Three Things on a Saturday Afternoon

A few recent self-observations:

1.  I’ve been messing around with set-up tweaks and variations the last few weeks. I’m finding myself gravitating more and more toward my wider set-up (8.75/159s). My usual 8.25/144s is feeling a little too tight-rope to me at the moment. The 8.75 feels a lot more solid and stable under my feet.  

 

2.     I recently watched some video clips of me skating from late 2020/early 2021. I was kind of shocked. This is when I was re-learning everything from the broken leg. I was skating better then than I am now. I’ve “lost” a lot of tricks, esp. on transition. More on this in a future post. 

 

3.   I went street skating today, or at least intended to. When I got to the spot, it was waaaay hotter out than I had expected it to be, and I wasn’t really feeling it. No shade in the area either, and that makes a big difference (for those cool-down breaks). So, just kind of putzed around on a curb for a bit, and then left. After that, I went over to a nearby parking garage, because it was cooler in there. For some reason, I was already feeling defeated, and knew I wasn’t going to really be skating today, at all. This is kind of unlike me, and I took mental note of it. There is a parking block in the garage, and a small two-sided ledge (about 12” tall, 4’ long…sort of like a BIG parking block). I was looking at the parking block, and thinking about how magical simple boardslides were as a kid, and I how I kind of take them for granted now. This made me want to do some. I grabbed my board, and started rolling around. It felt good. I did a few boardslides on the curb, and thought, “Yeah, those feel good.” But I was also cognizant of how low the curb was, and how that actually made them a little more precarious than if I had to do a slight ollie into one. So, I went over to the large, taller, parking block. I did two boardslides, and they felt really good. I then thought, “I am going to film one of these, and make some blog post about unearthing the deeply buried magic inherent in simple skateboarding.” But then something else happened. 

 

I slammed. On a simple a boardslide. There was a lot of dust on the ground, and I landed ever-so-slightly off-center when coming out the trick. No dust, and probably no problem. But there was some dust. The back wheels slid a bit on me, making me now way more off center, and then the game was over. Down I went. Here is the video of it. 

 

I landed kind of hard on my rear elbow, as can be seen in the clip (it's quick, but towards bottom right corner of the screen). It hurts as I type this, and it's a bit swollen. This bail actually really freaked me out. A friend of mine shattered his elbow a few months ago on a curb. His orthopedic surgeon said, (a) this was the worst break he’s ever seen, and, (b) an elbow pad would have prevented or greatly mitigated the injury. It was a fall very similar to mine. I’ve written a lot about pads over the years. I am huge fan of them. I frequently tell myself, especially at this age, that I shouldn’t skate, at all, without them. But then I get lazy, and I do. And then some kind of “reminder” happens. Today it was a simple boardslide. Something “I kind of take for granted now.” Irony can be a great teacher. 

 

Post-Script / Next Day: Real hard time sleeping last night, too. Any time I rolled over on my elbow, it really hurt.