dear thugwaffle. you're prolly going too slow because you can. when a gap presents itself you step to the plate like mark mcgwire but w/out stimuli it's harder to do your biggest ollie. let's say you can go over a trash can. it's way harder to go over an imaginary trash can. or to ollie a good distance w/ no markers that you're trying to clear.
my friend always wants to skate this court w/ perfect flat and we end up doing nollie big flips, all the 180 flips going wicked slow then we come to a street and had a hard time w/ kickflips. we'd spoiled the rod and screwed the child!
just go over stuff, manholes, crosswalks, cracks, whatever.