psychological attributes in great sk8rs

[ChuckRamone]

Be the type of person who's willing to try crack at least once despite the potential for life-destroying addiction but then not get addicted and just have tried it once to see what it was like

[Taraval]

I think one of the traits that separates good skaters from others is facing fear. Not fearless, but knowing something is causing fear but still facing it. That is a skill in itself.

[Ninj2]

 this thread reek like screen grabs of ai promps for some dickheads skate video game he making cuz he can tre flip on a board with the trucks hella tight and don’t see how it’s a pressure flip and that’s where they got lost. It’s in the separating and making one thing a thing that equals this or that. That naming part. That dumbing it down. It’s skateboarding. To do it is to understand it. Nothing more. Tricks land themselves. You are the vessel of that trick entering our dimension.

[Return2monke]

All top tier skaters are a little crazy. The bests of all industries are a little insane. You basically have to be different and crazy to be able to achieve such greatness

[Craig Lutzka]

Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan and John Daly…..I’m sure everyone here has their Kobe and MJ of skating, but who would be the John Daly of skateboarding?

[SubCurban Commando]

I'd say there's a three way balance you need to get right between being obsessed enough to practice, being brave enough to commit to stuff and having the natural athleticism to actually perform the tricks. Generally, with the people I know who are sponsored/pro level, they're not the dude who'll just throw himself at anything cos those dudes are generally braver than their skill level and end up injured or breaking too many boards to be able to skate. It's more of an ability to weigh up skill level vs risk rationally In their brain and then if they believe the skill level is sufficient, to commit to stuff. I'd also say that people who are more naturally athletically gifted probably find it a lot easier to find this confidence through having had a lifetime of being Able to do physical tasks more easily than others and therefore an expectance of success, however when I was growing up it was often the dudes who were naturals who didn't stick with skating because they were also good at other stuff and maybe the challenge of skating didn't satisfy them as much as for someone who had to work at it. I had a mate who played premier league/european cup level football until he was in his 20s, he started skating around 28 and it was amazing how quick he got good but after a few months he just got bored cos there was other stuff that he was good at that he didn't get so broken off doing.

[Southernmost]

Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan and John Daly…..I’m sure everyone here has their Kobe and MJ of skating, but who would be the John Daly of skateboarding?

Someone who smokes cigs, doesn’t look like an athlete, but is incredibly talented. Drehobol?

[Shrimp]

Being dumb as fuck seems to help.

Not all, but a lot of the gnarliest skaters seem pretty "simple minded," to put it gently. You almost have to be at least a little bit stupid to repeatedly jump down big gaps and shit.

I think it helps to be able to turn your brain off while attempting tricks. David Foster Wallace wrote an essay that pertains to this subject. From "How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart":

"It may well be that we, spectators, who are not divinely gifted as athletes, are the only ones able truly to see, articulate, and animate the experience of the gift we are denied. And that those who receive and act out the gift of athletic genius must, perforce, be blind and dumb about it -- and not because blindness and dumbness are the price of the gift, but because they are its essence."

And also:

“The real secret behind top athletes’ genius, then, may be as esoteric and obvious and dull and profound as silence itself. The real, many-veiled answer to the question of just what goes through a great player’s mind as he stands at the center of a hostile crowdnoise and lines up the free-throw that will decide the game might well be: nothing at all.”

[IUTSM]

Mindfulness is being fully aware in the present moment

Id say, along with fear tolerance or risk taking, mindfulness is a huge component of skating on another level

[ilovegay]

Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan and John Daly…..I’m sure everyone here has their Kobe and MJ of skating, but who would be the John Daly of skateboarding?

I hate to say it, but it could be Fred Gall. I love me some John Daly, but I can’t believe the OP didn’t put Tiger Woods in there instead.

Tiger Woods is your Nyjah. Molded to be a super star by an overbearing father. While Fred Gall is your John Daly. The everyday man with demons, who wins over the hearts of the people with their honesty, public failings, and blue collar charisma.

[TonyBaloney]

this thread reek like screen grabs of ai promps for some dickheads skate video game he making cuz he can tre flip on a board with the trucks hella tight and don’t see how it’s a pressure flip and that’s where they got lost. It’s in the separating and making one thing a thing that equals this or that. That naming part. That dumbing it down. It’s skateboarding. To do it is to understand it. Nothing more. Tricks land themselves. You are the vessel of that trick entering our dimension.

In some weird way this is kinda deep.

Expand Quote

Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan and John Daly…..I’m sure everyone here has their Kobe and MJ of skating, but who would be the John Daly of skateboarding?

[close]

I hate to say it, but it could be Fred Gall. I love me some John Daly, but I can’t believe the OP didn’t put Tiger Woods in there instead.

Tiger Woods is your Nyjah. Molded to be a super star by an overbearing father. While Fred Gall is your John Daly. The everyday man with demons, who wins over the hearts of the people with their honesty, public failings, and blue collar charisma.

Northwest Arkansas in the house John Daly is a hero and to see him compared to Fred Gall makes my heart happy.

[Mallie]

I had a mate who played premier league/european cup level football until he was in his 20s, he started skating around 28 and it was amazing how quick he got good but after a few months he just got bored cos there was other stuff that he was good at that he didn't get so broken off doing.

Yooooo...as a rare fotball/skating combo fanatic, plus moonlighting in football on/off for 15+ years, I'm dying to know who this player is. Especially since he's obviously not some Serie C/Ekstraklasa John Doe.

[SatanicPanic]

All top tier skaters are a little crazy. The bests of all industries are a little insane. You basically have to be different and crazy to be able to achieve such greatness

Probably more than a little. All skaters are a bit crazy so they must be really crazy.

Almost all pro skaters start when they’re kids and the very best get noticed early. That probably causes a lot of issues, like having psycho stage parents, or being around adults who don’t have your best interests in mind, or being bullied by your peers.

[gringo_viejo]

Expand Quote

Being dumb as fuck seems to help.

[close]

Not all, but a lot of the gnarliest skaters seem pretty "simple minded," to put it gently. You almost have to be at least a little bit stupid to repeatedly jump down big gaps and shit.

I think it helps to be able to turn your brain off while attempting tricks. David Foster Wallace wrote an essay that pertains to this subject. From "How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart":

"It may well be that we, spectators, who are not divinely gifted as athletes, are the only ones able truly to see, articulate, and animate the experience of the gift we are denied. And that those who receive and act out the gift of athletic genius must, perforce, be blind and dumb about it -- and not because blindness and dumbness are the price of the gift, but because they are its essence."

And also:

“The real secret behind top athletes’ genius, then, may be as esoteric and obvious and dull and profound as silence itself. The real, many-veiled answer to the question of just what goes through a great player’s mind as he stands at the center of a hostile crowdnoise and lines up the free-throw that will decide the game might well be: nothing at all.”

Aw, man, you got me thinkin'!
Love David Foster Wallace so much RIP.
So who is the Nicola Jokic of skateboarding, the one who thinks out and analyzes and understands every trick and situation, the one for whom the head is an advantage?
Who's the Hal Incandenza of skateboarding, the fragile, crystalline super-brain who might get the yips in the big moment?
Who's the Big Don Gately of skateboarding, the absolute meat tank with the head like a concrete block, who is still a really chill kind dude?

Edit: nominees for the Don G award: Foy, BA, Stu, Grosso, others?

Edit edit: hmm so maybe there are more Don Gs than Jokers in skateboarding?

[mfweeno]

Expand Quote

Expand Quote

Being dumb as fuck seems to help.

[close]

Not all, but a lot of the gnarliest skaters seem pretty "simple minded," to put it gently. You almost have to be at least a little bit stupid to repeatedly jump down big gaps and shit.

I think it helps to be able to turn your brain off while attempting tricks. David Foster Wallace wrote an essay that pertains to this subject. From "How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart":

"It may well be that we, spectators, who are not divinely gifted as athletes, are the only ones able truly to see, articulate, and animate the experience of the gift we are denied. And that those who receive and act out the gift of athletic genius must, perforce, be blind and dumb about it -- and not because blindness and dumbness are the price of the gift, but because they are its essence."

And also:

“The real secret behind top athletes’ genius, then, may be as esoteric and obvious and dull and profound as silence itself. The real, many-veiled answer to the question of just what goes through a great player’s mind as he stands at the center of a hostile crowdnoise and lines up the free-throw that will decide the game might well be: nothing at all.”

[close]

Aw, man, you got me thinkin'!
Love David Foster Wallace so much RIP.
So who is the Nicola Jokic of skateboarding, the one who thinks out and analyzes and understands every trick and situation, the one for whom the head is an advantage?
Who's the Hal Incandenza of skateboarding, the fragile, crystalline super-brain who might get the yips in the big moment?
Who's the Big Don Gately of skateboarding, the absolute meat tank with the head like a concrete block, who is still a really chill kind dude?

Edit: nominees for the Don G award: Foy, BA, Stu, Grosso, others?

Edit edit: hmm so maybe there are more Don Gs than Jokers in skateboarding?

For your "Nicola Jokic" archetype - Rodney Mullen comes to mind, just in terms of the analytical approach to board physics and pressure points when developing new tricks and techniques.

I know he's not a favorite around here, but Dan Corrigan seems to have a similarly analytical (almost over-analytical) approach to skating. His trick tips isolate really specific details that I wouldn't initially think about.

[Ninj2]

Slap really is the most Orwellian place on the internet.
Are you fuckers really this invested? U psycho analizers

[Ninj2]

Maybe they just put the time in. Instead of Twitter or whatever this is.

[SubCurban Commando]

Expand Quote

I had a mate who played premier league/european cup level football until he was in his 20s, he started skating around 28 and it was amazing how quick he got good but after a few months he just got bored cos there was other stuff that he was good at that he didn't get so broken off doing.

[close]

Yooooo...as a rare fotball/skating combo fanatic, plus moonlighting in football on/off for 15+ years, I'm dying to know who this player is. Especially since he's obviously not some Serie C/Ekstraklasa John Doe.

You wouldn't have heard of him and I don't really wanna put his name out there, He was at Leeds youth and maybe came on as a sub a couple of times and then played for Leicester, think he was first team for a bit but he was out by his early 20s.

[Hick Roward]

Are you going to risk life and limb over and over and over again for that eternal, but essentially internal satisfaction of rolling away?

That is skateboarding.

- Hick Roward

[Hick Roward]

Pat Duffy was brought back in a time machine like the Terminator, then his program malfunctioned.

But, Danny Way comes closest to what you are describing.

[Mallie]

Expand Quote

Expand Quote

I had a mate who played premier league/european cup level football until he was in his 20s, he started skating around 28 and it was amazing how quick he got good but after a few months he just got bored cos there was other stuff that he was good at that he didn't get so broken off doing.

[close]

Yooooo...as a rare fotball/skating combo fanatic, plus moonlighting in football on/off for 15+ years, I'm dying to know who this player is. Especially since he's obviously not some Serie C/Ekstraklasa John Doe.

[close]

You wouldn't have heard of him and I don't really wanna put his name out there, He was at Leeds youth and maybe came on as a sub a couple of times and then played for Leicester, think he was first team for a bit but he was out by his early 20s.

No, no, didn't expect an explicit ID  this is more than enough. Still, very cool.

[håkanhellström]

Deathwish. Rock n roll hell yeah!

[Shtonk]

Expand Quote

Expand Quote

Expand Quote

I've been thinking about how high-level athletes like Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, and John Daly all share the same sort of high-level/ very specific and focused version of psychopathy; they say to be great you have to be an obsessed villainous psychopath...

It led me to wonder about the psychological attributes that some great skaters have, and what psychological makeup would result in a good skateboarder.

What are the ideal psychological traits that lend themselves to being a great skateboarder? I don't think every good skateboarder is a diagnosable psychopath, but I do think we all share a common determination and mindset. being a psycho helps though.

[close]

what? can you provide any source for these claims?

[close]

You can never claim someone is a psycho outright, but 1 in 100 have symptoms of being psychopaths.

[close]

again: based on what? multiple claims are made based on no foundation. the hypothesis whether psychopathic "symptoms" (better: traits) may be beneficial for some aspects of life and success is interesting, however, I would like to see who made the connection to these elite sport athlethes and based on what.

a quick (and not sufficient) search indicates that this hypothesis may not be true (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2007.11.008)

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37884281/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/375678226_Beyond_a_Game_A_Narrative_Review_of_Psychopathic_Traits_in_Sporting_Environments

Niels Birbaumer, one of the fathers of biological psychology and pioneering Neuro-researcher on convicted psychopaths with and without brain damage, loved to say in his seminars: "The pity is, I only got to do research on the bad psychopaths. The succesful ones are sitting on the boards of our Top 100." Of course this is hyperbole, as are the quotes by David Foster Wallace, who was a gifted poet and intellectual, but not a researcher (and also a lot more geniusly gifted himself than he liked to admit).

I'm not a psychological researcher myself, I've only made a couple films about it, but the whole thing really doesn't seem too far fetched when you engage with the (public) personas of Jagger Eaton, Nyjah Huston, Tyshawn, PRod. There's them and then there's the more awkward (and in a way more sincere) silent assassins like Yuto and Gustavo Ribeiro.

This all applies to the athletic, trophy- and contest-oriented side of skating of course. Wouldn't know how to find similarities between Kader, Dylan, Gino and Grant Taylor...

[GB530]

impulsive personality would probably be a common denominator. When looking at anything over 9 stairs impulsive thinking would be a strength.

[MrDuckey]

Ironically if you're registered on Slap then it's 99.9% confirmed you don't have the psychology of a pro