Hey you! Why the long board?

Years ago Rodney Mullen did a demo in Little Rock, Arkansas. It was amazing what happened when he stepped on the skateboard. The control over both his body and the board were astounding. His board spun, flipped, rose and fell with the slightest flick of his feet and he landed everything cleanly. I was in the presence of greatness that day, and I knew it.

Now, it seemed the tricks he did were all anyone was doing. I spent countless hours of my life (that I can never have back) being frustrated by kickflips and heelflips. At one point I even invested in a set of soccer shin guards because my legs were becoming so bruised and dented from the board flipping up into my shins. I was miserable, and although I finally started to learn some of these elusive tricks, it made me want to give up skating.

I just couldn’t. Giving up skating for good would have been like cutting out a part of my soul. I had to find an alternative, but until I found the alternative, skating slipped down to the shadows of my priority list.

When I discovered longboarding I felt the urge to ride rise from the ashes of a popsicle stick deck. The act of riding a skateboard was new again. The slightest slope of a hill was enough to carve for speed and soul.

My first longboard was a beast. Over four feet long and over eleven inches wide, it served the purpose of introducing a new genre of skateboarding to me. Shortly after first stepping on the beast, I opted for a shorter, narrower set up.

It was strange. Those flip tricks I had so many problems doing on a shorter board were suddenly easy for me. Doing a kickflip on a longboard seemed so easy. Blunt slides, I don’t know why, were suddenly simple on this longer board. It didn’t take long before I was even sliding down handrails on a forty-four inch long deck. I switched out the usual big, soft longboard wheels for some 80’s inspired hard yet reasonably sized wheels.

All of this isn’t to say that I suddenly became a technical wizard on a skateboard. Instead, I was able to move between the flippery and the carve with relative ease. After skating for so many years, I had found my niche.