A short line I filmed for a little online video sharing thing that Waltz skateboards is doing – any combination of a couple of heel-side end-overs, a couple of monster walks, and a rolling forward 360 spin. I went into it with a walk-around and then a little end-over/360 spin combo. Board is my 8.8 Cockfight blunt-pops shape, Ace 55s, 92a 54mm OJs.

A line I’ve been working on. Yes, I’m fat.

My friend Dale found this little bank a few years back. We call it the Buda Bank, as it is near some sorta Buddhist establishment. It is just the kind of crusty little spot I love. We moved that parking block into place. We can came back a year later and it was still there. I mean, who but skateboarders would move a parking block.

I want to shoot some footage here this year for the Neverwas 8 video.

Backside 180 slide to Fakie 720. I love this kind of skating.

Proof that I skated yesterday.

Over the last 4 years my freestyle skateboarding has been done mostly on big boards, and concentrated on spins, footwork, wheelies, and carving. I know a lot of people might not consider it freestyle, to which I can only reply that I don’t really care. It’s what has been interesting to me.

Tonight I was looking through my Vimeo library just to get ideas of things I want to work on. I’ve come up with so many ideas the last 4 years that it’s easy to forget what I’ve worked on. So having videos of sessions is really helpful.

This line was done in an 8.8" wide blunt-ended pops deck, Ace 55s, and 54mm Bones STF. I was just flowing around. I filmed this right at the start of the pandemic - early 2020. Looking at it now, I see a lot of great possibilities for blending other footwork and sequences into this - stuff I came up with later in the pandemic.

I got some skating in today.

Finally got out to skate this afternoon.

Not gonna lie. It was rough. I’m in horrible condition. It was still hot - about 90 F - but was manageable. Felt GREAT to be back on the board. I could feel the depression melting away.

Back on the board from Bob Loftin on Vimeo.

I have posted this video before, but today I am posting it again to talk about something else.

I was talking to my friends Lew and Luke today and for some reason this video came to mind. Actually, I know why. As I have been complaining about, the heat right now is such that I can’t really skate safely. It is just too hot. So I’ve been watching this video over and over, not because I am just in love with my skating, but because it was a perfect Fall day.

As I chatted with Lew and Luke a few things occurred to me. First, the absolute serenity that spot has afforded me. The day I filmed that my wife had been diagnosed with cancer and we were in the pandemic. A lot of people had already died.

Why is this big flat expanse so compelling to me? Most skaters would be bored. At most they might skate there for 30 minutes, not the hours I spend there. I get bored at multimillion dollar skateparks. I really do. This simple expanse activates me with possibilities.

It’s also a place no one but me really cares about. People park their cars there during their workday. They have no idea. To them it is nothing. After 5pm and on the weekends it is empty. It is all mine. The cops drive by and say nothing to me, even though it is the parking lot of City Hall. I stay well away from the building. It is just concrete. What can I really hurt (other than myself)? Besides lacking any real obstacles except some rough curbs, the concrete isn’t even that smooth. All the better. It’s real, and there is nothing likely to draw other skateboarders and ruin my tranquility.

If the rest of my skateboarding life is just this…I’m fine with that. 🛹

My skating has been non-existent for several months for many reason, chief among them the heat. As I approach 60 years of age I am just not willing to go skate when the temperature is still way about 90 degrees F. Anyway, I’ve been watching videos from previous sessions to prevent myself from sinking into a despondent quagmire.

Sometimes on a skateboard I manage to get it right. I’m always happy when I get it on video, because then I can go back years later and feel good about myself! Seriously, I’ve been looking through my vimeo account again and I liked this one.

I want to get back to this sequence and really get it perfect. It is quite fun to do.

My wife posted this article. I thought it was insightful. Maybe this link will work?

Anyway, below is my accomplishment. This is mostly what I’ve done with my life, at the demand of no one. I am good with it. It has been a good way to spend my life.

Related to the previous podcast post…

Lew and Luke continue mentioning the Small Arts on their podcast. I am glad the idea has resonated with them, Chris Battle, Brian Neverwas, and a few others.

When Dale and came up with the term we were really referring to the kind of skating we enjoy doing. As I’ve said - Skateboarding at the Human Scale. It’s the kind of thing I think most skaters actually do once they are finished with the initial fasciation with destroying themselves doing giant stuff. He and I are so content with a small banked wall, a ditch, a curb, flat, or some other odd found-place, like a pseudo-bank that leads up a door or something.

In the years since we thought of this term while driving around talking I’ve dived deeper into it as I’ve spent an absurd amount of time thinking excessively about skateboarding. Noticing the little things I do when I skate, and I think gaining more appreciation of the little things other skaters do, that I think make one’s skateboarding a little bit better.

One of the things that I think goes unnoticed is how adept an experienced skater is with moving their feet around the board without thought. So here is an example I mentioned in the podcast. I call this move End-Walkies. They are walk-the-dogs mixed with end-overs, so as you do the walk-the-dog, you move your foot into position for the end-over DURING the pivot. And then you move your foot back into position for another walk-the-dog.

So here is the kind of thing I’m working on – the details.

This move is pretty simple. A backside 180 slide into a 720 spin, into two end-overs.

Here’s the thing that I’m working to get better. The idea is do use this to reverse the direction of travel. In this case, I’m moving away from the camera, and I want end up coming back to it. The two end-overs at the end of the sequence are critical, because they generate speed to return the way I came.

The problem? I tend to over-rotate the 720 spin. I should finish it pointed right back at the camera. That way I would be doing a FULL 180 end-over off the nose into a second end-over, which would generate a lot of speed and flow. By over-rotating the 720, I reduce the degrees of pivot in that first end-over, thereby reducing the speed generated.

Yes, I’m out of practice. My goal with all this, as with all my moves, is for this to be one continuous flowing motion that keeps speed throughout.

Video is really a helpful tool.

Well, it is Februrary, the weather was nice this weekend, and today I got out to skate. It has been months since I really had a good session. I’m fat and my legs feel like noodles. Well, a little rolling around helped. My legs will feel strong soon. As for being fat, I’ll be honest. I don’t really give a fuck anymore, beyond the effect being a little fat has on my skating (it doesn’t help). Anyway, it was nice to get out and skate. I rode for about an hour. Will try again next weekend, weather permitting.

This is all kinda the same thing over and over. Just getting the feel for this new board and trying to get my flow back. This is how i do it it.

Really feel like retiring, and then we move some place where the winters aren’t shitty in the winter, so I can enjoy skating all year. I don’t want to leave Dallas all the time - just the winter (and the summer, I guess, so that’s what? Half the time?)

Some line ideas I’ve been working on for a while. Looking forward to really making them nice this year. Connecting things together in one continous flowing movement is always my goal. Rather than 3 or 4 discrete tricks, I want to think of the whole sequence as one unified move.

Ideas from Bob Loftin on Vimeo.

Trying to remember…I don’t think I’ve posted this before. My birthday session from 2 years ago at Pandemic Parking Lot. Two hours of nice weather, my music, skateboarding, and solitude. Can’t wait to get back.

Well, my skateboarding drought, caused by winter bullshit rainy shitty weather, continues. I did get that new board that I ordered and I’m looking forward to setting it up, as well as writing some “My essential skate gear” posts like @theLoneSentry .

In the meantime, in addition to daydreaming about skating, I once again delved into my Vimeo account and found a clip I like. I think when I go to Tucson next month to be a judge in a freestyle contest I will dust this sequence off while I’m skating there. Really looking forward to that trip, but more on that later. Here’s the clip.

Years ago, before this hill was redeveloped into what appears to be a soviet-era apartment block, we skated here, Chris and I. This is a video we made. I miss this spot.

So, so fun. Of particular note is the Gravity Mini-Carve deck I’m riding in some of the shots. I still have it. It still rules.

Here is another clip from the early pandemic months, at the spot I came to call Pandemic Parking Lot. I spent a lot of this session working on a very odd series of manuvers, one that I need to get back to. There is a particular flow and motion that I’m trying to achieve, in which I roll in a circle while doing various spinning manuvers. I am better now, a couple of years later, so I think I can master the one part that was giving me a little trouble and make it really nice and unique. Unusual. Quite Unusual, as a matter of fact.

Flow is everything.

Also, I love this song. “Quite Unusual” by Front 242. Love it. Great song.

The November 2022 weather in North Texas continues to suck ass, so here’s another old clip.

I know I’ve posted this trick in another clip. Actually, it was this exact clip of it. But this is one I enlarged a bit. It is one of my favorite curb tricks. I like to really tweak the axle stall back behind me a lot. I came up with this independently when I was in college. Since then I’ve seen plenty more people to it. There are lots of ways to add to it. Rotate it into a Rock ‘n’ Roll, rotate it into a frontside RnR, shove-it out, fingerflip out. They all work, but really some are kind of overdoing it. Seriously, stalling it out and doing a fingerflip ends up just looking dumb.

Anyhoo, here it is.

This is a skate video I’ve been in love with for many years. The skater and creator is Jason Nardella. To my knowledge this is his only published work of skate filming and editing. He shot it on Super 8. It is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in skateboarding. When I see it I want to go skate.

Autumn in Flux - Super 8 Skateboard - Longboard film from Jason on Vimeo.

This video, uploaded by 1970s pro skateboarder Brian Beardsly of the California Freeformer team, is one of the videos from that era that blows me away.

The skater is Dennis Martinez, who was one of the great all-terrain rippers of the mid to late 1970s. This particular contest run at the Longbeach contest in 1977 was EXTREMELY progressive at the time. His run, as well as that of Doug “Pineapple” Saladino, were a look at where things were going in freestyle. Doug told me in a Facebook message that the floor was really slick. They both ruled. Dennis sadly developed a drug problem like so many people from those days and spent some time in prison, but has been clean for many years and seeks to help others.

The embedded video displays really small on this blog, so do full screen.

Another clip from the same session as before, back in 2015. Just a couple of tricks. As noted many times, for me street skating involves a lot of freestyle. I just tend to mix curbs and banks in with it, and ride a bigger board with looser trucks. I would call it “just skateboarding.”

This was a good setup. 8.25" Mode pops deck, Indy 136s, 1 thin riser under each truck (I think), and some 56mm OJ wheels. Those wheels had a wider contact patch than the wheels I use now, so the narrower trucks worked alright. I have to say that my spins are a lot faster on the narrower Indy 136 trucks then they are on 149s. There’s a reason high-number spinners use narrow trucks.

Well, still rainy and crappy in Dallas, and after work right now is all about our new puppy, so here is yet another old skate clip. This time from 2015. Damn, I have gained a lot of weight. Need to drop about 8-10 pounds for sure.

This is street skating to me. I love it so much. I just love skateboarding. Since I became a skater at age 11 I really haven’t cared the much about any else for the most part.