Skateboarding Is.... July

Apologies for the late post: life is like a hurricane here in Duckberg, you know how it gets sometimes...

 

Yes, blatant excuse to use this clip, can you blame me?

Ten points for anyone who can name the correlation between my opening sentence and the above video clip. Now then, on to the rest of the post.

Skateboarding Is.... Dropping In.

Riding down a transition. Really, Brandon? This is your big monthly revelation? Stop the presses and get Phelper on the phone, because somebody ought to pay this guy some good money for so poignant an observation!

Now, before you say anything, or maybe try to have me institutionalized on account of how much I talk to myself in this blog, hear me out.

Yes, I'm writing an entire post on the act of riding down a transition, because it is a maneuver that implicitly carries with it so much. As much as I disagree with the subversively militaristic nature of the Boy Scouts, I feel inclined to liken dropping in to that merit badge that every real scout eventually gets; not one of those easy ones like the one you get for keeping your brother's old hand-me-down comic collection, but one that requires a deep enough skill set that, by receiving it, you can verify and legitimize your connection to an elite group. It's a rite of passage, so to speak.

*Gulp* Wasn't this thing only four feet tall?

Perhaps part of what makes the drop-in so special is the process of learning it. Everyone remembers what it was like learning how to drop in: you know how to push around, maybe you've got tic-tacs on lock. Bank ramps are a joke to you now, you just roll right down them like nothing matters. You figure "a quarterpipe? how hard can it be?", and then you actually stand in position.

If there is one thing I have learned, or maybe re-learned, from years upon years of teaching kids how to drop in, it's that the inevitable battle that accompanies it is over fifty percent mental. Fear is, more often than not, one's own greatest adversary in skateboarding, and dropping in is the first real confirmation of that fact for most skaters. Learning how to drop in sort of contrasts with how most of us are instinctively wired to deal with fear: most anything in life that requires us to conquer our fears can usually be tiptoed into, so to speak. That is to say, there is often an acceptable middle ground with most things. When one is discussing the drop-in, however, this middle ground will get you hurt. The result? Endless numbers of skaters learning to drop in who, by virtue of their innate sense of hesitation, end up suffering the inevitable slam. Indeed, almost more so than anything else, a proper drop-in requires complete commitment and a mastery over one's fear. Those who have dropped in on anything can attest to the fact that rolling away successful for the first time is euphoric, easily on par with landing your first kickflip, except for the fact that one cannot really drop in on a ten square foot patch of their parents' basement.

I wonder if Tony reacted the same way to his first drop-in...

The most interesting thing, I have noticed, about dropping in, is that no matter how comfortable one gets at it, as soon as one is faced with doing so on a larger ramp, it is as if that feeling of comfort and fearlessness is magically erased. Speaking from experience, I can attest to the fact that there is very little difference between dropping in on a six foot mini ramp and a twelve foot vert ramp, and yet the amount of coaxing required to get me to drop in on vert the first time was astounding. Interesting, too, is the fact that the euphoric rush that accompanied my first successful drop in was present as well. All that was missing from the equation was the uncomfortable week of repeated slamming, replete with my stray board taking out a couple of spindles of the railing at the other end of the ramp...

In summation, dropping in is, at its core, just riding down a transition. Further analysis, however, shows a plethora of things. Dropping in is a personal landmark, a rite of passage, a conquest of one's own fear and an advancement of one's own abilities. Dropping in is skateboarding, and conversely....

Skateboarding Is..... Dropping In.