The Skater You Don't Aspire To Be

Skateboarding is like surfing, it just becomes a part of your life. Once you take that deep dive into becoming the best skater you can be, always progressing, you'll always consider yourself to be a skater.

For many of you skateboarding is not about becoming a pro skater, even though you're probably good enough to turn pro. For you it's just a fun activity, that's challenging, creative, and often a great way to pass the time with your mates.

That's pretty much what it has always been for me.

I'm 47 years old and I still skateboard for fun but you don't want to aspire to be like me... and there are lots of skaters like me.

I started skating at 18 years old. Late in the game but 1987-88 was when skateboarding experienced a massive resurgence.

I used to skate virtually everyday, only skipping days if it rained, and even then I might find somewhere with cover to skate. I built ramps, including a 24' x 16' x 5' mini ramp in my backyard where all my friends would come to skate regularly. I even helped establish a skatepark in my local community.

My skating got good enough to impress beginners, and I was skilled enough to be considered an okay skater among my peers.

TET, Frontside Ollie, home mini ramp 1990-91.

Grrr Dog
Retro Skateboard

Buy Now

Somewhere around 1993 life somehow got in the way of skateboarding. By that point I no longer had a backyard ramp and the skatepark, I'd helped set up had closed down to make way for a highway. Most of my skateboard friends were doing their own thing, and I was busy, in my second year of college, working on an Arts Diploma in Graphic Design.

I never actually quit skateboarding. I was just away from skating for so long that, by the time I got back, I couldn't even remember the terminology for buying a good set of wheels.

I remember getting back into skateboarding but I can't recall the exact year. I want to say 1997-98? I didn't have a skateboard so I went out and bought a really cheap deck, because I wasn't sure if I was going to get back into skating proper. I thought it best to not spend too much.

However, I knew I needed to buy proper skateboard wheels and bearings. Cheap skateboards always have shit wheels and bearings. Being able to roll well is kind of important.

Going to a skate shop to buy wheels I barely recognized any of the specific wheels. All the larger ramp skating wheels had given way to smaller street skating wheels with names I'd never heard of. I played it safe and bought a set of 96a Powell-logos because I knew the brand.

To cut a long story short, I got back on this new board and discovered I'd unlearned almost every skateboard trick I knew. Not only that but also my confidence at landing even some of the most basic of tricks was almost gone.

Ever since I've been trying to get my confidence back. It hasn't been easy because, shortly there after, I moved interstate to a town that didn't have a lot of places to skate, and a series of homes that didn't have skateable driveways. In nearly 20 years I haven't really progressed that much further than when I decided to get back into skating.

Currently I'm in a home with a fantastic, skateable driveway, and this year I've been really trying to step up my skills. Really trying to get back to the level I was at all those years ago.

At age 47 you might aspire to still being able to skate, but don't be like me, and those like me, who let life get in the way. Try to make skateboarding at least a regular weekend activity, no matter what. It shouldn't be hard if you love it.

You'll have a much better time at my age if you're not remembering how good you used to be, and getting frustrated with feeling like a beginner at your local skatepark.

I'm happy being able to skate at this age but I just know I'd be having a lot more fun if I had kept up with my skating all those years ago.

Skateboard Trick Tips: Two Ways to Ollie North (Ollie One foot)

You have to be quick to see my Ollie Norths! Ollie One Foots, otherwise known as the Ollie North, is one of those skateboard tricks you learn and then tend not to do very much as more interesting trick challenges grab your attention. However it does look really cool if you learn how to kick your front foot well past the nose of your skateboard. Still shot from Braille Skateboarding's Ollie North tutorial. I was inspired to make my video below, showing two different techniques to achieve a successful Ollie One Foot, when I not only saw that Braille Skateboarding's Tutorial used a different method to the one I had learned but also, when I looked at various other video tutorials, I discovered yet another technique, with no one using the method I had originally learned. Braille's method is to simply Ollie and drag your front foot past the front of your board. The second method I came across in several video tutorials is to Ollie, drag your front foot and tap your

How to Transfer Any Line Art to Your Griptape - Easy Skateboard Griptape Art Tutorial

Dog Star Griptape Art by TET Griptape art is once again gaining popularity amongst modern skateboarders. For those of us who have tried to create our own griptape art, using paint pens, you'll know reproducing your design onto the grip, without making any mistakes is incredibly challenging. Mostly because you just have to go for it and draw the design freehand, with paint pens, directly onto the griptape. You can make the odd mistake here or there but if you get the proportions of the design completely wrong, it can be very difficult to fix. Often you just have to live with the mistake. To address the problem I've come up with an easy way anyone can transfer a line art design to their griptape, removing almost all the anxiety of getting the proportions wrong. In fact, you could do this with any line art design, even if you have no drawing skill at all. Watch the video below to see my technique in action and/or skip past the video where I highlight the basic steps to get your de

Review: FP Footwear FINO Skate Shoes

FP Footwear FINO Skate Shoes I first saw FP's FINO skate shoes in a video by YouTube channel, Braille Skateboarding, titled, THE FIRST EVER NON NEWTONIAN FLUID SKATE SHOES!? As someone whose feet hurt and bruise relatively easily just from the basic tricks of skateboarding (Ollies, Pop Shuv-its etc.) the 90% absorption of impact energy selling point seemed like an ideal solution for minimizing my injuries. A day later I placed an order through FP's website . Ordinarily I wouldn't mention Customer Service but I can't let the lack of communication on my order slide. FP's website says to expect delivery within 7-14 days of your order. After close to two weeks, my order was still marked as being processed. I sent an email asking for any kind of update, to no response. A day or two later my order was marked as completed but still no signs of shoes in my mail? About two weeks later (just over a full month of placing my order) the shoes arrived. I'm sur

Can You Learn Skateboarding Basics on a Cheap Skateboard?

$20, Mambo 31" x 8", Department Store Skateboard. Over the years I've watched many high profile YouTube skateboarders repeatedly create videos where they purchase a cheap, department store skateboard, ride it like they would their regular professional skateboard, until it breaks (usually within an hour or so), and claim that as a reason for steering clear of these products. Inadvertently what they're doing is creating less demand for cheap skateboards, meaning it's less likely department stores will stock them, resulting in no easy way for first time skaters to 'test the waters' to see if skating is really for them. Even worse, parents looking to get their children into a new sport, may not even see skateboarding as an option as they browse through the department store sports section. At the time of writing, Australian department stores have shelves filled with many different brands of scooters, alongside a small shelf or two of skateboards (and

Movie Review: Air (2023) Amazon Prime No Spoilers

I imagine the general story of how the world's greatest basketballer, Michael Jordan, was signed to Nike doesn't sound all that compelling on a surface level. From his point of view it was a few meetings and making the right choice of which shoe company to sign with. However Air fleshes the story out by finding the key players at Nike and showing the behind the scenes drama that enabled them to take a risk on, what was then an exciting, up and coming rookie, who already had a choice of two leading shoe companies to sign with. Matt Damon plays Sonny Vaccaro, the visionary at Nike who saw the future potential of Michael Jordan as a sure thing. He knew Michael wasn't just a great basket ball player but had to find a way to convince his CEO, Phil Knight (Ben Affleck), to make a winning pitch to the Jordan family, and particularly Jordan's mother (Viola Davis), that Nike had their son's best interests at heart. From what I understand both Ben Affleck and Matt Damon did

Movie Review: Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 (2023) No Spoilers

If you've enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 1 and Volume 2 then Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 will not disappoint. I would almost go so far as to call it the best in the series... except seeing the first movie for the first time is still one of my best memories of the MCU. While it's not essential to the story if you didn't see the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special on Disney+ it does kind of lead into and set up where the Guardians are at in Volume 3 quite nicely. In this installment Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is still not coping with the loss of his timeline's Gamora (Zoe Saldada) when suddenly the team is attacked leaving Rocket (Bradley Cooper) in a very bad way. From then on it's a race to save Rocket as we learn quite a bit about his origin in the process. This movie is slightly darker than the first two and, if you're concerned about the animal cruelty that is causing some people to not want to see the film again, keep in mind, it's j

How I Lost Rock-to-Fakies (and Tried to Get Them Back) - A Skateboard Story

TET, Rock-to-Fakie attempt No# 43 (maybe?) Rock-to-Fakies, the act of riding your skateboard up a ramp, hanging half your board over the lip, then lifting your board back into the ramp, and riding out backwards, is one of the most basic ramp tricks. Bored Monkey Classic Popsicle Skateboard . See more deck shapes . Yet I can't do them anymore. At one time I could, without giving it any thought - even on my home 5' high mini ramp with an extra foot of vert extension added to the top of the transition. But as my skating got less, and skateboard spots with ramps diminished through the mid to late 1990s, I got out of practice. I did have a two foot tall, driveway mini, quarter pipe (with coping) I used to practice my mini ramp tricks on. Then one fateful day (I say that because this is scarred into my brain) I tried a rock-to-fakie and the tail of my skateboard dug into the pave stones at the base of the ramp as I came down, throwing me, hard, back into the ground

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog