eating shit multiple times as the board flies forwards and backwards. Once again humbled. Forget trying it while moving too lmao.
Practice time. Being about 3 weeks in, I think my strategy is to get as comfortable on the board as possible. I have started going out at night just to cruise around a bit. Pull a micro-manual here, do a crap tic-tac there, etc. I have also started to practice hippie jumps while moving to eventually build up to ollies. Embarrassingly, I can't even do that yet, so am building up by completely jumping off the board, and then landing 1 foot on the board. I had a big breakthrough recently however, and was able to do a few decent ollies on concrete while stationary. Albeit the ground was rough so I had the advantage of the board moving less, but nevertheless good progress for me. I find that 1. jumping straight up with weight centred, and 2. confidence, are key (and difficult to do/have).