OK, I'm posting this here because:

1. I post most of my stuff here.

2. It kind of reminds me of the old BMX/skate rivalry BITD, and I think a lot of people here might know exactly what I'm talking about.

3. I thought about posting in "Everything Else," but I wonder if anyone ever reads that section.

Anyway, if the mods feel this belongs elsewhere, that's fine by me. My apologies if this is the case.

So here goes:

I was watching the skaters at the local skate park today, and it's occurred to me that I've never seen your everyday, average skater kid hit a trick, ever.

Oh sure, they attempt tricks. They skate up to something, flip the board with their feet and bail. Over and over again. I don't even think any of them really believe they're going to hit the trick when they set out to attempt it. It doesn't matter if it's at the skate park, or on the street corner, it's the same thing -- flip and bail. I don't even know what any of them are trying to do, because I've never seen a kid hit it.

And then I was thinking -- I've been seeing the same thing now for the better part of 20 years. My skater friends back when I was riding did the same thing and never hit anything. Just flip and bail.

OK, so I'm not here to bag on these kids too hard. At least they're out there doing something active. Something to be said for that. And I know skaters must hit tricks every now and then -- I've seen Tony Hawk. But is it only the pros who are capable of such feats or do regular kids actually hit their little flip trick every now and then? Watching these kids today really made me wonder, because I just can't think of an occasion since the mid-eighties where I've ever seen it happen.

I once seen a kid do a shove it at a park and roll away.

its been like that since the 90's "mini wheel" phase of skating.

they try one trick a zillion times...never pull it...and i lose interest in watching after the first billion attempts.

and youre right...after i got out of skating, it was and still is a rare occurrence where i would see someone hit a trick.

when i was skating, i would usually hit a trick within 5 tries...if i didnt, i moved on to something else.

i havent skated in probably 4 or 5 years, but im pretty confident that i can still hit my most consistent tricks from back then.


thats the equivalent of seeing Bigfoot!

I agree with everything here. When I was skating hardcore in the mid '80s to about '90-'91, none of that stupid, standing around trying to flip the board crap was even going on. When it started to come around in like.. '92-'93, I remember thinking how freaking lame that was.. it wasn't even skating. Skating, to me was always high speed, big ollies, grinds, board slides, seek-find-shred. We didn't try or have tricks in the street really, or really cared. Tricks were for on ramps. Street was just.. gnarly fun, haulin' A, skate and destroy, and thats still how I skate today, whenever I get the board out.

I was hoping skating would return to that, but Generation Y totally ruined it. Skaters now all dress like.. emo/gay, with the skin tight girls' jeans, makeup and thrift store looking "vintage" tees. You don't see any burly skaters anymore. Now its just those skinny, trying-way-to-hard-to-be-something mall fashion kids on their boards, with flowers or artsy-fartsy prints on them. Screw that, we had flaming skulls, demons and insanity on our boards.

Sigh. Skaters today don't even have duct tape on their shoes.

Hmmm. I remember these days. Since I was a small town kid I did both (skate and bike) and there was not much rivalry. Really the average every day skater will not progress. Similiar fashion to freestyle bike or bmx. Most of the kids in my neighborhood just had freestyle or bmx bikes to look cool.

I did both a lot. Learned to do a few things on my bike. Jumped it off everything I could find and even learned a few flatland things. However once I turned 15 and got my drivers license (I lived in North Dakota..license at 15). I started skating more because I could throw my board in the trunk and go where to neighboring towns or the closest city. Sure I still rode my bike a lot (mostly dirt jumping at this point), but skating was quicker.

I skated until I was about 24. I learned all kinds of things and skated with some guys that were crazy good in CA (when I lived there). You just have to put it in perspective. Average kid rides around and tries a few tricks for an hour and will probably never land any, But the hard cores skate all day and will probably be riding in areas where there are less of the average people to deal with. Same with bikes as I remember it.

A while back me and some of the other guys deployed here in Baghdad bought a couple of boards for the heck of it. We were out on a smoothed paved area goofing around trying to skate when a young soldier walked by and asked if he could give it a try. We slid him a board and he kicks a few times, ollies, turns around, kicks about six times, does a kick-flip variel onto a curb grind, to kick-flip varial off, kicks twice more and ollies into a wall-ride on a T-wall. Lands that, kicks the board up into his hand takes two steps up on top of a Jersey barrier and acid drops down, then gives the board back. All the while, he was wearing his DCUs, combat boots, and had his M-16 slung around his back. It was amazing to watch that out of a non-pro. After that we hung out a lot, and he became one of my best friends. He's back out here on his second deployment, but we've been too busy to ride or skate for real, but we still play Tony Hawk and Dave Mirra on PS2. HAHA.

How many skaters does it take to change a lightbulb?











One. But it'll take him 100 tries.
-Bill

ha, that's funny Bill! And yes, I mostly agree with the first post. There are a couple good skaters at our local park, but most just flip and bail x 100. We have our share of bmx posers too though.

I think by the nature of it generally so popular and probably 10x cheaper to get involved with than riding, skating has always attracted more than it's fair share of people involved with it, but unwilling to put the time in to actually learn anything or dial anything in. There are serious skaters out there, but many, many skaters are just guys kinda into the scene and not really interested in putting in the hours it takes to get dialed. Not everyone has the desire to spend hours alone on the ramp getting tricks wired.

Even pro skate demos I've seen as recent as 2000 were just a bunch of guys skating around at random, with one or two hard tricks landed every few minutes at most.

Jamie Bestwick said that when he filmed his part for Etnies Grounded, the skate film crew was amazed that he got everything in one take.

Thinking about this post a little bit, I wonder if doing a skate trick a zillion times without success is in fact deleterious for a couple of reasons:

1. When you do something wrong a zillion times, you learn -- nuerologically and physiologically speaking -- to do it wrong. You are hardwiring yourself to fail.

2. Mentally, you just don't believe you can do it, and you end up going through the motions with the same result time after time. If you watch some of these kids' faces, many of them look kind of bored, or like their mind is elsewhere, not really intent on pulling that trick. They are just going through the flip and bail routine. I really don't think they believe they're going to pull the trick. If they actually were to pull off their little flip thing by freak chance, I think they would be in such shock, they wouldn't know what to do, except bail again.

Of the two points, I think the second is probably more important. You'll never suceed unless you try the trick over and over again. Those of us who were into flatland know this. But your mind has to be in it, paying attention to what you do. If something doesn't work, you have to take note mentally and make little physical adjustments until you get it right. Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.

Anyway, I'm glad to hear the tales of skaters out there pulling off tricks. I knew ALL skaters couldn't be squids. Maybe someday I'll be lucky enough to see some kid pull something off.

Sunburn, you would think all the skateparks these days would kind of encourage the flow-type of skate-and-destroy skating, but I guess they don't.

Beat me to it.

Seriously, though, skating is really, really hard, and the trick progression has gone through the roof. It's a lot easier to be a fair to mediocre bike rider than it is to be a fair to mediocre skater. The park that I ride at is mercifully absent of flip and bail types for the most part. There's a nice mini ramp there and it's cool to see guys riding tranny well.

which park?
bolingbrook?

So, what we're basically saying is that skaters are pretty much all about as talented at skating as I am at freestyle?

I'll admit I skate (and ride) kinda resembling that these days, for fear of getting hurt. I know I'm not as nimble as i used to be, and so I wuss out pretty much. I'm content just carving around the concrete bowls at my local park, or skating a half with basic lip tricks like axle stalls, etc. Easy does 'er!

No excuse for able-bodied young'uns to skate like that though! Lame!

Hey, Pat. I'm pretty close to the Lisle park (off Route 53, north of Maple). Not a lot there, but the mini's fun, and there's a quarterpipe, a little spine/box combo dealie, and a big wedge. It'd be nice if they'd upgrade it.

I've been to the Bolingbrook park - the prefab, not the concrete plaza thing. The Lemont concrete park on 127th is kind of weird, but fun.