Well, it's that time of year again. Short days. I mean REALLY short. No skating after work. If it is cold or rains on the weekend, I don't skate.
Oh well, story of my life. Luckily I don't really get worse from not skating.
Hoping to get back on the board this coming weekend, but again, I think it may rain.
Well, I had a good weekend but didn't skate. Was out of town, and doing other stuff.
The weather for this coming weekend looks like it might be OK. Yes, I'm already looking for the weekend. It is dark when I get off work. I guess I need to find a nice, well-lit parking lot nearby to skate.
As I think forward to the coming year I just wonder how things will be. Will travel to Europe be feasible? Will a relaxing vacation anywhere be feasible? This pandemic has been very up and down. We're heading into the winter months, which last year combined with the holidays to produce a fairly massive virus surge in January and February. Hell, I don't know. I'm triple-vaxxed, so I got that going for me.
So essentially thinking about going to Paderborn again is part of my Very Important Fantasy Life. I really miss my friends from over on that side of the Atlantic.
Obviously if I've not been able to skate I've been thinking about skating even more than normal. As I've written before, I think the pandemic had the effect of boiling the impurities out of my skating. I really understand who I am as a skateboarder now. I know, at 57 years, what I enjoy and what others like about my skating. If you think about those two things as separate sets, my contest skating needs to come from the intersection of the Venn diagram of those domains. Those are the things that will stand out in a contest while being authentically me.
So, here's another thing. I think the best looking skating is always relaxed skating. I think of the skating of Tommy Guerrero. So great. Great style, of course, but the style comes from relaxation.
So I'm going to really focus on that in all my skating.
Been a little hard to get out skating the last few weeks. Days are short. Weekends busy. But I'll get out and skate.
So I've been back on the longboard of late.
I just needed a change, and man, it is going to take a few sessions to get used the a longboard again.
During the early part of the pandemic my friend David Thornton and I started a longboarding podcast. It eventually became a more general skateboarding podcast, then we didn't do any episodes for about a years, and the last night we recorded a new one and changed it back to focus on longboarding again (though we do talk about other forms of skating).
You can find it here, or on Apple Podcasts, Sticher, or Google Podcasts, because fuck Amazon and fuck Spotify. It is called Frontside 360 Longboarding Podcast.
https://frontside360.libsyn.com/
I need some longboarding back in my life. I have a number of freestyle footwork and flow tricks that I want to bring modified versions of to the longboard. I think it will flow.
Been thinking about this a lot lately. Or over the last two days.
Flow.
I wish every skater had the desire and location to just to out and ride around on a board that rolls really well and do some carving around. Go medium or fast. Carve both ways. Bend your knees. Compress. Drag a hand on the pavement Z-boy style. Arch your back. Move your feet around Carve backside and grab a rail.
Feel that force vector go through your body at an angle and into the pavement. Feel the tension of the wheels trying to break free. Feel how good that is. It is GOOD. It is just profound and deep simplicity.
The weather this weekend was fantastic. We're in those few months here in Texas (weeks, really) in which our weather is perfect. Sunny skies, cool temperatures. So I dide unthinkable - I skated during the day.
Today (Sunday) I went to Pandemic Parking Lot, but wasn't feeling it. Then I went to the little ditch I sometimes skate, but still wasn't feeling it. Finally I returned to the elementary school parking lot where I learned to skate as a young teen. I spent hundreds of hours here.
I can honestly say that everything I currently love doing on a skateboard, I learned here. All the basics.
I had a good time. Returning to the Sources is good. Reminds us who we are.
