Category: skateboarding

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One word, 7 letters, starts with F … and I bet I am better at it than you!

It’s not that! You filthy lot, it’s not as fun as that, hence no one likes doing it. 

 Its Failure or failing. Damn I am good at that shizza! We could have also used ‘falling’, I will come to that in a bit though.  

There are countless famous quotes on failure out there from Edison to Michael Jordan, so I won’t try to come up with my own. In short though, failing is one of the best things you can do. It’s something you should strive to get good at and teach your kids to embrace.  It’s tough though, right?  

No one likes failing.  Failing is the flea bitten, mangy, skinny, unloved mongrel in the corner of the shelter. It’s been there for ever, no one wants to go near it in case it bites them. No one wants to get bitten by failure.  Everyone wants to take home the pristine pedigree with the shiny coat. It makes them feel good, walking about with the show dog. Avoiding failure is not the answer though. The pedigree dog looks good (like you sticking to your one thing you are good at), but deep down we know that it’s riddled with genetic weaknesses and problems.  Once you have tamed that mongrel and learnt to love it, you are going to end up with a stronger, healthier, fitter beast.   

So, we know failure is good for you but sometimes it’s hard to grasp it when you are young, or even when you are a parent.  It can be a hard thing to learn or practice. How do you really practice failing?  There is, in my humble opinion, one way that is super fun and is a tool that teaches failure like nothing else.  Read on and I will tell you, but first let me give you some insight as to why I think my opinion counts.  

Yes, this blog is about action and adventure sports, many of which I have competed in or coached/taught in, not at a high level I admit.  However, aside from action and adventure sports I have also competed or coached in many other sports such as, Boxing, BJJ, Judo, Karate, Shooting, Rugby, Football and Basketball. I have played around with a lot of others as well. A bit of a ‘Jack of all trades master of none’ but we all know how the rest of that saying goes though don’t we? (It’s included at the end of this post if you don’t!) 

 So, I have experienced failing at a lot of things, in a lot of different ways with a lot of different people.  So anyway, enough banging on, you want to know the best way to learn or teach your kids how to fail, repeatedly in fact, and to embrace it, so here goes.  

Contrary to popular belief, and the impression they may like to give, skateboarders are well adjusted pillars of society. Well, ok that may be a bit strong.  What is true though is that they have a lot of skills and characteristics that can take you a long way in life. I believe that this is, in part, because they practice failing all day long, day in, day out.   

If you want you, or your kids to learn perseverance, determination, courage, humility, teamwork, encouragement, resilience and the value of failing repeatedly and trying again and again until you get it right, take up skateboarding.  

Go to any skatepark and watch the skaters down there for a while. There is nothing that teaches failure like falling onto hard concrete, again and again and again!  

Nothing that teaches you to pick yourself back up, dust yourself off and try again.  To put that last failure behind you and try once more.  

Sure, you can participate in other sports and miss a pass, drop a ball, serve out of the box…whatever. Oftentimes you are carried along by a team though. Or you can just slow your serve down to guarantee it stays in.  It may be a crap serve, but hey, it’s in, right? Boom, success.  

With skateboarding there is generally not the same level of tolerance for error. You either land that 180 kickflip, or you don’t.   

A lot of the time in skateboarding failure comes with a physical consequence as well, unlike a lot of other sports.  

 When you are watching the skaters at your local park next, and you see them repeatedly trying a trick and falling …hard! ask yourself how many times you would be willing to do that. How much determination and resilience have you got?  How many failures are too many before you stop to go back to do something more comfortable?  

Teamwork is something I mentioned as well, and encouragement.  Skateboarding may not be the ultimate team sport of course, but … 

 I have been stood on the top of a ramp before, bruised and cut, bleeding and tired, having failed again and again.  

About to go home when the group of 3 teenagers on the ramp helping me swelled to 10, one more attempt, another failure, now there are 15 kids, now 20 all cheering me, a 42-year-old rubbish skater, encouraging me, shouting instructions, willing me to send it.  One more go, the support making the difference. I land the coveted trick…finally.  The ‘crowd’ erupt, the sounds of clanging decks on the surface of the ramp bring a smile to my face.  

If that’s not teamwork, humility and comradeship I don’t know what is.  

In a world where everything is made as comfortable as possible. Where we flatten as many obstacles for our kids or us as we possibly can. We have forgotten how to fail and be comfortable with it 

If you want to learn how to fail and better yourself in life, take up skateboarding. Its gonna hurt, but it will be worth it!  

 https://actionandadventuresportsuk.com/how-to-buy-your-first-skateboard/

‘Jack of all trades master of none, oftentimes better than a master of one’

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How to buy your first skateboard

So, you have finally burnt your scooter, well alright…let it rust to pieces in the garden without giving it the ceremonial burial it didn’t deserve anyway.  

So, what are you going to do now? Apart from leave it out for the scrap man!  

Buy a Skateboard !  

Nice work…good decision… at last.  

Disclaimer here  we don’t all hate scooter kids with vengeance and wish we could feed them to our blunt nosed pigs.  It’s just they don’t understand skate park etiquette and, ahhh lets do a separate post on this another day, it’s a big topic.  

Ok seriously, you may or may not have had a scooter or a skateboard before and now you want one, and a decent one at that. So, you find yourself watching the cool cats shredding the park and find yourself waking up in the middle of the night crying out …. 

“What skate board should I buy?”  

Well, let’s get down to the trucks and bolts of it!  

The easiest and simplest way to get yourself started is with what we call a ‘complete’, such as these which you can buy here at June store https://junestore.co.uk/collections/skatestuff

You just walk in ( you can buy online if you know what you want of course) ,choose some pretty graphics you like, get on your board and out you go, kick flipping down the road like Dorothy in a Pagan Wizard of Oz Thrasher feature. 

A ‘complete’ is sold pre-assembled, all set up. Boom, it’s that easy! It literally comes ready to skate. All the components are matched together for your ease. The store should ‘grip it’ for you when you buy it. That’s put the black sandpaper type stuff on the top ready for you to scuff up your brand-new Vans your nan bought you for your birthday. 

The only functionality consideration when buying a ‘complete’ is the size of the deck. 

“the deck?”

The ‘deck’ is the wooden part you stand on, or maybe more accurately to begin with, the part you fall off.  

When we describe the size, we are talking about the width. Standard widths are 7.75/8/8.25/8.5/9 inches. You can get variations. I skate an 8.62 but they are the standard.  

Historically people seemed to skate skinny boards a lot. There were not as many skateparks about especially here in the UK so people mostly skated what’s known as “Street.” That is skating out and about on whatever you can find like benches and stairs etc. It meant they also did a lot of flat ground tricks that involved flipping the board a lot, like a kickflip. Obviously the skinnier the board the easier to flip. The downside is of course a skinny board is much harder to control and stay on!  

I did a poll at my local park and almost everyone was skating an 8.25 or at 8.5 and that was kids from around 11 that were killing the mini ramp, up to full grown adults.  

I skate an 8.62 because I have massive feet… alright, alright, it’s because I am rubbish, 42 and losing my sense of balance now. Plus, to be fair I am 6’2 and 14 stone, so not small. 

An 8.5 gives you a decent platform to work on and more stability. It was, without a doubt, the most popular size at most parks. If you are buying for a kid of around 10-15 maybe an 8.25 will be best.  

Let me be clear on something though.  There are no tricks that these skilled young lads can’t do because their deck is 8.5 inches wide. They are banging out every flip trick in the book and some new ones too. So, don’t think that buying a slightly wider board means you won’t be able to knock out casual laser flips down the high street. You won’t be doing those because you just can’t do them …. yet!  

I think the era of skinny boards is certainly coming to an end. In fact, I couldn’t find anyone skating anything narrower than an 8.  

There are a few different shaped decks but I wouldn’t read too much into that to begin with.  Just get the width right first.  

That leads us onto trucks. Oh, where to begin? Get me a Yorkie bar, it’s a confusing one. 

Hollow ones, low ones, high ones, narrow ones, wide ones argggghhhhh!    

Trucks, they give you the stability and the ability to get what is essentially a shrunken down wooden version of an ironing board to do some cool stuff. This is why when you buy a ‘toy shop’ skateboard you can’t skate the bloody thing. The trucks don’t turn, they break. 

If you do anything, other than burn your scooter that is, avoid ‘toy shop’ skateboards. They are dangerous, won’t work properly and won’t last. You will end up spending more money replacing it in a short while.  

Your trucks’ width should match your board width.  The helpful people at Independent, ACE, Thunder etc have made it easy by naming all the models all by their size in inches to match the trucks   damn confusing by giving them all cool numerical monikers like 145s and 149s or 33s and 34s.  

Here’s a nifty table you can take to your tattooist to get it tattooed on your arms so you can remember them.   

Your local skate shop however WILL know which trucks suit your deck best (another reason to avoid the generic toy shop skateboard section). If you insist on buying over the net then use the table above to match the correct size trucks to your board.  If you are skating a non-regular size board, an 8.62 like me for example, get as close a match as you can. I skate Indys 159s.  

Trucks too skinny for your deck will be unstable and wobbly. Trucks too wide won’t have the necessary control to turn or perform your cool new tricks you learnt from Braille.  

But what about wheels dude?  

Wheels shmeels, it’s whatever. Okay it’s not, but it’s also not going to make a big difference to begin with.  Just get round ones!  

Wheels generally come in 51/52/53/54mm right up to 75mm. We are presuming you have bought your spanky new set up to get the chicks though and not to use it to cruise with the longboard crew to your nearest chia seed and spirulina bar. 

If you are using your board to “get places” rather than to have fun on then you may want some big, soft, chunky wheels.  If that’s the case you may want an entirely different sort of set up and now we are getting off track towards the chia bar again so let’s get back to skating.  

Smaller wheels, 50-53mm, are slower and good for tricks, street and the skate park etc. 

Large wheels for transportation purposes. Smooth out those pavements.  

Now, wheels can be measured in a density as well. It’s called, wait for it, Durometer.  0-100 is the scale, the higher the number the harder the wheel. The harder the wheel the faster they go and vice versa. There is another scale as well but come on, haven’t you had enough yet?  

For skating the park and the local street scene if you choose around 52/54mm with a high density around 98/99 you won’t go far wrong.  

 Again, your local reputable skate shop proprietor will assist you with this conundrum.  

Leave me alone!  

Right, bearings, the exciting part. What you need to know is …… “YAWN, shut up man I wanna go drop in.” 

Yes, yes you are right. Go forth and skate young man. 

Buying a skateboard can be a very simple process really. Choose the width most appropriate for your size (read average size for age) lets suggest these; 

10 and younger 8-8.25 

10-15years 8.25-8.5  

15+ again 8.25+ depending on your size and ability and of course your preference.  

Here are the bullet points: 

  • Buy the deck according to the pretty graphics and your size preference/size requirements 
  • Match some trucks using the table provided to said deck 
  • Buy some wheels. 98/99A density and 52-54mm will be fine for park and street.  
  • Buy obligatory beanie and baggy jeans  

Failing all of that just get down to your local park and ask skaters down there if you could try their decks. Try different sizes, ask questions. See what feel most comfortable or which you seem to skate the best. 

 Skaters love talking about skating and we really are a friendly bunch. We will always help someone who is showing an interest. 

when you go just don’t turn up on your scooter!

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Are extreme sports really extreme?

Extreme sports, they sound, well… extreme, don’t they?  

As a kid I grew up wanting to be an extreme athlete. I saw the VHS tapes and read the magazines of my hero’s doing cool, crazy things and dreamed of following them. I wanted to be a cool kid, who didn’t?   

 I would go outside and ollie a few kerbs and chickenfoot a few kickflips on my skate board or jump out of a tree.  In my head  I convinced myself I was doing the same as them.  

As I got older, I realised of course that I wasn’t, not quite at least. I still loved every minute of it though. 

  I mentioned that I watched VHS and read magazines, real ones you can hold in your hand, so yes it was before the good old tinterweb.   

Getting into an “extreme” sport  back then wasn’t as easy as it today, especially if you didn’t live in a suitable part of the country. These days it’s all there for you on the web, the path to start, the instructors, the courses you can book, the purpose-built walls or parks. It’s easy. So, I wonder why so many people seem to be afraid to try them. 

I have taken so many people out climbing that have told me “there is no way I could climb rock like that” or say to me “you are mad I have seen it on the telly, I don’t know how you do it”   

The secret is that Extreme sports are more often than not, not that extreme at all. 

 Sure, stick big Dave McLeod on you tube and watch him send Rhapsody and you will have even the hardest weekend warrior sweating through his pants. 

 And don’t even get me started on Alex Honnald with his Free solo documentary. If I had a pound for every time someone told me they saw him on telly doing that “free climbing”.   

I got bored of trying to explain what free climbing is and that I take my eleven-year-old son free climbing regularly. And no, that they didn’t need to call child protection on me.  

I now casually mention I haven’t seen it and that it doesn’t surprise me that he doesn’t have to pay for climbing as he is so famous. Throws them off a bit. 

Of course, when we are down the pub with football loving friends, we embellish a few titbit’s and sex it up a little. We are extreme athletes after all, we have a mythical reputation to uphold. 

 Yes, we may have done something at the edge of our limit this particular weekend but there have been plenty of times when we have plain and simply dawdled or bottled it all weekend. 

The point is Dave Mcleod didn’t one day just decide to go to climb a route that has a potentially ‘fall and die’ scenario. Alex Honnald didn’t just decide to go for a ramble and then accidently solo Freerider. 

It’s a progression and most of the time the general armchair viewer or enthusiast only sees the culmination of years of practice and dedication. It’s something we all know but seem to forget when it relates to a sport or anything  we are not familiar with.  

This progression can be voluntarily stopped at any time.  You don’t have to go from riding a few local trails to riding the Cuillin Ridge, you can stop somewhere in the middle or even right at the start.  

 I know lots of casual climbers that never push their grade or fall on their gear.  

I know lots of casual skaters that are not as young and bouncy as they used to be or maybe totally new to the pastime, but still love the lifestyle and skate community. They go to the park, get involved but they are not trying to land laser flips or skate vert.  

You can repeat this for mountaineering, BMX, diving etc. 

There are lots of people enjoying so called “extreme” sports in a totally non “extreme” way. 

I even know people that love going climbing for the weekend but they only belay! Basically, an active picnic for them.  Gold if you can find a few of those to knock about with.   

The important part is that those that are not at the “extreme” end of their action sport career are not having any less fun than those that are.   

If we stopped saying that these are “extreme” sports (are they even sports by the way) maybe we could get it across that the entry level barrier is much lower than is presumed.  

So, get down to your local climbing wall. Buy a set-up from your local skate shop. Take your bike over the nearest trails. Get involved in an action sport. 

Just get started and do something. The world’s most famous base jumper Carl Boenish didn’t just jump off a cliff on a whim he started at the beginning.  

Go find your beginning … it’s a lot easier than you think.