Monday 18 May 2015

All teh progess

Recently I've been on a bit of a mission to work on some of the things on a skateboard I kind of derped over in my efforts to do ever faster colemans into the corner at peep. Fully including any sort of breaking of traction minus the application of hand to road. Imagine if the "longest standy" phenomenon had actually been a "longest coleman going slightly left" one. I'd probably be bringing out my own pro model internet router or spell check device. Anyway:

The standzorz are go. Heelside 180's regular and switch are getting more comfortable, and now without needing to use a kicktail to just shove it round. That was the first thing I wanted to do. I wanted something to feel super locked into without having to use the kicks, and a Chopper 3D fits nicely. I've been skating it for a little while and jumping onto my Sequel for a run was really strange because the concave is so much less gnarly.

Yellow Chronicles were the other bit of the "If I'm going to learn this stuff it's going to be on that" board, and they were less crazy than I was expecting them to be, a lot like slidier classics. The release is really one of the things that's been useful, because I wanted something that would still "go" even if I lamed out a little (a lot) and didn't really commit to the slide enough. I've still had some ground cuddles though. 

On this board I've been generally sliding a lot, not worrying too much about going fast but just trying to relax and play around. I've never felt more comfortable technique wise, which is really nice. One of the things I've been doing is trying to be a little higher when putting a hand down for a heelside slide, because you really can't control the slide much from low down. Similar story with going toeside, with anything that way most people are a bit stressed about hooking up and going over, so a lot of us put more weight on our hands or have it really far away. It kills the control similar to a heelside slide, but it's also pretty hard to hold yourself up if your arm is too far away or all bent up or whatever. So I've been doing a lot of them to build confidence and therefore have better technique, and then also making my arms stronger in the gym has helped if I do lame the technique a bit or get tired over a session.

Heres some shots of a thing we did, I had an epic clown mask and thought it might make for some cool images despite my skating efforts, so I asked the Right Honourable Will Mackenzie if he could take some photos. It was really weird to skate in, the eye holes were so small I couldn't see much, it was like some fairly awkward tunnel vision action. Anyway, heres some of what Will got, I edited the first two and Will edited the last one. 




I've been watching Will Edgecombe's "Scrumping" a lot recently. I really look up to the sliding in this video, even if it came out a while ago now it motivates me more than ever before, given the direction I'm trying to go in. Check it out.



Will