Dumb things you thought about skateboarding when you were a kid

[Groondor the Orc]

I watched the Hokus Pokus video at some kid's house and I'd only ever seen Streets of Fire and Future Primitive before this. It blew my mind and all the shit I saw was kind of scrambled up in my head to the point where I visualised Ron Allen ollieing into a 50-50 on one handrail and across onto another  to fakie 50-50. I told people about this trick on this video I had seen for years. I looked up to Ron Allen as the greatest street skater nobody ever talked about.

It wasn't until around the year 2005 or something when I downloaded Hokus Pokus and watched it again and I realised I had been talking shit for fifteen years.

[Bluntmane]

One of my friends thought Brandon beibel’s flex after drinking redline in fully flared was real.

[JANUS]

I thought WD-40 would lubricate bearings. And I’d just spray it onto the backs of the cages like an idiot.

[augustmoon]

I thought that I certainly would learn to skate vert and would be doing head high airs and Mctwists.  I just needed to find a very ramp and it would be a wrap.  Just a matter of time…

[GnarAlarm]

I thought WD-40 would lubricate bearings. And I’d just spray it onto the backs of the cages like an idiot.

There are two kinds of skaters.
Skaters who did this, and skaters who are fucking liars.

[j....soy.....]

It makes about as much sense as popping your shields…..

[Yakusoku2]

I used to think all pro skaters make money

Me too! I still can’t conceive a professional skater not earning money

[ChuckRamone]

I didn't understand the concept of working on specific tricks for a long time until you learned them. I thought you just had to skate all the time and eventually you'd be able to do whatever you wanted. So in my mind when pros filmed tricks, they would just go to a spot and do whatever trick they wanted to do because they were really good from skating so much. I also thought skating should be easy and if you're not able to do a trick easily, it's because you hadn't reached that level yet from skating a lot in general, not necessarily from focusing on certain tricks or skills.

[bob george]

I thought that I certainly would learn to skate vert and would be doing head high airs and Mctwists.  I just needed to find a very ramp and it would be a wrap.  Just a matter of time…

i absolutely thought this too. for context, i would say i'm street skater and can skate mini ramps quite well - but have always fantasised about vert skating. about 5 years ago i actually tried for like 2 months. the height of my success was this line; drop in, 5-0 across the ramp, axle stall, rock fakie, fakie indy air.

never did any other air and took a break once i finally learnt that one and then the next time i tried i felt like i was starting over completely again and couldn't do the 50-50 anymore...

[IUTSM]

I didn't understand the concept of working on specific tricks for a long time until you learned them. I thought you just had to skate all the time and eventually you'd be able to do whatever you wanted. So in my mind when pros filmed tricks, they would just go to a spot and do whatever trick they wanted to do because they were really good from skating so much. I also thought skating should be easy and if you're not able to do a trick easily, it's because you hadn't reached that level yet from skating a lot in general, not necessarily from focusing on certain tricks or skills.

This is fairly relatable. Whatever tricks I learned kinda came naturally, so I figured thats how it went. Now im old and working on tricks non stop

[Lame_Nigga]

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I used to think all pro skaters make money

[close]

Me too! I still can’t conceive a professional skater not earning money

When I first got on here back in 2009, I hear Peter Watkins filmed his God Save The Label part while also having a job laying tile (idk if it’s true or not) but it blew my mind that he had to have a job. But now looking back I get it because who the hell buys Black Label boards.


When I first started skating I believed that when a friend gave you an old pair of shoes you got a bit of their talent from them. I thought this because I landed my first kickflip the same day a friend gave me a pair of Accels, and a few months later I ollied this gap after my friend gave me his old Reynolds 3s. I still Lowkey believe this

[Makaveli]

If the brand wasn’t in THPS, it sucked. Kinda turned out to be the other way around.

[Jawn Gyatti]

I used to think the name 'emerica' was some kind of ironic social commentary and not, well, you know....

[wilog]

Up until I was 17 or so I thought pulaski plaza was named after rob pluhowski and I remeber thinking like "hes not even from dc and in general how is he signifigant enough to have such a famous plaza named after him"

[WashingtonNECKTIE]

I used to think the name 'emerica' was some kind of ironic social commentary and not, well, you know....

i thought this also. I also pronounced it "eh-merica" vs "Ee-merica" for way too long

[Troubadour26]

I thought I’d learn how to do inverts pretty quickly. I remember thinking I’d drop in off of the red metal McDonald’s roof too and darkslide the yellow slide in my backyard. I feel like when I was 10 or 11 and I was actually skateboarding and around skateboarders I may have thought that smoking weed and other drugs might unlock some sort of hidden abilities within people. Like skateboarding and shit would just make sense if you were high and in the zone.

[alraunen]

Some random kid told me that Chad Muska died by overdose and as a tribute he was a playable player on THPS 2 demo...

Took me a a year to realize it was fake once I got the full game 

[Lou Strux]

Up until I was 17 or so I thought pulaski plaza was named after rob pluhowski and I remeber thinking like "hes not even from dc and in general how is he signifigant enough to have such a famous plaza named after him"

The truth about the storied general/hero of the American revolution for whom the plaza is named is every bit as fun as your story.

https://news.asu.edu/20190405-discoveries-asu-bioarchaeologist-uncovers-200-year-old-mystery

TLDR: Turns out General Pulaski wasn’t quite the person history thought they were. 
Pretty rad.

[Troubadour26]

Some random kid told me that Chad Muska died by overdose and as a tribute he was a playable player on THPS 2 demo...

Took me a a year to realize it was fake once I got the full game 

hahahahaha

[Magnolia]

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Up until I was 17 or so I thought pulaski plaza was named after rob pluhowski and I remeber thinking like "hes not even from dc and in general how is he signifigant enough to have such a famous plaza named after him"

[close]

The truth about the storied general/hero of the American revolution for whom the plaza is named is every bit as fun as your story.

https://news.asu.edu/20190405-discoveries-asu-bioarchaeologist-uncovers-200-year-old-mystery

TLDR: Turns out General Pulaski wasn’t quite the person history thought they were. 
Pretty rad.

King shit

[MtnDoucheBag]

This shit is easy and I’m going to make a lot of friends.

[Crust]

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I used to think the name 'emerica' was some kind of ironic social commentary and not, well, you know....

[close]

i thought this also. I also pronounced it "eh-merica" vs "Ee-merica" for way too long

Likewise actually, it's how it reads haha

[Lou Strux]

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Up until I was 17 or so I thought pulaski plaza was named after rob pluhowski and I remeber thinking like "hes not even from dc and in general how is he signifigant enough to have such a famous plaza named after him"

[close]

The truth about the storied general/hero of the American revolution for whom the plaza is named is every bit as fun as your story.

https://news.asu.edu/20190405-discoveries-asu-bioarchaeologist-uncovers-200-year-old-mystery

TLDR: Turns out General Pulaski wasn’t quite the person history thought they were. 
Pretty rad.

[close]

King shit

@Magnolia, you know 'bout this homey, Billy Tipton?
Dude was a renowned jazz musician, celebrated band leader, father of three, aaand... keeper of a hella rad secret as well. 
This one's almost as cool as the Pulaski story.
Peep & enjoy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Tipton

[mclovin1336]

1) if somebody could skate a handrail that they deserve to be pro or are pros.

2) for a short period of time a friend of mine convinced me that dylan rieder was female (there was this ad where he fs flipped something and was looking rather gamine; and the name dylan)

3) couldn't understand/ relate to skating pools a long time because pools in Germany/ most of Europe are not bowls but rectangular

[MC3]

I heart boobies

[Magnolia]

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Expand Quote

Expand Quote

Up until I was 17 or so I thought pulaski plaza was named after rob pluhowski and I remeber thinking like "hes not even from dc and in general how is he signifigant enough to have such a famous plaza named after him"

[close]

The truth about the storied general/hero of the American revolution for whom the plaza is named is every bit as fun as your story.

https://news.asu.edu/20190405-discoveries-asu-bioarchaeologist-uncovers-200-year-old-mystery

TLDR: Turns out General Pulaski wasn’t quite the person history thought they were. 
Pretty rad.

[close]

King shit

[close]

@Magnolia, you know 'bout this homey, Billy Tipton?
Dude was a renowned jazz musician, celebrated band leader, father of three, aaand... keeper of a hella rad secret as well. 
This one's almost as cool as the Pulaski story.
Peep & enjoy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Tipton

Very cool! There was also James Barry, a British solider and surgeon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Barry_(surgeon)

[9inchdeck]

My buddy and I thought feeble grinds were really crooked boardslides. We thought we had them on lock

[ThatIsNotCricket]

- That frontside and backside were the other way around, for slides at least.

My local skateshop had Wieger's check out in a Transworld mag framed on the wall (Wieger skated for that shop), and I pointed out to my friend that the idiot of an editor had made an inexcusable error, ruining the page; the caption read frontside noseslide (while it was obviously a backside noseslide, since he was sliding with his back to the point of landing). The shop owner pretended he didn't hear me, to save me the embarassement. The other (older) locals didn't.

- As mentioned already here: that a lipslide was a boardslide tilted more to one side (i.e. not perfectly centred between the trucks), that Emerica's name was some sort of political statement on American politics and/or mass-culture, and that the nose of a board was actually the tail (bigger, so more pop).
- That the crazier the trick in Transworld's check out segment was, the better the skater must be, and thus the more likely to turn AM and pro. I thought check outs were essentially auditions for skaters, to make an impression on the big teams.
- That Girl skateboards were for girls. If you happened to like the shape, and you didn't give a shit about people potentially making fun of you, boys could of course skate them; but that wasn't the intention of the company. I also thought it probably impacted your skating in some way; not improve or impair it necessarily, but since Girl boards were perhaps less sturdy and more flexible they surely made flip tricks easier, but also required more caution not to break them.
- At first I thought that most pros were pretty crazy to not have some security in terms of education or a job to fall back on, after their skate careers would end. Of course, when I grew up I left such naive ideas behind. I then figured that pros couldn't be that reckless, and companies couldn't be so bad that they'd allow for skaters to be fully on their own after their careers ended, so the skate industry probably worked a lot with contractual clauses that promised skaters a decent job in the company/to pay for professional training programs, adult education, etc./a ridicilously generous golden handshake upon retirement.

[ThatIsNotCricket]

- That I was wrong for (secretly) thinking glam rock Greco was a tool.
- That skaters with other passions besides skating, or interests that they were really into, were not 'true skateboarders' like me.

Basically, a couple of guys in town here were decent skaters and guitarists in a band, and I thought that was unfair on multiple levels (having more creative and emotional outlets, being potentially more attractive to girls, always having something to do when it rains, etc.). Luckily I did have enough self-awareness to know that this probably meant I was a bit of an insecure, spiteful prick, so I kept it to myself; as a thought to make myself feel at peace.

- As mentioned already here: that skaters were a special group of people, particularly in comparison to non-skater classmates. We had all discovered the funnest, most fulfilling, most immersive, coolest thing on earth, and the others had no idea they were missing out.
- That pro skaters were generally being a bit lazy when they filmed their parts, and that a full part could pretty easily be filmed in  three months max.
- That feebles and smiths were difficult to differentiate, and what exactly made them different was not entirely clear. Appleyard's smith in Sorry ('FUCK yeah!') was definitely a feeble in my book.

[marcusbutler]

Trying to figure out backside and frontside 180's while going nollie and fakie.