Blackhart
ONLY ONE
Ask the Doctor
Help me! I think I'm the only one that
skates in South San Francisco. I also feel
like I'm the only girl that skates! Everyone
here is into heavy metal and drugs and
that's it. Everyone looks at me quite weird
when they see me skating but I don't care.
I'm also the only one that listens to punk
rock. I got an 80 dollar skateboard and I
don't know any tricks but other wise I'm
pretty good on my board. I see all these pic-
tures of guys in "Thrasher" doing tricks in
pools with their feet in the air and one hand
on the board and the other in the air! How
do they do it in the first place! How can I
learn some of these tricks too?
P.S. I thought you're supposed to skater
with your feet on your board and not in the
air but, I guess I was wrong!
B.I.
South San Francisco, CA
First off, any new trick, move, or man-
euver, as I like to call them, that you pull
off for the first time probably came with
many falls. In other words you're gonna
beef alot. Or at least a couple of times,
so the best thing to do would be learn-
ing how to fall. If you know how to fall
then new moves become easier to deal
with. What you need is mucho practice
and a desire to put it on the line. De-
pending on severity of move of course. I
assume we're talking about pools and
other such vertical terrain. When you
get into above coping foot off board.
type tricks yer talking many bails in-
volved first. I'd get your regular
frontside and backside air extremely
wired first and then if you feel you really
have to, go ahead and start flailing
handplants, air walks and such. The
main thing is to learn how to handle the
board first. Foot placement and weight
distribution are important factors in be-
coming comfortable with skating.
Here's a basic rundown of your usual
skate evolution. First, kickturn, then
you get a wheeler, then you grind, then
you edge out, then you get air. Now do
all these both front and back. Every-
thing else is mainly a variation or
spinoff of these lip and air manuevers.
From here on out,you're free to boldly go
where no one person has gone before.
KNEEIGHTMARES
Howdy. What shakes? I'm writing in to
stress a fact that you've stressed, that just
can't be stressed enough, dig? Point is; the
serious ness of knee injury and the impor
tance of giving yourself enough healing
time. Just about two years ago (March) 1
seriously beefed my left knee. We're not
talking twists and sprains, we're talking
shattered the joint, tearing muscles, ten-
dons, nerves, and ligaments, including ac-
tual severing of the anterior cruciate liga-
ment, which is the ligament responsible for
bending the knee, and destroying cartilage.
Four days later, it was under the knife for 8
hours of extensive rebuilding. If that
sounds beat, try going through the year of
therapy rehabilitation four days a week.
Needless to say, being on crutches for a
year allows for not too much skating. Since
I was 18 at this time, & had skated for 5
years before, my biggest desire was to
skate again. That seemed so far out of
reach when the doctors told me I'd be lucky
to regain full mobility in my knee. Though it
was hard to do, the only solution was to be
patient. After about 7 months in a cast, I got
my knee brace. Once I worked on my knee
to achieve 15 degree extension, I carefully
started to roll around on my board. Eventu-
ally, I re-learned kick turns on banks. Then
slides. Then, this past summer, I carefully
reacquainted myself with vert.
I still must wear the brace when I skate,
and I still have to be extra careful, or as I put
it, pussy-skate. But which is better, pussy
skating or never walking again? I can't
even begin to express the feeling I get
when I check the fotos in the mags, or
watch the videos, and realize what I once
was able to do, I may never do again. But,
because I'm willing to give myself time to
heal, and because I'm not rushing back to
my old repertoire of tricks, I feel that with
time I will be pulling air off the vert, etc. It's
so hard to be patient with serious injuries
when you can't stop thinking about skating
But you'd better be, cos with time and
work, it will come back. If this will convince
just one person to be wise during their heal-
ing process, then...well, that's about all I
can offer...LET YOUR INJURIES HEAL
NOW, OR PAY HEAVILY LATER
Skate Safe AND Destroy
Mark Rubenstein
Providence, RI
Get down and get back up again
dude,you said it, and obviously felt it.
Too bad you had to go as far surgery.
Luckily, my knee has worked in rather
nicely and we've been ripping pools.
weekly. Maybe this will help all those
with the "never happened to me so buzz
off about your knee" type attitudes wise
up. No injury resulting from skating
should be taken lightly. Remember,
where bodily damage is concerned:
"When in doubt have your physician
check it out."
KNEED FLAT BOTTOM
Please answer these questions if you
can. If you can't, give em to Doc Blackhart
1) How do you get speed to reach the
coping of a halfpipe with a long flat bottom
like Kona? Do you have to roll it, or is it the
old kneework, which I think is useless be
cause you will lose speed during the flat
bottom. I'm really interested, because here
in Austria, no one ever rode in a flat bottom
ramp which I think is definitely better. Here.
we only have an excellent, thrashed quar-
terpipe which we shred daily. We also have
a halfpipe with no flat bottom, which is re-
ally slippery and about 5m, about 17 feet,
high. It really sucks!!!! Well, we got one
quarter pipe which is definitely good, and
we skate punx are happy with it.
2)Could you tell me how high these
ramps are??? (feet or metres)
a) Eagle Rock Ramp
b) Kona
c) Mile High Ramp
d) Scott's Valley Ramp
e) Palmdale Ramp
How many feet or inches vertical?
3) Could you please tell me how tall (feet.
inches or metres!) these guys are: Neil
Blender, Gator Rogowski, Duane Peters.
Steve Caballero, Tony Hawk.
Thanx a lot for everything
Bobby "Swivel-neck Neurotic
Vienna, Austria
The first question you've already
answered. Roll in or kneework? Why not
both. Either way the end result is getting
to the top right. Simply a matter of per-
sonal choice. Maybe it depends on
whether it's the beginning or end of a
session. When you start skating you
might want to use kneework by gyrating
to get speed. After you've warmed up
the lesser effort roll-in or tail drop could
be better. You make the choice. As far as
flat bottom goes, unless you have
something like a full pipe where you can
get inverted or upside down I think it
(flat bottom) should be mandatory. Flat
on a ramp or in a pool actually gives you
more speed and also allows more time
to set up for the wall.
Next question. All of the ramps you
mention are of the 9-10 foot tall range.
This allows for a 8-9 foot radius tranny
with 1-1% feet of pure vert. Some skat
ers are now opting for the larger transi-
tions which will push a ramp into the 12
foot high wall category if you want the
vertical rush. Some ramps have it, some
don't.
Lastly. Well, let's see Neil is the big
guy. Gator is your average rat, Duane
hasn't been standing up straight lately.
Stevie is kinda small and Tony is bony.
but bio. And, there you go.
SE
KEN PARK
ENERGY
BOB SCHMELZER
STEVE DOUGLAS
madrid
P.O. Box 2845 Santa Fe Springs, CA 90670 (213) 921-0133
SKATEBOARDS