Episode: 3381
Title: HPR3381: Learning to skate
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3381/hpr3381.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-24 22:26:27

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3381, for Monday the 19th of July 2021.
Today's show is entitled, Learning to Skate.
It is hosted by Clot 2 and is about 36 minutes long and carries a clean flag.
The summary is, Clot 2 goes for a walk and talks about learning to ride a skateboard.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by archive.org.
Support universal access to all knowledge by heading over to archive.org forward slash donate.
Okay, this is a new series, I guess, of Hacker Public Radio chats while I'm out on a walk.
I've, uh, it's come to my attention personally that I sit around at my home a lot
and I don't get a whole lot of exercise so I decided to start taking some of my regular walks
and I figured what better way to pass that time than to do a Hacker Public Radio episode.
So this is going to be unedited, it's going to be off the top of my head
and it's going to last exactly the duration of whatever my walk lasts for.
So in this episode I figured I'd talk about my new hobby of skateboarding.
Yes, I decided to learn how to skateboard as an adult, which is a bold move actually.
I didn't really give it, I guess I gave it some thought.
I knew I was, I was aware that that was not necessarily everyone's
uh way of getting introduced to skateboarding. So, you know, I knew a lot of people in school
as a kid who skateboarded, they were always, uh, roughly within my realm of people I could speak to
and I've always wanted to do it, but I never had a chance as a kid, never had a skateboard.
I think I might have had like a cheap skateboard from like Walmart or something,
but I never knew how to write it and it wasn't, it really wasn't built to actually function.
I don't think it was built to look like a skateboard vaguely and that was it.
I remember being at a playground once as a kid and I was trying to ride the skateboard and some
very kind other kid was trying to give me tips on how to do it and at one point I must have
fallen off or stumbled off of the board and he came over to me and he was like you should just
try to figure out how to write it before you try to do any tricks and I was kind of embarrassed
because I wasn't trying to do a trick. I was literally trying to learn how to skate to stay on the
board and I must have, I must have looked like I was doing something very complex and that's
appropriate because as it turns out, actually maybe I'll go this way, that's appropriate because
as it turns out that was largely my experience now. So the reason I'm getting
in-discayed boarding I guess, I mean decide from just wanting to get some more exercise in my life
is that I had, I moved into a small town here in New Zealand on the South Island of New Zealand
and across the street from the house where I live, the local kids that this local school
had raised funds like you know $20,000 or something to build a skate park because there's
really nothing to do in this town like if you're a kid especially there's just nowhere to go
there's not like a youth center or a game store or even a shopping mall you know like there's
just nothing so they raised money for a skateboard as a skate park right across the street from
my house and that's it seems like such a such an unusual bonus you know you move into a place
and you essentially get a free skate park in your front yard or across the street from your front
yard so I didn't want to squander that I just thought well you don't get that every day
and even if you were looking for it you know it'd be tough to find that so just got it for free
so I figured okay once the skate park is built I'm gonna buy a skateboard and I'm gonna take it on
I'm gonna try to figure out how to skate so skate park was built in gosh it only seems like it
must have taken like maybe I mean honestly it seems like it was like two weeks it was probably a
little bit more but it didn't take long at all and so I thought okay now's the time so I went
online did some research I don't know I mean I wouldn't have been able to do this without
internet honestly like I'm not the kind of person unfortunately who will seek out real life people
and ask for advice necessarily unless it kind of falls into my lap so I uh I went online did some
research learned that the ideal width of the deck which if you're not a skater like I am you might
not know the deck is the uh is the board that's the part you stand on they call it the deck
below the deck there are trucks which are kind of like the the axles the part that the wheels
attach to and then there are the wheels you can buy all of these parts separately which is good
because if you break you know your deck but your trucks and wheels are still good
you can just transfer them to a new deck but um I just figured since I didn't really have a preference
of brand or or style or anything that it seemed uh reasonable to just get a pre-built
board and anyway I went to the clearance section of empire skate uh in Wellington and
order to pre-built pre-assembled uh skateboard with the um I don't remember the brand I think it's
blind anyway it says blind on the bottom of the board which because I have really bad eyesight
I thought was strangely appropriate but it was on clearance so I got it really cheap it was like
a hundred bucks which of course I say really cheap that's not necessarily really cheap
but um it's it's affordable right now for me so I figured it was worth it it took me a while to
commit um because I thought well hundred bucks for a thing that I might never use does seem a
little bit excessive but I thought well you know what you got to get it to try it so I might as well
buy it and if I hate it or I realize that this was all uh a dream uh an impossible dream I could
just give it away to some neighborhood kid just be like here it looks like you need a skateboard
here's a skateboard like there are worse things you know like not a big deal right hundred bucks
if someone else benefits from it even better so buy a skateboard get the skateboard start practicing
in the safety of my own home I just kind of practiced standing on the deck you know like getting
onto the skateboard literally and just kind of like discovering whether or not I could even balance on
it and that didn't take too long I was actually better at that than I kind of thought I mean on
one hand I kind of thought I might be because like when I ride buses and subways I very frequently make
a conscious effort to not hold onto the rails or the the hand holds because I just like the idea
that uh that is good like balance practice not for any reason I just feel like that might be a
fun thing to to work out so I've done that for years I guess but I mean I understand that that's
different than being on a skateboard so I wasn't sure but it went well um those couple of initial
lessons were good they were fine I balanced all right wasn't perfect um but pretty good
I tried a couple of things I tried hopping on to the board from the ground like just both feet
on which is not the normal way to mount a skateboard I don't think but I just figured that might be
good for practice just you just sort of go from no balance to complete balance and then I heard
about online again I heard about um an exercise where you stand on the board with just on your one
one foot and just try to stay there for like a minute which is a lot harder than you'd think
because especially once you once you establish okay yes I can balance on the skateboard so just
standing on one leg balancing shouldn't be any different really you wouldn't think
but no it's different so I did that I don't even I ever got up to him in it which is probably
something I need to continue working on um but yeah it was it was good I was actually a little bit
encouraged by my initial very hesitant to test so then I decided to go to the skate park and
um so one morning when all the kids were in school not that the skateboard park not the skate
park is on school property or anything I just figured it would be a lot easier for me to
fumble around without a bunch of people zooming around me on bicycles and scooters so went out
there to the skate park um one morning and gave it a go um and my initial trials were actually
again kind of better than expected I um I found a flat spot and I just started um I just
just started pushing myself around on the board so essentially get under the board with one foot
and then just almost walk in a in a line just kind of don't don't skate per se just just walk
from one end to the other except one foot happens to be rolling along on a skateboard that was
about as easy as you might expect uh it was about as easy as I expected anyway you know it kind of
gave you the sense that balance is different here but it wasn't so hard that you were like
you know that I didn't feel like I was in danger of falling off the board or anything like that
so did that a couple of times and I try to do I've been trying to do the different steps
for like longer than I think I ought to or or rather longer than I feel necessary so when I got
onto the board and could push myself around I did that more I did that longer than I kind of
felt like I needed to I just kept doing it to try to get comfortable with that sensation
but I got rather impatient with that because it is pretty boring and kind of not cool so I um
then started uh learning how to skate properly like actually propel myself forward
put both feet on the board and kind of ride uh from one end of the flat surface to the other
and when I say like one end to the other I mean it's really probably only about I don't know
six meters 24 feet whatever um it's not very long so uh that's just the smoothest surface
that I kind of have available to me although as I'm walking right now I'm realizing that this
this sidewalk is actually quite quite flat there's a lot of rocks on it I don't know if that
makes a difference but anyway um so I was at the skate park doing that and once again I have to
say it went a little bit better than I'd expected I was able to propel myself get my both
feet onto the board and ride it and I had a little trouble at first sort of repositioning my
front foot I guess the rule of thumb is that you kind of lead on the skateboard the the one
that's kind of in the front is the foot that you it's it's your dominant foot right it's the one
that you if you're taking a um a precarious step you know over something slippery or or
you're climbing up the side of a hill that's the the foot that you're going to
place to kind of get your bearing and bear your weight and pull you up or whatever so that's for
me that's my right foot uh so the right foot it starts pointing in the same direction as the
board and then once you start propelling yourself you're supposed to kind of scooch your foot around
like turn it 90 degrees such that it is now um the sort of it's on the board um from from edge to
edge from short edge to short edge the deck that I got is I think 8.25 inches which from what I
understand is supposed to be easier to kind of balance on because you know there's more surface
area there and my shoe size is uh anywhere from like eight to nine US shoe size so 8.25 inches
I actually don't know how that translates to shoe size now that I think about it I kind of equated
eight point two five inches to shoe size like 8.5 nine whatever and kind of equated those two
things but now that I'm thinking about I'm not sure that that's even that might not even be the
case at all so um anyway I was able to to work on getting my foot kind of turned as I was rolling
it was a little bit tricky because you have to kind of coordinate okay well if you you pushed
with your left foot so now you're gliding as you take your left foot and put it onto the board
and so now your feet are kind of in a T position in in relation to one another and see if the
as you're gliding lift your right foot a little bit and turn it 90 degrees and then if you want
to push again of course you have to do the opposite you so foot goes back pointing in the direction
that you want to go and you're pushing off again so it is a bit tricky um and a lot of times especially
on a flat surface I found I found that it was a lot easier to just not reposition which I know
is not good because realistically I don't think that would be very you know that wouldn't be
that wouldn't last for a long time you want to you want to be able to um to turn that foot
in the correct direction so I did practice that quite a lot and by quite a lot I mean over the
course of several days I didn't graduate from that step for quite a few days well I tried though
so when I um when I tried to sort of go to the next level for myself um I thought well what
what what else can I do and the obvious thing was to try to um skate down a little tiny ramp
just a little one like really really gradual little incline I wasn't trying for anything fancy
I just thought that it might be nice to be able to I don't know skate somewhere other than that
flat that one little flat surface that they have you know for beginners at the skate park I just
thought well it'd be kind of nice to be able to you know roam around a little bit so pretty early
on well early on uh after a day or two of just practicing back and forth I decided to attempt
an incline a ramp and um did not go well I just had to stop in a store for a moment so
I cut the the recording um I said it wouldn't be edited I didn't mean it wouldn't be edited in the
in the device upon which I'm recording it um so decided to go down a ramp and um so I always
knew I figured that there was an expectation of falling off of the skateboard um that wasn't
something that I had any illusions about I knew that that would happen I don't think I realized
how difficult it was to fall correctly that's that's a really underrated skill I guess um or
something that you don't think to look for maybe when you're doing your searches online of how to
skateboard you don't think to search the part where it says how to fall off of a skateboard um and
even then I think I imagine that probably one of the the things that that would be geared toward
our people who are doing a little bit more than just trying to uh skate in a straight line um so
yeah I learned um after a couple of days of skating in in straight lines that um the littlest
tiniest incline I guess if you're just not used to it can be a really really difficult task
and so the first couple of times I fell um I well I stumbled I should say off of the skateboard
and you know concrete of the concrete of a skate park is a lot harder than I guess you might think
or maybe you would think that but anyway it's really difficult and falling is is oddly jarring
it was really surprising to me that sort of stumbling off of a rolling board could be
quite that jarring I mean I've been to like ice I've been ice skating maybe once I've been
skiing once and I know that I've fallen in both of those occasions and and it just it didn't
quite feel the way that this felt this this even though I was just sort of like stumbling off of
you know the board that's like maybe what two inches off the ground it just felt like such a
such a shock to the system it was really really surprising it honestly it actually felt like
crashing into a brick wall on a bicycle I don't know if you've ever done that I haven't
but I've crashed into a car on a bicycle a car that pulled out in front of me and I couldn't stop
in time so I collided with the side of a delivery van and you know it's just that sensation of
being in having momentum against something that is not going to budge in any way it's quite
it's quite the sensation and it kind of just reams through your whole body and that's what
what the skateboard felt like like just just stumbling off of it um you know not not not like falling
just not staying on to on on the board it was surprisingly difficult so
that taught me I guess I guess early ish that I needed to work on falling and that's it's difficult
to work on falling because in order to work on falling you have to I guess fall
because I mean you you can kind of I guess you could try to simulate it but I don't know that
is quite the same thing so that was that was tough and frankly after my first stumble I was
surprisingly reticent to do that again because it didn't feel great and I just couldn't seem to
bring myself to try to um repeat that experience but I knew that I had to repeat that experience
because I had to um I had to learn how to do it I had to learn how to stumble off of a moving board
so I kind of I don't know I tried a couple of things that didn't really work like I thought well
if I can't I can't bring myself to to repeat the action that caused me to fall then maybe I can learn
to like I get I can start low and then build my way up so I literally like basically
crouched on the board and rolled down the little ramp fell off and that was even worse like
that was that you don't have mobility if you're just in a fetal position on a skateboard
that's not a good idea so I fell off in that position once and I really didn't want to do that again
so I don't remember exactly like what I had to do to sort of get over it
but well yeah I guess I did I guess I do so eventually I thought okay so I need to go down this
ramp like this is this is now this is this is the battle now this is it this is the thing that I
have to get over in order to proceed really which I mean to be fair it's probably not like there's
probably other things I could have done but I just felt like the ramp was sort of the thing that
you know it was now personal so I decided to tackle that so I laid off for a couple of days
and so it did some research again don't know how anybody did this well no I know some people did
this they just asked their friends I don't know how introverts did this before the internet maybe
they didn't I don't know did some research took me took a while to find advice on something super
super basic like I feel like I'm probably in this is sort of the minority here in terms of like
having trouble with this because I just can't find all that much about going down a basic ramp
like that's really not it doesn't seem to be a popular tutorial out there it just and even the
ones that you do find preface it heavily with hey everybody know I know that this is a really
basic trick but you have to understand for beginners this isn't really complex and I'm just
thinking yes I know I've noticed I'm that beginner you don't have to apologize to me for
for teaching me this skill this is something that I'm here to learn please explain but yeah
everyone was very careful to like sort of ward off people who were gonna comment that it was
stupid and too too easy and stuff like that is like look just mark this a beginner tutorial and be
done with it because this is not simple to me right now I I wanted to be simple at some point I
want to be the one want to be someone who's looking at it thinking who doesn't know how to do that
but right now for me definitely not there so I found the tutorial online and it kind of set me
straight or rather got me out of my my straight positioning because what I was doing I realized
was that when I was on the skateboard I had my feet turned in the correct position but my shoulders
were perpendicular to the board I was turning my upper body towards where I was going which I mean
honestly is pretty natural like if you know you've got this board your feet fit on it in a certain
position but your body is still moving forward so it's I think it's kind of natural for your
body to just turn in that direction and that's what I've been doing completely unconsciously
but the video pointed out very explicitly that that's not what you're supposed to do
and that you have to keep your shoulders in line with the board so you know you're on the board
moving north but you're facing either west or east you're allowed to turn your head to look north
but your body like the your your your body should not be twisted it should be straight apparently
facing you know either west or or east or you know assuming that you're going north or south I guess
it doesn't matter but you're in line with the skateboard and when you go down well in general
you're supposed to keep your knees a little bit bent apparently I mean I'm going off of what I've
heard on the internet and what has been working for me and that's that's it but yeah so I tried
to go down a ramp again with this new information about the correct stance and a couple of tries
took a couple of tries and interestingly the couple of tries did not entail me trying and failing
it entailed me going getting right up to the edge of the ramp and then I start going down and
then I chicken out and and step off the board which by the way was a great way to teach myself how
to fall after all or not fall but stumble off the board after all so that was kind of nice
but it took me a while it was really really weird it was like this battle of will really because my
body just didn't want to let me go down the stupid little ramp and again I want to emphasize
this is a really gradual incline like I don't know maybe I don't think it was even a 45 degree
incline maybe it is but it's really small you know like if if I lay my board against the ramp
I think my board is longer than the ramp possibly like it's just not a big ramp and that's
why I chose it I thought that's not even a ramp I'll just go down that little incline and that
way I have this much space to skate on instead of that little space over there so it was really not
even about the ramp originally and and now it was all about the ramp and so yeah I kept I would
I would back up I'd start skating towards the ramp I get into position in the knees spread the
arms out for balance try to dip into the ramp essentially and then dip back out but my body just
wouldn't let it happen and finally earlier today I managed to go down the ramp without falling
off of my board and it was a great feeling like really really good feeling it was that it was
exactly the feeling that you think you want from it you know from from an activity like this
like if you if you were to ask yourself why would I want to skateboard that could be a possible
answer is you might want to skateboard because after trying something several times and feeling
like you're never going to get it and then suddenly getting it that's a real rush and it's just
so satisfying and so so nice and frankly for physical activity it's something that I very very
rarely experience usually my physical endeavors are clumsy and that it's usually a competitive
well it's not usually a competitive sport but historically you know traditionally it would be
some kind of competitive thing where you're being coerced into playing on some team against another
team of people and you can't really see what's going on and you're stumbling around and you don't
know the game and everyone's running at you threatening to hit you or something it's just like I don't
know sports not fun right so skateboarding to me I think part of the reason that it appeals to me
is because potentially it is just kind of a solo endeavor of just kind of you can be out there on
a surface maybe even inclined somewhat and you can try to master something you can try to try to
try to perfect your balance try to perfect your stance whatever until until you get it right and
when you get it right feels really really good so after after doing the ramp once like I said
earlier I just kept going because I figured I need to do this more times than I feel necessary I
definitely wanted to quit at that point like I just kind of wanted to say okay well that was my day
that was the day of skateboard practice because it just felt really good to have gotten it to beat the
ramp but I figured gotta do it again so I did it a couple of times further and then I got kind of
ambitious and I thought well you know after that little ramp if I keep writing for a little bit
there's a slightly bigger ramp and I wonder if I could if I could go down that second ramp and so
I started trying that and the first time I stumbled off the board a little bit and the second time
I got it I got it I got it I got I got down the small ramp and then down the big ramp and it
was really exciting it felt so so fun and it was just these are like really small ramps here's
the funny thing but I was able to stay on the board throughout two ramps consecutive two consecutive
ramps tried to go up the ramp on the other side and that did not work out so my next my next
um my next trick will be how to go up a ramp but for now I'm just going to keep practicing going
down the ramp and I think I'll just do that for the next couple of days and see see how long it
takes me to sort of like really get that down really make it feel natural and hopefully that'll go
well um in terms of investment I guess like I said there's a hundred bucks for the board I think
there was a no I think actually orders over a hundred I think got free shipping um or maybe I had
to pay like five bucks I don't remember but yeah it was it wasn't bad it was about a hundred
bucks for the board and I still haven't gotten anything else eventually I'm gonna get like a helmet
and knee pads and elbow pads because I mean not not now but eventually because I do want to try
you know something more fun than just going down ramps but should that ever
eventuate I want to make sure that I don't crack my skull open um or my elbows or my knees for that
matter and then I still haven't gotten really good shoes either and in the past I've worn skating
shoes just casually like that was a thing that I opted for sometimes because you know whatever
um this time I just thought well I don't want to spend too much money on this hobby that I'm
not sure is a hobby for keeps yet I mean I'm still not sure how long I'll do this but
I just figure I figured today that maybe I should try so I scrounged up some um some shoes
some skating shoes and tried them out because I'd been previously I had been skating in my boots
I got really good steel tip boots that have no grip on them whatsoever and I thought well that
doesn't matter because after all um the skateboard has a bunch of grip tape on it so why why is it
even matter if my shoes are grippy uh I I'm theorizing after today that maybe it matters because not
possibly not coincidentally today is the day that I did the ramp and today is also the first day
that I wore proper skater shoes so maybe some skater shoes are in my future here in New Zealand I think
they tend to be about I don't know 120 140 bucks so that's going to be a little bit pricey so
grand total so far you know after the shoes it'll be like I don't know 250 bucks so I don't know how
cheap that is unfortunately I think it could be cheaper but um I'm in a place right now where I can
I can afford a little bit of of luxury like that so I will I will probably invest in good shoes
into the story for today I'm back home so thanks uh for listening to this episode of Hacker Public
Radio you should uh do an episode yourself sometime tell us about your hobbies bye
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