Skate Reanimate

Those of you who know me personally probably know I’m into education and instructional technology. The following 4 minute video highlights some efforts to bring skateboarding into K-12 physical education, and even using skating as a gateway to learning about physics and construction. Au-then-tic!

• Watch Video: Skateboarding in Education

My brother sent me this vid on how to kickflip, since he knows I still can’t land one moving, and only randomly land them stationary:

How to Kickflip

Ugly guitar riffs aside, this was probably the best how-to-kickflip video I’ve seen, since it covers positioning of both feet, and mentions that you shouldn’t flick until after you’re well into the ollie (I do that sometimes).

Call it a novelty, a gimmick, but I’ve always been fascinated by the old school freestylers who had mastered the 360 spin. Russ Howell currently holds the world record at 163 360s.

In that context it seems almost asinine that I found it remarkable to pull off 3 spins last night, breaking my previous record of 2. I found that I had to counterintuitively think about moving my upper body before my lower body, otherwise keeping my back aligned and untwisted. The untwisted part seems important to maintain momentum without losing the center.

Motivated by that little step forward, I decided to search online for more tips. I discovered that the champ himself has written extensive instructions on spinning 360s. Here are a few of his many insights:

• feet should be wide apart for balance and power
• don’t bend or twist at the waist
• outstretch your arms, then bring them in
• your arms control your body lean

If the rain lets up today I’ll go out and try again. In the meantime, here’s some video of Russ, in 60s, skating:

Product: Dr Scholl’s Massaging Gel Sports inserts

Results: Reinforce arches–but not too high. Cushioned heels. Predictably smooth Dr Sch feel throughout.

Conclusion: Tear out your insoles and pack these instead. For around 12 bucks, I can’t recommend them more!

I watched “Almost Round Three” tonight courtesy of Netflix. Rather, I gaped, with my mouth hanging open, eyes bulging occasionally, small grunts and whoops emitting from my throat. Aside from a few short clips on YouTube, Round Three was the first skate video I’ve seen since, oh, probably 1993. Things have changed quite a bit.

As with the Jason Adams video I linked to earlier, the Almost team impressed me most by skating anything, anywhere, and constructed crazy stunts around found objects.

My 7 year old son, who hasn’t been interested in skateboarding yet, is suddenly amazed.

I failed to find myself a classic “HAVE YOU SEEN HIM” t-shirt online, so I thought about making my own. Now I could have just taken the Animal Chin newsprint-like photo and ran it through a half-tone filter on Photoshop, but I thought I would try to make a vector version with 1 and 3 colors that would be easy to silk screen. Here’s what I came out with:

animalchin2.ai

animalchin1.ai

They feel a bit “sharp”, and still have some noise that I could work out, but it’s not bad for half an hour in Illustrator.

A simple thing felt like a breakthrough tonight when I finally was able to skate some street without looking at my board. Last year I tried to look up at the obstacle, down at the board, up, down and so on. But I’ve found that after a few days of forcing myself to keep my eye off the board, especially on full-speed ollies, helped me break free. Focusing solely on the target obstacle allows far more control, and is, I think, absolutely necessary for any fast response after clearing the obstacle.

Another improvement that this has allowed is less hesitation and fear as I ollied onto sidewalks and, get these, even up steps (OK, it was just two steps, but it’s a start).