...Next to Godliness? The Price of Perfection

As per usual, before I kick off the main attraction today, I have a brief announcement. I was thankful enough to receive many a good word about my previous post. My greatest worry in writing it was that, being written from a singularly male perspective, it would come off as skewed and one-dimensional. I had planned to gather some insight from some female skaters with whom I am pleased to be acquainted, but due to scheduling conflicts said insight was unattainable in time. The good news, however, is that I do plan on posting a second part to the story, focusing on what the ladies have to say. In the meantime, however, you're still stuck with just me and my usual semi-weekly ramblings.

On that note, on to your regularly scheduled ramblings!

I don't typically watch the annual Battle at the Berrics contest. If any of you reading this are under the age of eighteen, you are likely completely flabbergasted, but either those who know me or are past the age of suffrage are likely much less surprised. That being said, while spending three months following several professional bracketed games of S-K-A-T-E appeals little to me, I did recently watch the final match of the latest iteration, if only because Morgan Smith conquered PJ Ladd, and the fact that he did so on Canada Day tugged on my red and white heartstrings just tight enough to cause me to click "play".

Above: Morgan Smith. Ten points to those who know where this spot is.

The first ever indoor park I skated was the now-defunct Common Ground. I only ever skated there once, with Brad, who had skated it several times before and after. It was 2005, and I can remember Brad describing to me a park local named Morgan Smith, whose flatground flip capabilities were seemingly more on-point than the lines of flash code that Brad now uses to make a living for himself. The day I went to the park, sure enough, Morgan was there, and sure enough, his flip tricks were flawless. At the time, I thought it was astonishing. To this day, I maintain that. Somewhere, however, in the last six and a half years, something changed. The kind of cleanliness and perfection I once sought after, drooled over, and stood in amazement of, became astonishingly boring.

Above: "Illusion Flip"

I think, somewhere down the line, it started with hardflips. Yes, the bane of many a burgeoning street skater's existence. There was a time, for those of you who either weren't around or don't care to remember, when the hardflip could be executed in what has now been dubbed an "illusion flip" style: legs spread eagle, knees bent up toward the armpits, and the board kind of folding over itself while half-flipping. Technically, the kickflip frontside shove-it motion the board was supposed to be doing could be miniscule, at best, and somewhere down the line, someone decided that this would not do. By about 2003, no self-respecting magazine ran photos of hardflips unless they were flipped and rotated to perfection. Skateboarding had upped its standards of acceptability, and the "illusion flip" went the way of the benihanna and the stinkbug frontside air. This was how it was supposed to be, right? Progression is what keeps skateboarding moving, right? Well, yes, but here is where I and the rest of skateboarding seem to disagree: I think proper hardflips, by and large, look awful.

Above: a "proper" (read: hideous) hardflip

Now, to be fair, there are people who, on occasion, manage to add some flair to the modern hardflip and make it digestible. Truth be told, these people are probably why most overlook how the majority of skaters look doing it: legs and arms swiveling about wildly before attempting to achieve a kind of mid-flip fetal position, knees at one's chin, ankles nearly fusing together, hunching up like some kind of ungodly marriage of Sonic the Hedgehog and Gollum.

"But Brandon," you probably aren't saying, but I am for the sake of furthering this post, "who cares if most people make the hardflip look like the time-lapse of a shriveling prune? The board flips perfectly, and they always land perfectly on the bolts. Perfection is good, right?" Well yes... and no. Precision is important with modern flip tricks, and the hunchback flip is probably the most awkward flip trick conceivable, but at the end of the day, it is simply an unattractive looking trick for most. Just because you can play the solo to Master of Puppets flawlessly at an eighth the original tempo does not mean you should play it in front of an audience.

Above: This used to be considered "robotic" and "style-less"

So, why so many photos and video clips of Igor flips? It comes back to Morgan Smith and the Battle at the Berrics. As skateboarders, and skateboarding on a whole, have become more technical, style has been pushed aside in favour of perfection and cleanliness. Actually, allow me to amend that: Style has gradually become synonymous with perfection and cleanliness. Aesthetic appeal now no longer depends on how a skater looks doing a trick, so much as with how little effort he or she appears to have done it.

I maintain that the amount of skill necessary to perform any maneuver from any stance with perfect form is a very noteworthy feat, but to what degree are we allowing this obsession with sterile Orwellian skating to rob us of the soul of individual style?

Above: Nollie flip.... I think.... hard to tell... Oh well, BOLTS!

Nollie flips are a prime example of my point. Specifically, the flatground use-in-a-line variety. Paul Rodriguez could probably pop fifty in a row across an eight-inch wide ledge without breaking a sweat, and anyone who didn't know he was goofy wouldn't be able to tell if they were nollie or fakie. Good for him; I'm sure when skateboarding makes it into the Olympics, the hard-nosed Russian judge will give him a 10.0 on his dismount. Conversely, someone like Fritz Mead or Tony Trujillo would pop a nollie flip with such reckless abandon and so little actual nollie experience that they would likely have a hard time passing a sobriety test with it, even in a state of complete sobriety. The difference? The latter oozes the kind of personality that the former seems afraid to roll over for fear of getting it on its fresh white Nikes.


And I, for one, would take personality over perfection any day.