Aby Lee Hnetinkasfavourite reflection

Old dog, new tricks 

Skating offers the most unlikely eureka moments. The first trick I learned on a board was, like it is for most newbies, a stationary ollie, on the lawn of our parents’ back garden. It felt good but, to be honest, it wasn’t an epiphany because I hadn’t by that stage mastered it while moving. The real "wow-I-might-be-a-proper-skater" moment came when I learnt a technically simple trick called a nose stall, whereby you ride up to a curb, balance your nose (front tip of the board) on it, move your back wheels slightly off the ground and drop back off again. I was shown this ludicrously easy manoeuvre one summer evening 25 years ago, in the carpark at the back of the local carpet shop, by two friends, Big Dave and Jasper. Actually, it was around the same time I learned how to smoke, too, and how to wear a backpack properly (a countercultural move which demanded you wear it over both shoulders like a French exchange student as opposed to on one shoulder, like a townie). 

That's how skaters traditionally learned the dark arts, by a unique osmosis that occurred when hanging around skateparks, multistorey carparks and random local street spots. This gonzo tuition would be backed up by hours of viewing skate videos in slow-motion, attempting to fathom fine margins, angles and feet positioning. However, during my hiatus from skating, the loose concept of skateboarding lessons appeared to become more generally accepted; certainly, parks near where I live now offer special beginner sessions with skate coaches/teachers/Yodas (OK, so that still doesn’t quite sound right) on hand. I used to be a terrible inverted skate snob about this sort of thing when I was younger, under the delusion that skating can only be an enigmatic, renegade outsider culture, an anti-sport that eschews essential components of other games – like winning or playing kit or, yes, coaching. Now, I’m either too old to care or maybe I’ve realised the traditional, unstructured, make-it-up-as-you-go-along approach can coexist with a more organised or formal way. For some, skating will continue to be passed down as a kind of beautiful, amorphous folklore, but for others, younger skaters in particular – for whom it’s not a great idea to hang around London’s Southbank or their local Asda carpark at 10pm on a school night – that eureka moment might well come with a little help from patient, helpful and, still, no doubt, fully rad skate coaches at local parks. 

You could call Hector Barnett a skate coach, I guess, as he takes skateboarding lessons at London’s Bay Sixty 6 park. And you can definitely call him rad. In celebration of the release of new film xXx: Return Of Xander Cage, and in particular the opening scene in which Vin Diesel skates like a badass, the film’s press team organised for me to have a skate masterclass. And during a single, hour-long session, Barnett managed to get this old dog to do two new tricks that had always eluded me: a frontside disaster (a 180 ollie out of the ramp to land with your board on the coping, aka metal bar) and a switch heelflip (stand back to front and flip the board around with your heel).

After watching me rattle through my basic repertoire – ollies, kickflips, heelflips, very poor backside 180s etc – Hector suggested a few changes to feet position on certain tricks, some adjustments to where to put my weight upon landing and my angles of approach. It was all subtle advice, and fairly simple, but elements I’m usually too stubborn to consider, or too lazy to persevere with. Usually I keep hammering away at a trick until, by some kind of luck, I manage to land it or, more often than not, fall off and try an easier trick. But being encouraged to concentrate on small adjustments focused my mind and body, and the guidance and reassurance got me so amped up that, once we moved to the quarter pipe, and I moved my front foot slightly further forward, rode a little faster, kept my back foot straighter… I finally nailed the trick within 15 minutes. Eureka!

Having a skate lesson wasn’t a ghastly experience, unlike having golf coaching, where you’re told that everything you’ve ever learned is wrong, your swing is unpicked and you leave feeling broken. It was more collaborative, less preachy, just wise words about obvious mistakes that I was making on tricks that I’d never really thought to adjust, and lots and lots of encouragement. The 360 flip, however, still eludes me, and I suspect that no amount of coaching will help me land it. Well, maybe fitness coaching to help me lose about four stone and become as flexible as a 14-year-old – but I can’t see that happening.

Text extracted from:http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/skateboard-blog