RIP stick

So - Ripsticks, eh?

The first I heard of ripsticks was when my then 7 year old son told me he wanted one for his birthday. They were being advertised on TV a lot at that time.

That was before either of us had a skateboard. I was a bit skeptical and suggested I buy him a skateboard instead. As it turned out his mother bought him a Ripstick and I bought myself a skateboard.

Then he wanted to ride my skateboard, so I bought another skateboard so he could ride one too. The Ripstick was forgotten.

As I started to learn to skate, I noticed that some skaters were a bit hostile towards ripstick riders.

Then one day at the skatepark we saw some kids who could actually kind of ride their ripsticks. It did look a bit fun.

Then, a few weeks later, I had a go and to my absolute amazement, I could do it. Unfortunately I hurt my back and couldn't move for about a week.

Then, on youtube, I saw a 'how to drop in on a ripstick' thing and yes, this kid was dropping in - to everything - on a ripstick.

So what now? Well tomorrow is old man's day at Five Dock - I'll be there. So will my boy - I might just borrow his ripstick and have a go at dropping in on it.... should cause a few laughs.

that doesn't look high

No that doesn't look high. From the carpark, anyway.

It doesn't look high when you walk up to it, either.

It really doesn't look high when some kid leaps head first off it on one of those scooter things.

So how come, when you walk up, stand on the edge with your board sticking over, all of a sudden, it looks really, really high. And steep too.

Still, what's the worst that can happen?

Oh yeah, you land on your arse/head/hip/knee/elbow etc and it hurts like hell for weeks afterwards. If you don't break something, that is.

There's always youtube for motivation. Like someone going down a ramp the size of a small mountain and not making it. If they can smash themselves to bits, so can I. Yeah.

Today, Sunday, its raining, too bad - would have gone to Five Dock - Sunday morning is old man's day.

old v new

Where I skate, in parks, things are a little weird.

I go to this place where there are old guys. They come out on Sundays to the skatepark and carve. There's not too many kickflips going on, but they can skate pretty good. Not that I would really know, but they look pretty good to me.

The younger guys are even pretty nice, mostly. The worst things get is that they ignore me, which is ok.

Mostly people are pretty friendly, to me at least. I'm old, big and can't really skate. There's nothing like a big guy falling hard. You can feel it in the guts just watching. I fall a lot.

For me skating is about facing your fears. Its about doing things that are probably going to end up in pain of some kind but doing it anyway.

Of course some guys don't fall at all, but I personally don't rate that.

I'm still learning to drop in without killing myself. I can do it pretty good on a mini ramp, but the bigger ramps are still a big challenge. I dropped into the bowl at Maroubra (the little part) easily enough. Now I want to go back and try and carve around the big bowl (there's a little bowl attached to a bigger bowl).

Yeah, I'll probably fall. So?