What is one thing that you wish you learned sooner in your skate life?

[Jean-Ralphio Zaperstein]

I will hold regular manual, nose manual, one foot manual on both feet, one foot nose manual for both feet, and hangten tail and nose manuals. I will generally find a city block, and just go back and forth for hours just doing flatground manuals, until I have enough strength to consistently do all 8 of those manuals across a city block.

hahahahahahahahahaha

[Roger Mexico]

Rub brick. If I'd known how to properly prep a ledge/curb when I was a teenager, I definitely would've had more spots in my zone, probably would've learned more tricks, and possibly have avoided my early-adult semi-hiatus. All of which means I would've had more fun.

[mtvic]

How to take it easy on myself and enjoy the moment. Instead of constantly being worried about if the trick I was doing was good enough, I would have just focused on what felt good. And, switch flip back tails....didn’t learn them until my mid thirties and had I tried 15 years earlier I would have loved to see what I could have done with that one.

[GreggPopovich]

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I will hold regular manual, nose manual, one foot manual on both feet, one foot nose manual for both feet, and hangten tail and nose manuals. I will generally find a city block, and just go back and forth for hours just doing flatground manuals, until I have enough strength to consistently do all 8 of those manuals across a city block.

[close]

hahahahahahahahahaha

Laugh all you want, but it fucking works.
See when I was young and really taking skating seriously, and was on the path to being a pro was during a time period where LaDainian Tomlinson played in the national football league. See when I was young I recognized early on that pro skaters do not train like professional athletes, and at the time I could not fathom how I could compete at a level with the best skaters in the world. so it's like what did I do? I broke the problem of becoming a top level skateboarder into a million little problems that were more solvable in a notebook, and wrote out the hierarchical relationship between each of these steps, very similar to how you program a computer in an object oriented programming language(If you are not a heavy programmer reading this you prolly have only used OOP, but their are things like functional languages where you don't think of problems in this fashion).

Why did I bring up LT? because LT would never ever release his training regimen to the public or other pros, and he just fucking steamrolled every single football player in his path, and literally every single person in the media and around him attributed it to his secretive regimen. Like once you get to the level where you are playing with the best in the world, what is it that makes you literally better than any singular person out their if that is the goal you are trying to optimize? Traditionally speaking it's your 'IQ' or some X factor related to training, preparation, mental fortitude, and intelligence. Like you got to think when you playin with the big boys, and comparing yourself because you have finally achieved this level, that like say you and the other world class athletes went out to go skate a contest, well on any single day any singular person can take it. I mean like I think Daewon or Rodney or && smoke fucking Nyjah in terms of abilities on a skateboard, but Nyjah would smoke them in a contest on any given sunday. there is a reason for that. Like Tom Brady, Lebron, etc. it's that "IQ"/preparation that puts them over the top. Nyjah has both, most people do not have both.

Now at some point I was able to get access to his (LTs) regimen through means. I studied it quite intensely, then I started studying Barry Zaristsky the guy who trained Rodney in his freestyle contests in the 80s who I came across on that tony hawk skatepark tour when they came through during my youth, and then I started doing intense research on 80s vert contests. There is a logical train of thought why I went from each one of these too another. I'm not going to explain why, you guys use your brains and figure it out.

Now laughing about the above^^^ I do not understand what is funny about engaging and making sure your slow twitch muscles are solid. If you skate big shit and don't do this you are an absolute fucking moron. Those slow twitch muscles are responsible for structural integrity and stability. you have a much higher chance of getting hurt if you have not skated in a long time and go immediately into fast twitch motions like ollie tricks or tricks involving ollies like street grinds. Literally you are a moron if you do that and have not skated in a while. also those slow twitch muscles allow your muscle memory to come back better for the fast twitch muscles, and people don't realize like every single fucking time you try a trick you are affecting the negative feedback loop involved with your brain and that specific trick. so, say you been off for a few days and u rush into ollie tricks right off the bat, well guess the fuck what if your muscles aren't at the point you need them to be, then your kinematic chain starts compensating for that, and your body starts taking that compensation into account for the future when you attempt your trick. Think of it like this, if your slow twitch muscles aren't at a certain level, then essentially you will be attempting a new trick every single time even though you are attempting a kickflip in all circumstances. Like essentially having built up slow twitch muscles allows you to essentially have scientific control when studying how to make your tricks better than they currently are, since they present a baseline of initial conditions for your body to solve the problem or "shape" with.

[chrisskates808]

Just having fun.

[Jean-Ralphio Zaperstein]

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I will hold regular manual, nose manual, one foot manual on both feet, one foot nose manual for both feet, and hangten tail and nose manuals. I will generally find a city block, and just go back and forth for hours just doing flatground manuals, until I have enough strength to consistently do all 8 of those manuals across a city block.

[close]

hahahahahahahahahaha

[close]

a fucking essay as usual

listen if you're circling a city block doing one foot nosemanuals you're gonna get laughed at a little bit
good on you for almost becoming a pro cheetah

[cky enthusiast]

training like a pro athlete fucking sucks and isn’t fun.

why you’d want to put that attitude towards something as freeing and expressive as skating is beyond me.

[GreggPopovich]

training like a pro athlete fucking sucks and isn’t fun.

why you’d want to put that attitude towards something as freeing and expressive as skating is beyond me.

I think it can be healthy or unhealthy. If you are trying to be the alpha males of all alpha males, than yes I do think it is most assuredly unhealthy, look at Nyjah. There is a reason they call Michael Jordan a psycopath lol, go watch the last dance if you have not, it's fucking excellent even if you are not into basketball.

I think that level of thinking though can make you the absolute most excellent skateboarder you can possibly be, but to do it healthily you need to internalize it as making yourself the best that you can possibly be instead of comparing yourself to others. It's a big reason why I stopped giving a fuck at a certain point about being a pro skater. Like at some point I could have become psycopathic and it prolly would have devolved into dominating the industry, or I could just enjoy myself and have fun. I chose the latter, I accomplished my goal of where I wanted my abilities, and had fun ever since.

[exlurker]

[fs180]

its not about landind a trick one time. its about doing that trick over and over and over again, skating with a tunnel vision for yourself instead of being worried about other peoples skill at the park. do your tricks, learn the basics to everything and do them over and over again. not to become the best but because its so fun to land the tricks. stop putting your feelings into it, meaning being the best at the park doesnt mean shit theres always one guy who is better. youve tried a trick 569 times but there is a guy who has already tried that trick 666009 times so he will land it first try while he cant do some things you do because youve tried it 666009 times.
as soon as people put their feeling into it they get stuck skill wise.

its pretty corny.

[codymacfan]

its not about landind a trick one time. its about doing that trick over and over and over again, skating with a tunnel vision for yourself instead of being worried about other peoples skill at the park. do your tricks, learn the basics to everything and do them over and over again. not to become the best but because its so fun to land the tricks. stop putting your feelings into it, meaning being the best at the park doesnt mean shit theres always one guy who is better. youve tried a trick 569 times but there is a guy who has already tried that trick 666009 times so he will land it first try while he cant do some things you do because youve tried it 666009 times.
as soon as people put their feeling into it they get stuck skill wise.

its pretty corny.

Yep, repetition will get you far. Currently experiencing this with back tail curb sessions. It doesn't sound fun but is so fun when you see yourself get better.

[Sifter]

3 chip technology

Flip tricks

[Mr. Stinky]

Glad we have Greg "Cheetah Sheets" Popovich kicking around now, I had really been wishing for more stupefying blocks of pompous, unreadable text around here.

[fs180]

i feel like i could only get to that tunnel vision when i smoked weed before skating and think its why its so common in skating. it made me more carelessly. i could try a trick for hours without freaking out asking myself if i was physically to dumb to do it. i had the same energy when i was a kid until i hit puberty and other things like girls became important and i let feelings direct myself. every since a girl left me and said im just a boy on a skateboard i had zero ego skating and it actually helped me put everything that wasnt i do this for my own fun to the side. skating is more mentally than people think. other people will drain your energy if you let them thats why people in there 20s mostly suck at learning how to do it. they go to a park and are to embaressed to even start with something basic over and over again. i dont think its impossible to become good at skating starting in your 20s.

[Manny Fapuiao]

this thread looks like a goddamn goodreads review section
but I would say skating transition backside, all fs all day for me

[cky enthusiast]

this thread looks like a goddamn goodreads review section
but I would say skating transition backside, all fs all day for me

this is baffling to me

[fs180]

this whole forum is based on somebody taking his time out to answer a question correctly and than a stupid motherfucker saying something funny ignorant about the comment just so somebody else will high five him for that.

[fs180]

with that being said. cky enthusiast you seem like the worst dude with a very low attention span, i mean you never have watched a skate video in its entirley, why dont you just shut the fuck up if you never have to say anything relevant?

[Brguy]

training like a pro athlete fucking sucks

Dude just said to practice a few manuals, don't be such a bitch about it. Either way everyone here will need some type of extra exercise with time(to the ones that don't already need them), unless the plan is to stop skating at 40 or become one of those older dudes that are all stiff and shit.

[fs180]

learning tricks stratetgic and trying them over and over again will make you land more tricks which means youll have a lot more fun while skating itself. nobody on here acts like you need to be an athlete.
after having your session you can go to your friends or inbetween whatever but why is it seen so egoistic to act like that?
in my opinion its not the people that skate for themselves that have a big ego, its the ones who go to a park and think they need to have an opinion on everybody skating there and have a session where you HAVE to interact with everyone around you. judgemental idiots who get frustrated really quick and never turned of their ego.
there are different types of those lames.
first will be the poor i dont have a job core skaters who think you cant wear anything non skating related and get mad really quick if you are better than them and on the other side the pretentious fashion skaters that only can do wallies and fs no complys. if you do one trick that isnt dylan rieder than you skating is non valid.
this isnt your space only because you and your lazy ass friends sit around at that park all day.

[RichardBarkley]

with that being said. cky enthusiast you seem like the worst dude with a very low attention span, i mean you never have watched a skate video in its entirley, why dont you just shut the fuck up if you never have to say anything relevant?

Lol

Did you ever watch the Flip video CKY?

[GreggPopovich]

learning tricks stratetgic and trying them over and over again will make you land more tricks which means youll have a lot more fun while skating itself. nobody on here acts like you need to be an athlete.
after having your session you can go to your friends or inbetween whatever but why is it seen so egoistic to act like that?
in my opinion its not the people that skate for themselves that have a big ego, its the ones who go to a park and think they need to have an opinion on everybody skating there and have a session where you HAVE to interact with everyone around you. judgemental idiots who get frustrated really quick and never turned of their ego.
there are different types of those lames.
first will be the poor i dont have a job core skaters who think you cant wear anything non skating related and get mad really quick if you are better than them and on the other side the pretentious fashion skaters that only can do wallies and fs no complys. if you do one trick that isnt dylan rieder than you skating is non valid.
this isnt your space only because you and your lazy ass friends sit around at that park all day.

Skateboarding is just like basketball. It is the ultimate urban alpha male sport/art that their possibly is other than basketball. The difference though is that the alphas of all alphas happen between 27-32 years old. Half of the alphas that exist in skateboarding are like 12-15 years old. On top of that, skateboarders don't travel and do demos, and it's not like you have resident and non resident pros like you have at countryclubs anymore(if you are wondering yes this is how it went down, look up cherry hill at some point and learn some history, I believe Victor Perez was the residential pro, and Shogo the non residential pro). The modern day 13 year old alpha of say the middle of nowhere wyoming, he does not get to see pros or really anyone that is better than him. These alphas, they never see anyone better, and they get this serious big fish small pond attitude. it's been something historic in skating, but has gotten worse the more viral and unrelated at the personal level a lot of these companies have gotten with the consumer. What really fucking cracks me up is you have all these "cool guy" brands that have managed to stay relevant because no one wants to tour and change the market. Like if && wanted to ride around the US and hit up every single skatepark, and just do this for like a 2 year long period, I bet money Powell would have a better relationship at the personal level than any singular fucking hype thing Dill could come up with because it is fucking organic, and skateboarders have always thought organically, it's why Instagram took over our community, it was the first way people could naturally organically market themselves en masse. Before that you had to pay google or do something that seemed like you were desperate to get people to buy your products, and skateboarders are better at sniffing that out than any consumer on the planet.

Random Tangent, but it really stems from alphas not meeting better alphas, which is why this topic was on my list in terms of getting better. What happens generally is when someone arrives at their territory and steals their thunder they start acting out. This literally happens to me every single motherfucking time I show up at a random new park not in cali.
I end up destroying the park, and all these little alphas compared to Coach Popp have no hope. They start lashing out and have literally tons of weirdness that has ensued. Their whole existence they have had every single person at the park look at them the entire time they skate, and they feed off that energy for positive feedback like instagram girls at 16 years old.
Then I come along and within 30 seconds absolutely no one gives a single fuck about them anymore, which is even more embarrassing to them because I'm not the most masculine dressed guy(I got muscle though), so it's like the first time you ever got dunked on in your whole life was by the guy that you absolutely can't fucking stand cuz you have that toxic alpha cool guy attitude.

Skateboarding has turned into the jock sport of all jock sports if you all haven't figured out, and deluxe and all the SF brands have made it worse with all the cool guying from the 90s and early 000s that then spread to Supreme and shit.
Also if you never skate with anyone better in your whole life I feel bad for you. I don't get to see many people better than me anymore, so let me tell you when I see it, it makes me genuinely happy. I recognized a long time ago even if I am the GOAT eventually someone will come along better than me and push the sport to become the new GOAT, and now as an ambassador of this thing because I am of that caliber, I feel it is my duty to push the thing on for that guy.

[cky enthusiast]

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training like a pro athlete fucking sucks

[close]

Dude just said to practice a few manuals, don't be such a bitch about it. Either way everyone here will need some type of extra exercise with time(to the ones that don't already need them), unless the plan is to stop skating at 40 or become one of those older dudes that are all stiff and shit.

to clarify: i don’t mean strength training or conditioning is bad (i do both regularly) i think singularly focusing on being “the best you can be” or whatever takes away a lot of the joy in skating. your skating, trick selection etc will be a reflection of who you are regardless- you’re gonna do and learn the tricks you like to watch.

i used to train religiously when i was racing bicycles (like 12-15 hours a week on the bike doing over under drills, sprint work etc) and all it did was make me hate cycling and give me a fucked up endocrine system. i don’t think it’s worth it just to be the best at benihana fly outs in iowa or whatever

[cky enthusiast]

with that being said. cky enthusiast you seem like the worst dude with a very low attention span, i mean you never have watched a skate video in its entirley, why dont you just shut the fuck up if you never have to say anything relevant?

is it hard to see the keyboard through the tears

[cky enthusiast]

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with that being said. cky enthusiast you seem like the worst dude with a very low attention span, i mean you never have watched a skate video in its entirley, why dont you just shut the fuck up if you never have to say anything relevant?

[close]

Lol

Did you ever watch the Flip video CKY?

yeah. it was fine. didn’t speak to me except for penny’s part(s) which i had already seen (since i don’t usually watch them in their entirley or whatever he said)- id rather go skate than watch TV idk why that blows so many people’s fuses here

[GreggPopovich]

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training like a pro athlete fucking sucks

[close]

Dude just said to practice a few manuals, don't be such a bitch about it. Either way everyone here will need some type of extra exercise with time(to the ones that don't already need them), unless the plan is to stop skating at 40 or become one of those older dudes that are all stiff and shit.

[close]

to clarify: i don’t mean strength training or conditioning is bad (i do both regularly) i think singularly focusing on being “the best you can be” or whatever takes away a lot of the joy in skating. your skating, trick selection etc will be a reflection of who you are regardless- you’re gonna do and learn the tricks you like to watch.

i used to train religiously when i was racing bicycles (like 12-15 hours a week on the bike doing over under drills, sprint work etc) and all it did was make me hate cycling and give me a fucked up endocrine system. i don’t think it’s worth it just to be the best at benihana fly outs in iowa or whatever

It's all about the mentality homie. You can make yourself go crazy with it, or you can do it healthily. usually when you go crazy it's because you're trying to progress quickly since you are comparing yourself to others on the come up, or have to skate contests, if you are in the sponsored track. If you are in the non-sponsored track, what makes you go crazy usually is trying to progress quickly enough to get into that track. Now if you just try to make yourself the best you can possibly be, but slow cook it like a world class chef, that shit gives you the ability to be the best of the best while not becoming a psycopath in the process.

I am world class now at other things outside of skateboarding, and the only times I ever feel unhealthy are when I am trying to meet deadlines. Like that is naturally unhealthily, and you stress yourself out. If you think about it to a skater that wants to be successful, like at the sponsored level, they have a window, a deadline, on their skating career mortality. Like if kids don't get the hook up and the money early enough it really does become financially unfeasible if you have other options in your life that you can acquire more money with. Like I will be real with you guys, I genuinely think barring some crazy thing I could have made brass tax 130-150 k from skating for a 5-10 year window. Well doing what I do now I have a much higher ceiling for money and career earnings, and it was stupid personally for me to pursue a career in it given my other options. For a lot of kids that's good money, but for me I would have needed TJ money to say hey fuck this other thing. You gotta think i'm trying to give you guys insight into how the best of the best think about skating because this is a skateboard forum, and I figure you all will be interested in my dialogue so long as I speak strictly of the topics at hand.

I took the other path, and got to destress and have fun with skating, so do not think I don't agree with you at a fundamental level because I do, but I don't think that thinking is naturally unhealthy, it is how you look at the problem.
Like for instance you can stress about getting a kickflip on a 10 stair, or you can solve it in incremental steps to not stress yourself out. first you can have a 2 hour session doing all your tricks with a device to sense speed, going the exact speed you would need to clear those stairs with the most stability. Just feel out that velocity going into and out of the trick, and know it exactly for when you need to kick out. Then go to a 4 stair and keep that same speed and do the same thing. Then take it to the 10 stair, and since you know the exact speed and the exact feel of the flick free falling you know fucking exactly when to kick out. Now you don't need to do all of these things, you truly don't, but how long of a career do you want to have? you see all these guys want to have bravado and just skate big shit all the time, and alpha it up, when if they thought their shit out would have longer careers. That's why i'm bringing all this shit up, it's about maximizing someone's time on a board.

[Christmas Complete]

I figure you all will be interested in my dialogue

This shows a shocking lack of self awareness.

[Skateboard Shuffle]

Don’t ever do a nose picker with a coper.

[Brguy]

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training like a pro athlete fucking sucks

[close]

Dude just said to practice a few manuals, don't be such a bitch about it. Either way everyone here will need some type of extra exercise with time(to the ones that don't already need them), unless the plan is to stop skating at 40 or become one of those older dudes that are all stiff and shit.

[close]

to clarify: i don’t mean strength training or conditioning is bad (i do both regularly) i think singularly focusing on being “the best you can be” or whatever takes away a lot of the joy in skating. your skating, trick selection etc will be a reflection of who you are regardless- you’re gonna do and learn the tricks you like to watch.

i used to train religiously when i was racing bicycles (like 12-15 hours a week on the bike doing over under drills, sprint work etc) and all it did was make me hate cycling and give me a fucked up endocrine system. i don’t think it’s worth it just to be the best at benihana fly outs in iowa or whatever

You know what really takes the joy out of skateboarding? Not being able to land tricks because your legs are all fucked up. I get what you're saying, but it's not really the case here, at least in my opinion.

[GreggPopovich]

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training like a pro athlete fucking sucks

[close]

Dude just said to practice a few manuals, don't be such a bitch about it. Either way everyone here will need some type of extra exercise with time(to the ones that don't already need them), unless the plan is to stop skating at 40 or become one of those older dudes that are all stiff and shit.

[close]

to clarify: i don’t mean strength training or conditioning is bad (i do both regularly) i think singularly focusing on being “the best you can be” or whatever takes away a lot of the joy in skating. your skating, trick selection etc will be a reflection of who you are regardless- you’re gonna do and learn the tricks you like to watch.

i used to train religiously when i was racing bicycles (like 12-15 hours a week on the bike doing over under drills, sprint work etc) and all it did was make me hate cycling and give me a fucked up endocrine system. i don’t think it’s worth it just to be the best at benihana fly outs in iowa or whatever

[close]

You know what really takes the joy out of skateboarding? Not being able to land tricks because your legs are all fucked up. I get what you're saying, but it's not really the case here, at least in my opinion.

This guy fucking gets it^^^. Lebron spends millions of dollars a year on his body because it's what enables him to be a pro until his 40s at the highest levels of competition, or Brady for that matter. Skaters currently do not do this, don't have the funds too, and we don't have athletic trainers that have studied that stuff specifically within skateboarding except for maybe a handful of guys in our history. You can talk about skaters taking stuff from other sports like jocks, but who is the real jock? the guy with the novel approach that has solved the problem, or the cool guy who doesn't have a pro career because he blew out his ACL trying to compete in the modern skateboarding environment?