skate journal: another scary ditch then unm (oct 20, 2019)
Started at a crazy ditch with ledge on top and a wide spine. I walked up the ditch for awhile to look at it. Then played SKATE with Hayden, Monico and Nolan on a super mellow bank on top of the ditch while Sean, Garrett and Jack warmed up on the ledge. It was a super fun game. There were a bunch of silly tricks, some standard tricks. I was happy to get a first try sex change, a front 540 kickturn and much more I can’t remember right now. I got taken out by a flamingo. Hayden had it too. I’m not sure who won, I went on to film. Jack and Monico got good tricks pretty quickly. Garrett on the other hand took a long time, but it was well worth it. Then we looked at a hip/over guardrail spot in the same ditch. It had gotten super windy though. Hayden got a couple cool tricks and Sean almost died trying a huge 180. Glad he survived.
Then we went to campus. We all did wallrides on this. Jack’s was so good. Monico somehow wallied over this in the past?!?!?! Hayden had some incredibly good wallride nollies. I had some fun ones. Then we filmed Nolan rock fakie it. So nuts!
After that it was the mini hubba area where the pressure was on my to noseslide it. I had a nervous feeling in me, but somehow this visit to the spot made it seem doable. The six stair is longer than it looks. Monico put down a few basics. Jack did a few other side slides. Like over to noseblunt, then over to front blunt. He was slamming but man the one he got was insane. Hayden tried front 180 fakie 5-0 180 for a long time. I was in the mix, trying noseslides every so slowly taking baby steps towards really trying it. I’m going to write a lot about it, because it was one of my favorite things I’ve done on my skateboard. I was getting no confidence from flatground tricks as I bailed one after the other. I was would go so painfully slow and just barely get my board up on it. But all of the Nullers were being encouraging and kept wanting me to try. At one point I started talking trash about how easy noseslides are and finally went fast and fully tried. I didn’t land it that try, but the feeling of finally committing and standing on it was incredible. I would do a few more that I really thought I would land, but I kept coming up short. I lost some momentum and couldn’t commit again for awhile. I thought I was gonna be defeated. I knew this would haunt me for a long time if I didn’t get it. Somehow I convinced myself to really try it and I landed it. It’s kind of funny because it didn’t feel right, but it was the one I landed. Like I wasn’t really on top or something. But wow, yeah I landed it. Jack got a rad photo, Nolan filmed it great. A huge thank you to Sean, Nolan, Monico, Jack and Garrett for motivating me and sticking with me. I didn’t skate a ton on the trip, but this noseslide made it worth it.
After that was the icing on the cake. We spotted a curved curb by the van. Hayden and I started messing around with slappy crooks. It was fun to commit to it. Hayden got one first. Then I got one and he got my back with the 180 out. It was a super rad feeling and such a great way to end the day. Some more slappies were had after this, but I stopped because my stoke was so high. Amazing day.
(setup 8.25 null nolan deck, Venture 5.6 trucks, venom 88a bushings , spitfire F4 52mm 99a green swirl wheels, 2 washers inside each axle, new balance numeric 306 Foy b/w size 12, footprints gamechanger insoles)
(pain level 2/10)