Towards a Skate-Dad (Day 1)

So this Christmas, we bought our 10-year-old a skateboard.  As part of ensuring there is a bit of extra commitment, I’m joining them in learning to skate.  So let’s put it into context here…  43 years old, 225 lbs, mostly sedentary lifestyle tech geek…  so that probably paints the picture.

So why am I doing learning to skateboard?  The first part is to do the whole role model thing.  I have reasonably high expectations for my kids to be resilient through adversity, to put in the time to practice to get good at things.  If I expect them to get up after hitting the pavement, I can expect them to…  They are a hell of a lot less fragile than I am and should be able to get up and move after a fall that would wipe me out.  I’m also doing this as part of a general effort to get fit and ensure that can learn new physical skills.

What’s my end point?  Realistically, I currently have little interest in doing tricks, I’ll probably declare personal victory when I can push, tic-tac and pump on a half pipe and turn…  We’ll see how much further it goes from there.

This part of this blog will give periodic updates on my quest to get to the endpoint.   Today is day 1…  My kit is an 8.5″ board, 54mm wheels, from the local Skateworks shop.  I’m a bit of an analytical geek, so I’ll also be writing up some of my thoughts, most likely ill-founded, for others to pick on.

So Day 1…  Practicing pushing, very simple tic-tacs… Becoming kind of comfortable.  Of course, day 1 something has to happen.  If my memory serves me right, my front foot wasn’t in the right spot, I tried to do a push, and it all went downhill from there.  I ended up rolling my left ankle and landing on my right hip.  No bruising on the hip, but the ankle is now strapped.   We’ll see how the healing goes, but I’m eager to help the kids out on the park again before the new year break finishes.

Fortunately, or maybe not so, fortunately, it took a few hours before the pain from the rolled ankle to kick in, so I got about another hour of practice at the skatepark.