Once a skater....

...always a skater. Or so it appears.

Around 20 years ago, I quit skating. Or rather, the everyday world conspired to stop me skating. I 'grew up', got an important job, there was never enough time and so on. I didn't really make the decision to stop skating, it just kind of happened. So this was maybe 2003.

Fast forward, now in my mid 40's, I've picked my board up again. You would be forgiven for thinking it was down to Covid, or the addition of skating to the Olympics (might do a post on my thoughts on that one day!), or a desire for health, but it was more a random thing... a friend bought a board.

Now I can't put it down.

It's different in some ways - it hurts more for a start, but I find that the 'adult' me approaches things differently. I'll spend entire sessions focused on one trick or set of tricks and build the skill set from one to another. A great example is backside ollies - I could never do them, so I didn't bother and stuck to frontside. Now, I've got the patience to actually break it down and work it out - and now I can do them. It feels so good.

While I accept that at my age I'm unlikely to start hitting ten-sets and big handrails (those kind of falls are seriously likely to bring it all to an end!), my day to day progression has become everything. Transition offers me a whole new world - I was a street skater in the 90's and we just didn't have any decent parks. Now, the streets are pretty much un-skatable (at least near me), so I'm having to learn new skill sets and that involves curved wood.

I'm stoked to see how much things have progressed while I've been out - kids are so good now, possibly thanks to the rise of social media and the amount of inspiration there is, but the pros are now so insanely consistent it blows my mind. I remember seeing pro-demos back in the day, and there was a lot of falling and repeating. Now you watch some amateurs and they can bang out complex switch flips almost every go.

Maybe I'll start documenting and posting some of my journey... as soon as I feel it's good enough to share :)

Right, I'm off to practice tre-flips. Later.