During a visit to Hawaii Tommy continued to push his abilities on all
terrain, including this chain link fence. Photo: Kevin Thatcher
angled at the top, not a slope effect. I was
just thinking, if you go down the first part of
the hill and ollie up the curb, you could ollie
off the top of the hill and probably float about
twenty feet. It's sick and I want to do it, but
I figure when I land it'll be like, boom, a space
shuttle effect.
Do you think you'll regret some of those
injuries, slammage or anything like that.
Do you ever think about that aspect of
skateboarding.
Fully, by the time I'm forty I'll probably be
crippled. Damn jump ramps. Y'know, landing
as hard as you can. Your back, your neck
bones, your disks, your knees, your ankles,
everything-you can feel it.
It looks like you guys land so smooth. Do
you really feel it after a full day?
Fully. I try to land in a good crouch with my
knees bent as much as possible. If you don't
you're gonna land too stiff and get even more
messed up. I've been trying to stay away from
jump ramps as much as I can. I ride small
ones which are really fun. Those damn ones
that are like big dog house things...
Do you think that the ollie has revolution-
ized skating, in the street especially?
The ollie is ominous. In the street you've got
to know how to ollie. You're going down a hill,
you're cruising, there's a duck in your way
or something jumps out, or curbs, you're not
going to stop, pick your board up and walk.
You're just going to crack a rad ollie and
cruise along down the street. It's like
the best thing, the best feeling.
What is your approach to learning
average street tricks. How do you
think them out?
I was just skating yesterday and
Tommy fixes himself upon an
unconventional frontside
grind at S.F.'s Fort
Miley banks.
it's so rad when you learn the secret to
something. Because there's always a secret
to a trick. And you go and try something new,
right? You keep trying, you fail. You think
back to what you might have done wrong.
You leaned too much this way or you grabbed
late that way. What I'm into now is ollie tricks
and stuff. And I learned that you've got to
think what you did wrong. I did ollie to grab
or something like that and fell back. So I
realized that I tried to grab too early, so you
just wait a little longer and then it's right there.
It's really cool how you can figure things out.
A lot of people don't even think about it.
Micke Alba told me this once. "Visualize
yourself doing it. Close your eyes, do it in
your head and go from there." And it holds
true. You've got to really think to skate.
Sometimes your head is lost in a daze-you
know, "one of those days"-and you just
can't do anything. You're all groveling on the
ground like a napkin going "rqowlgrshp!"
Just think about how Rodney thinks and Neil
Blender, Jeff Phillips, Chris Miller and Tony
Hawk at that. How do they think? How does
Tony Hawk think? Frontside Gay twist...oh.
what's that, a bag of apples or something?
How do you know when to throw it away
and when to try and make it?
You can feel if it's right or not. Sometimes
you might go too high and then you get
swooped. Practice makes perfect, I guess.
How do you get so high off a jump ramp?
When do you grab? What do you do?
You've got to have the right amount of
speed. Now I do ollies into the grab.
The feeling is a lot better, and it's a
lot harder, which I don't think the
judges understand yet. You hit your
tail right at the top of the ramp, at the
very end, bring yourself above your
board, then when you level, you
grab. Then you try
to tweak. Frontside tweak, or method or
however you're doing it, mute. You can't try
to force it too much. If you do, you'll bail.
When you pop, you've got to let it float, take
it's course, do whatever you're going to do,
and when you let go, you've got to make sure
you've got enough speed. If you're going too
slow, it'll nose dive on you. Or, if you've got
too much speed, you'll fall backwards.
What do you think was the key. When did
you first do ollies on vertical?
The first time I started doing them to where
they helped me off jump ramps was in front
of my house. There was this little dip thing
and I noticed one day that you could do really
high ollies off of inclines, driveways and stuff.
Also, when we went to Hawaii, I noticed you
could ollie like that off jump ramps. No one
I had ever seen did them at all.
What is it, front foot manipulation?
Yeah, and bringing yourself up with your
board. Instead of just ollieing forward you've
got to jump upward and let it flow. It's kinda
scary to learn at first.
What about flatland? It went from a small
ollie to a giant ollie?
It's when you go to put weight on your tail
to get the pop so your back truck doesn't gel
out. If it does it just goes, "Bleh" and mushes
and you can't get good leverage. You need
a good solid pop, really quick and front foot
movement. Moving up to the nose, bringing
your board up. There's a lot of timing
involved. Practice.
No matter how much you study a guy like
Natas, it's not going to do you much good,
is it?
Nah, it'll do a little but not enough. You've
got to just practice.
Did you notice guys like Natas and watch
their skating.
Yeah, I've seen guys here and there. I first
met the Gonz a real long
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