Skate Reanimate

Skated for 45 min in local parking lots, working on pop shove its and kick flips. Landed 4 out of 20.

I abandoned my last orthopedist because (1) each time I came in he acted like I was a new patient (2) he rarely had more than 5 minutes to talk, and (3) he had given me highly contradictory diagnoses, including “worn-out ACL has to be replaced” vs “everything looks healthy”. He also liked to chide me for skateboarding and suggested I take up bicycling instead.

I got a 2nd opinion today, and was glad of it. My new orthopedist is laid back, friendly, and interested in solving my problems. He’s also supportive of a long-term commitment to skating, and believes with proper training I can keep at it for another decade at least.

So the short of his diagnosis is: arthritis, some calcification, some looseness, but for what it’s been through, it looks good. He sent me home with a new knee brace and 8 appointments with a physical therapist. No surgery in the immediate future. The bad news is that the one skiing accident (now 20 years past) has caused significant long-term damage that is essentially irreversible.

“Your knee’s going to wear out sooner or later no matter what you do,” he said, “But I don’t see any reason to stop skateboarding…”

Starting this Wednesday and running through Friday.

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Today I discovered Tony Hawk’s interview of Rodney Mullen from 2009. Both of these guys were heroes of mine as a kid. You can tell these guys not only go way back together, but that they’re good friends, too.

In part one Rodney reveals how he lost his tooth, and explains the home-grown technique he uses to tear his hip away from the socket to which it’s continually trying to fuse itself (hint: it involves an automobile):

At least that explains why Mullen was so anxious to erase his stance.

I’m really digging Zander Ritchie’s “Scottish 5 Tricks” video series that he’s pumping out over on mpora.com–and not just because I’m 1/4 Scot! As the title suggests, this series spotlights Scottish locals showing off 5 tricks.

So far:
Scottish 5 Tricks with Stu Graham at Edinburgh skatepark
Keith Allan & Dave Lane do back to back 5 tricks each.
Scottish 5 tricks with Daniel Nicholas

Skated for about an hour in a local elementary school parking lot. Worked on:

• fs 180s
• bs 180s
• kickflips
• half cabs
• boneless 180s

I set a goal of landing 20 kickflips, even if they were stationary. I managed this, though sketchy, out of about 60 attempts. I have a hard time getting my big front foot out of the way, but found that setting my front foot further back helped a lot. The ollies aren’t as high, but I get a faster flip, which is really what I need at this stage.

I did, however, strain my weaker back ankle doing this, and probably will have to sit it out a few days.

Dodged rain clouds to run the Orem skatepark for half an hour where these old bones worked on

• fs 180 disasters
• boneless ones and boneless 180s
• half cabs

David called me up just after 8pm to set up a trip over the mountains to Heber, and the fabled Heber skatepark with it’s steep transitions, huge bowls, and crazy obstacles. Worked on:

• ollies out of the bowl
• 50-50s
• frontside ollie 180s on the hip
• kickturns and pivots on the vert pool bit

I jammed my thumb hard on the coping while working on 50-50s, but that didn’t stop me from eventually pushing down some grinds above the twin bowl’s transition:

Skated for about 30 minutes on my lunch break at the Orem skatepark. The park was loaded with bikers looping from obstacle to obstacle, and so I was a bit on-edge and wary as I attempted:

• 50-50s on the mini ramp
• frontside 180 disasters on the mini ramp (weak!)
• ollie to manual on the box