skate journal: blue skies struggles (jan 9, 2018)
On a warm, but a little breezy afternoon I went to Blue Skies after work to meet up with Dave. I got there first and no one was there. I probably should have gone in the rink and just skated flat, but for whatever reason I went to the skatepark. I was feeling pretty out of it and not motivated. I wouldn’t realize until later that it was because arthritis had gotten me pretty good. I thought I was just sore from the 3 up 3 down session, but it turns out it was more than that. Argh. Arthritis is really hard to skate with. It just kills the confidence and mobility. Anyway, I just kind of dorked around skating slow. I did a bunch of ollies to fakie on various banks, some boardslides on the flat bar, noseslides and then tried a bunch of nollie front heels. Since trying it in a game of SKATE against Hayden it seems like a trick I could land. There were some that flipped perfect. Dave showed up around then. We both hucked it for a bit then started skating the park. Dave was quick on the front 50s on the low ledge. Going fast enough to front 180 out of the bump. Both of us were unable to get halfcab noseslide because that ledge is so darn weird. I got a line of boardslide, sketchy heelflip, front 50. Man I was scared to do the front 50. I got a crook on the taller part. Dave had front noseslide on the tall side ledge, tried feebles on the low part of the snake rail, easy hippy jumps the flat bars, a solid back tail on the weird qp, lots of kickflips. He started trying f/s halfcab flips on the main bank and got really close. I had been sitting, but he motivated me to skate the bank some at least. I did a few weak halfcabs, but it felt cool. Dave started doing varial flips and I ended with some sweepers. All things considered with how bad my arthritis was it was an alright session.
(setup 8″ null Monico deck, venture 5.25 awake lows, 50mm bones stf v1, 3 washers on the inside of each axle, white venture bushings, new balance numeric arto 358 black/white size 11, custom orthotic insole)