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Skate Blog Archive - April 2005



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Skate Blog
04.30.05

I rounded up Armando and we went for a session at Autumn. It was another blah day for me but I decided to have a good time. I don't know how much better I am getting. I seemed to have reached a plateau but I don't want to stop skating. I know that now I just have to stay with it as a lifestyle and improve slowly with the passing of time.

There were a bunch of really cool guys there and this one guy showed up with an original Alva Splatter model from 1979!!!

It was amazing to not only see the deck but also the dude let me ride it! Good time and a good vibe.

Getting some deep end coping...

An original Alva Splatter model - UNREAL!!!!


04.28.05

I hit the Autumn Bowl after work but this was one of those days where it just wasn't happening. I rode the mini ramp for a while and then did a few runs in the bowl until these shredders showed up. They were destroying the bowl.

Intimidated and tired, I just sat down and watched them. Their speed was incredible! I may never be a great skater but I will always enjoy watching dudes rip up a bowl!


04.23.05

I go to the Bulldog Skate Message Board quite frequently and have met quite a few guys and skated with them when they blow into town. It was my skate bro Armando's birthday recently and he wanted to have a session with some guys that were in town that we have met on the message board. The rain ruined any outside plans, but we went for a session at the Autumn Bowl. Eric from the band Parchman Farm was in town on tour, and also another skater from the message board named Jeff showed up as well.

I skate alone most days and I forgot how much fun a session with a bunch of cool guys can be. It makes you skate better than you normally would I guess because you feel you are being judged even if that is not the case. It's days like this that remind me why I skate.

Another cool thing that happened was a guy named Gil that I skate with on occasion early in the morning on Saturdays dropped into the bowl for the first time. This is quite an achievement because it takes a lot of guts - especially if you have never done it before. Gil is an inspiration to me because he started from not knowing how to skate at all and now he can drop in and carve. He just keeps trying and doesn't give up. I need to remember this when I get discouraged...

Goofing on Armando's Birthday...


Grind Session!! Armando, Eric, Jeff, and me...


Gil clearing the very big hurtle of dropping in...


04.21.05

Still feeling a little down in the dumps but had to skate. I went for an Autumn Bowl session and hit the mini ramp for a short time. I gave the 50-50s another whack and fell pretty hard. I decided to just give this trick a rest for a while until I can get 100% healthy. Re-injuring myself is not going to make me skate any better!

I headed to the bowl and still feel and look very uncomfortable on a skateboard. I am trying to relax and let it flow but my life feels very unrelaxed and I am sure it affects my skating.

I took several runs in the bowl and just couldn't muster any energy. After too long, these three skaters showed up and just destroyed every nook and cranny the bowl. They were getting more speed than I have ever witnessed by anybody ever. They were grinding the entire deep end, popping airs, and carving lines I have never seen. It was like a contest - truly amazing!

I just took off my pads and watched and realized that even if I am never a great skater, I enjoy it on many different levels. I enjoy hunting down and restoring boards from my youth. I love watching old skate videos and chatting online about skate gear, and I do have quite a bit of fun rolling around in a bowl. I guess it beats sitting on a couch watching football and never playing the game at all. I can spectate and participate even if my level of skating is not where I want it to be, at least I am not an arm chair quarterback yelling at television set.


04.16.05

I must be a glutton for punishment because I woke up super early and headed to the Autumn Bowl for more skate bludgeoning. I think my next trick should be to try and drop some weight because I just feel heavy on everything I try. If I could just shave off like 15 pounds that would be like dumping a bowling ball out of my pocket. I think when you get older and you just can't burn the calories like you did when you were younger so I guess I need to hit the jump rope like I did back in 1995 when I was getting in shape for my band.

I tried some more 50-50s and realized that the problem is that I don't know how to Axle Drop - which means dropping in from an Axle Stall position. Like a nut, I decided I was going to try this. I put my board up and I just couldn't get myself to do it.

Then, finally, I just went for it and fell pretty hard. I know it's all mental and I just have to lean forward and drop my shoulder in, but the second attempt was worse - right onto the bad knee and bad elbow. I am not completely healed up from over a week ago, and although not a horrible fall, it stung pretty good.

I tried to ride a little more but it was no use. I stuffed my pads and board into my bag and left the ramp defeated yet again.

Maybe I am stupid, but I am still not giving up!

When I got home, I showered my aching body and climbed back into bed feeling like I fell out of a plane. I watched a bunch of the old Bones Brigade films, had a good laugh, and thought about the day in the distant future when I will actually know a few tricks...

A pretty good re-bruising...


04.13.05

I have been off for a week letting my knee heal up but decided to go back at it. So off to the Autumn Bowl I headed.

I arrived there about 6 p.m. and there were just a few guys skating. I like going at this time because I can really work on my skating by taking run after run right in a row. It's hard to get good in a crowded park because you have to wait your turn.

I did a few runs in the bowl to warm up the injured knee. I saw this skater named Mark that I remember from a while ago, and he just finished healing up himself for three months from an ankle injury. He had it wrapped in a brace but skated extremely well. We got to talking and he also had spent some time in Jacksonville and skated at Kona. He is also an artist and a filmmaker as well, so we blabbed for a long time. Yet another skater/artist...

After riding the bowl and feeling a little bit of pain, I decided to once again head back to the mini-ramp to get those Axle Stalls. I was pretty freaked out because I haven't been injured this badly since my shoulder injury last June.

I pumped up the ramp at first doing a bunch of Frontside Kickturns just to get loose. Then I knew I had to try the stalls. This is a very tough thing to do, trying the same thing that messed you up so badly just the week before. Why do skaters do it? I am not really sure, probably the same reason that people run marathons - just to push your body a little farther than it was meant to be pushed.

I am content now to just accept the fact that I am going to probably get 50-50 Grinds first and then I will learn to stall them. The first few tries I bailed, but after a short time I was getting my wheels on the deck consistently. I was even able to roll out onto the top of the deck - something I have never done before! I still was not able to turn one back into the ramp and I didn't want to push it because of my knee still feeling stiff, but I can see the light. I am getting the idea of how to shift my weight and I think in another week or so I will have the trick.

It seems like a long road but this is not an easy trick and I have heard of guys working over a year to get it. I have also heard of kids getting them the second try. I guess old dogs can learn new tricks, but it takes a very long time.

I may not have natural talent as a skater, but I do have a great deal of persistence!


Still trying...


04.06.05

I was heading to Atlanta for a few days to see the future misses so I thought I would squeeze in a session at the Autumn Bowl before my flight. This cool guy named Kai had emailed me with some tips after stumbling onto my website, so I wanted to give them a shot.

I finally got to the bowl after a sardine cannish ride on the train and a relatively heavenly ride on the .

As I walked down Milton Street in Greenpoint, I heard a polish woman calling out - I turned and said, "Yes?" She stammered out in her best broken english, "Help wit chair, help wit chair". I looked at the stoop of the 3 floor walk up building where she was standing, and I saw a set of double ramps positioned on the steps and a very feeble man in a wheelchair, facing backwards, perched at the top. I pondered the irony of the situation - here is a man atop this wheeled device that wants to be painfully rolled down this ramp so perhaps he can find some pleasure outside of his house. I thought of the ramp that I was about to ride and how much joy and and pain it can simultaneously provide me. As I rolled the man quietly down the ramp I pondered my own mortality - how long before old Joe Popp is going to need this very different kind of ramp? People always say I overanaylyze things, but when this kind of in-your-face example comes along it's hard not to think about it in great depth...

The bowl was vacant when I arrived. I flipped on the lights and the quietness of the wharehouse was broken by their gentle buzz. I took a few runs in the bowl but my Axle Stall failings haunted me. My mind kept saying "You have to get that trick..."

I headed back to the mini-ramp and ran through all of the advice I have accumulated and could swear I heard voices: Kai from his email telling me scoop the back foot, the now jailed Mark "Gator" Rogowski from an bonus chapter on the DVD Stoked - The Rise and Fall of Gator warning me to bend my knees, Tony Hawk advising me to square my shoulders, and seemingly hundreds of other British voices from a thread on how to do Axle-Stalls on the Middle Age Shred website barking at me to pivot on the truck, don't over rotate, keep your weight back, and not to lock up on re-rentry.

I started to slowly have some success, but they were sliding a bit like a 50-50. That was fine with me because I was actually getting the outside wheels on the deck. I kept hammering away. Dropping in, bailing, and then marching up the ramp for another go. I had one stalled and I was really trying to push the board back into the ramp when my rear truck locked up hard on the coping and sent me directly to the flat bottom of the ramp. When I hit the birch plywood it sounded like someone had just swatted a 200 pound fly. I fall a lot but this was a really hard slam.

The first thing that a skater thinks about after having a really big beef is, "Do I have to go to the hospital and how am I going to get here?" This small window of "How bad am I hurt" is actually more frightening than the injury itself.

I peeled myself from the bottom of the ramp and shook it off. I knocked the wind out of myself for a second as my elbow racked me in the chest, and I had hit my knee pretty hard. Slowly I felt it start to tighten. I was definetly hurt, but I knew if I didn't take a few more runs I would erect a mental barrier against the trick and never be able to pull it off. So up again I marched as a wounded soldier facing death and dropped in and tried again. I bailed but at least I had not bowed down to the pain. I even took a few more runs in the bowl just to show the pain that I would be back for more and I am not going to give up on skating because ion injury. Corny but true...

I started bagging up my deck and pads and I knew the real pain was about to come - and probably at 36,000 feet in the air.

As I exited the bowl and walked back down Milton Street towards the train, I noticed that the wheelchair ramp that I had rolled the old man down was now propped up against the side of his building. I stopped and stared at it squeezing my swollen knee, and for one of the few times in my life I felt lucky. For even if my future skating days are short - at least for right now, I can go down a wooden ramp facing forward on a skateboard and not backwards in a wheelchair. So instead of complaining about not getting the trick today, I limped past the beautiful churches on a gorgeous sunny day and reveled in the fact that I have the great gift of trying again next week - a luxury some people never had or never will have...

Is this my destiny? At least not yet...


A knee and a bigger knee...


Little by little, an Axle Stall turns into a 50-50...


04.02.05

Today was just a tough day at the Autumn Bowl. I hooked up with Armando at about 9:30 a.m. and we went for a session. I just didn't have any stoke going. It was one of those bad experiences where you feel like you are going backwards with your learning.

Armando was trying to help me Frontside Grind in the deep end of the bowl but I just kept chickening out. I have a lot on my mind with work and my new family - sometimes I just can't let it go and skate.

So for today it's:
Anxiety - 1
Joe Popp - 0

An empty bowl on an empty day...