Slowing down

[Obscura]

I'm 43. I started noticeably slowing down and becoming more risk-averse in my mid 30's, after several repetitive ankle injuries made life a real fucking hassle. I remember being in my late teens and thinking I would NEVER stop skating for any reason, but 30 years of being a super mediocre skateboarder takes it's toll. It's not even so much the pain of an injury, it's mostly that everything seems to take 3 times longer to heal then it did when I was young.

Now skateboarding consists of fucking around on mellow miniramps, and doing shitty kickflips and slappies here and there. Still fun. I still keep up with all the videos and shit, and I just accept that I'm now the slow old dude with gray hair struggling with frontside rocks. It's fine. 

[jstankalwara]

Yeah ironically I feel like my peak was last year at 30/31 at times I felt like I could skate loose and kinda to whatever I wanted and have fun but took a hard slam at an indoor park in the winter and confidence kinda slowed but still trying to skate 3/4 times a week, also happy bday to the dude on here that turned 40 on the 8, turned 32 today

[Olabade]

I think I’ve had two periods of slowing down. And this same pattern seems to cover most of my friends as well.

First time slowing down mid 20’s (a bit earlier for me) when you start to care about the real world adult stuff like career, family, mortgage etc. When your life is settled it’s easier to pick it back up again with skating.

Second period of slowing down is when your body starts to get older and refuses to do what you once were able to do. For me it was late 30’s.

Also nowadays I’d rather be doin backtails and boardslides and an occasional kickflip than risk it doing something gnarly and be off my board for a significant amount of time. It can still be fun skating smaller spots and learn something new.

I have been on a learn a new trick every time you go skating thing for a while now. I think of something hard beforehand and have an easier backup trick also figured out.

[Billy Bitchcakes]

Not saying eating well doesn’t help, but I eat like shit and skate better as a 38 year old than I did 10-15 years ago.

this is nice to hear