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From page 6 I think Bucky is going to
rage. Danny will rage if he can get
some order to his skating in con-
tests, because he goes so far he
Thanks to?
My parents, my whole family, my
fiance Cindy, Stacy Peralta, George
Powell, the Animal Chin Brigade.
the skaters.
seems to forget the basics some HOSOI
times. I watch him skate and he's
doing the gnarliest stuff, but he isn't
bothering to try the mellow stuff.
But, I respect that. Other than that, I
like the way Todd Congeliere
skates. I see a lot of Chris (Miller) in
Buster. I like skating with Chris, too.
Chris shows you how fast you can
really go, staying in control. As far
as street, some of the skaters who
are doing the most outrageous
tricks are starting to skate the same
style. But I do like the way a lot of
them skate. I think that Omar is
going to be one of the most con-
sistent guys, because of his style.
Alan Peterson was a surprise,
because I used to skate with Alan
when I'd go visit Cindy in Fresno,
and I hadn't seen him in a long
time, and then he shows up in S.F.
What has it taken to keep you on
top of it for this long, and what
will it take for all these new guys?
Adaptability. To adapt to all of the
changes in skating and terrain, to
be open to anything and try it all.
Don't get stuck doing the same old
stuff. Try everything even if you
don't think you can do it.
Do kids have a tendency to try to
learn too fast?
A lot of them do, but they just
realize what they can do. You can
see what progression skating will
take when you learn by seeing how
people have done it. If you look at
videos four years ago and watch
the things people are doing there,
you can see the progression
throughout all the stages.
Looking back at the last ten
years, what would you say are
some of the best things about
skateboarding?
I'd say all of the travelling we did
and all of the fun places we've skat
ed. Watching how skateboarding
has become popular and seeing it
grow as we did, because we were
there in the early stages when there
was pretty much nothing. To watch
it grow and then become accepted.
more or less, into something that's
going to stick was really good to
OF CALIFORNIA E
DISTRIBUTES
Avalanche
How about skating in the 90s?
I think you're going to see a lot of
evolution from street skaters going
to vert or vert skaters going toward
mini-ramps and street, because a
lot of them are probably going to
get bored of what they're doing. I
SNOWBOARDS can see how at first it will be intimi-
dating to try out a whole new style
of skating, but I think in the long run
they're going to realize that it's
going to be good to do everything.
415-883-9220
(From page 68) skaters yet. There are
some amateurs who are pretty
good, but not in the category yet.
What's it going to take for those
guys to push it up over the hill?
It's more of a concentration game.
You can't just power through things.
You've got to concentrate on your
overall surroundings, which is not
just skateboarding and not just
doing a certain thing, you've got to
do everything. In your life, as a per-
son, you've got to be humble to be
a top skater. You can't just be flam-
boyant and crazy and out of control
because you're not going to last
long. If you want to last long and
progress rapidly, you can't just
throw it down, you've got to con-
centrate and put it together as a
puzzle.
What music have you been lis-
tening to lately?
I've been listening to a lot of
blues, Elmore James, Maxi Priest,
some reggae. My friends do a lot of
DJing so they make me up compi
lation tapes. A lot of rock and roll,
some Aerosmith, Zeppelin, of
course Bob Marley.
What about skating in the 90s?
Things have changed a lot in the
past year with me having a ramp. I
didn't think they would change this
fast. I just hope that there is a place
for future skaters to skate, say
skateparks and recreational parks
for street skaters, because they
don't need the supervision that ver-
tical skaters need. The more facili-
ties there are, the more skaters
we're going to have, and the more
the magazine projects that type of
future, the bigger the skateboarding
population is going to be and the
more fun it's going to get, the more
creative, the farther we'll reach.
Facilities can change, we can learn
a lot of new things from a lot of new
minds, instead of just the few that
we have. I think the magazines have
a real big push on what the kids
think. They can't push themselves
unless they're pushed by some-
thing. When I was a little kid, I want
ed to be a professional skater, and
nothing was going to change my
mind, and all I did was skateboard.
Today it's not like that; kids don't
have that opportunity. That's not
how it should be. It should be pro-
gressing, and we should be doing it
for the future, not just for today.
That's what I've been trying to pro-
ject all my years of being involved in
the business. Some of the top com-
panies out there are kind of keeping
it too underground, too low key for
the skaters to be able to evolve.
And I think they're trying to control
the kids. I think they should let them
go and let them flow and let them
express what they really have
inside, because they're just holding
them back. It's not good, and that's
why the skatepark skaters of yes-
terday are the top skaters of today.
Would you say that kids today
vibe each other more and show
too much of a competitive atti-
tude?
It might be more vicious now, but
that's what keeps it alive. You've
got to have that attitude, but you've
got to give them someplace to put
all that. They don't have anywhere
to put it but on the street corner at
some shopping mall that's got a
killer curb and a bench. They need
to take it into the skateboarding
area, which is a skatepark. If they
could express all those feelings on
their board, they'd be doing it. It's a
big step up when you skate with a
bunch of skaters. You're a beginner
with a bunch of advanced skaters,
which makes you advance twice as
fast, and that's the acceleration you
need, or else you'll get bored and
want to quit.
What would you say to kids try-
ing to learn big airs, ollies, and
new tricks too fast?
Well, that's the future. I do admit
that I learned frontside grinds and
tail taps, rock and rolls first, but
today the kid needs to learn a back-
side air and a fakie ollie, fastplant
and an airwalk-to-fakie first
because that's what excites him.
That's the future. Tricks are so
gnarly. The hard trick that he looks
at isn't an airwalk to fakie, it's like a
360° shove-it backside air. So the
difficulty when I was growing up
was to do a backside air or a chan-
nel air. So the difference is there,
and the kids need to try what they
want to have fun at the same time
as learning. Learning difficult tricks
first is okay if you wear your equip-
ment, because those tricks tend to
hurt you a lot easier than the other
ones. When I was growing up I
learned the easy ones first, because
once you learn how to fall then you
can learn a harder trick and you'll
be able to fall out of it, rather than
going up and learning a one-footed
air first and falling and breaking
your leg and not being able to skate
anymore.
In summary, looking back on ten
years, what do you think are
some of the best things about
skateboarding?
I'd like to say thanks to all the
magazines and Thrasher for being
behind the skateboarding ups and
downs, the ins and outs, the hard
and good times. I'd especially like
to thank pops and my mom, all the
skaters and kids out there, my
sponsors and my girlfriend
Louanna. But I've got to say to all
the skaters to be yourself, skate,
and if you want to become a pro-
fessional skater, you've got to prac-
tice. It's not all about image, it's not
all about who's the coolest any-
more. You just need to practice and
be cool to yourself. As long as you
stay out of trouble, you will
progress a lot faster, and you won't
have to worry about sponsorship if
you're skating because they will
come to you. You won't have to
think of who's your next sponsor
and hustle boards all the time. If
you concentrate that much on your
skating, then the sponsors will
come up to you and ask you. You
should be the one wondering who
you want to ride for, rather than
hunting one down. It makes you
look more like a confident skater.
SF CONTEST
(From page 8) channel in which he
hung up but hung on, nollie over
spine, a 360° ollie, an ollie-to-
frontside air, frontside disaster-to-
fakie. Natas may have missed a
couple of tricks, but he rode a com-
pletely different line than he quali-
fied with"
With the first stones cast it was
back to the top of the order. Noah
Salasnek added a 50-to-fakie and a
nollie-to-nose pivot on his second
run. George Watanabe hung a huge
ollie-to-tail grab out to dry over the
spine and feebled-to-fakie both
ways and to board slide. Alan
Petersen moved in on the top guns
with a fair-to-perfect run that dit-
toed his first run with an additional
fakie ollie-to-fakie over the spine.
Tom Knox cared less with a second
run hellbent full speed slide & roll,
bone air and ollie impossible over
the hip, and was even wearing
shorts while he did it. Barbee
stepped off a few tricks but contin-
ued to flash the big air moves. Tony
Hawk proved he could be just as
sketchy as anybody as he pulled
his bio moves with some of the
most hellbent recoveries ever
witnessed. He shut everybody
down with the ollie-to-tail-to-ollie
revert over the spine gap. Tommy
G. lost an ollie tail grab-to-revert
during an otherwise fabulous run.
Christian Hosoi pulled the most im-
pressive flip of the day while bailing
a large air-to-tail over the spine.
Omar continued to impress but lost
a little ground in the final tally. Natas
launched into a huge air over the
spine that he threw away and then
lost three or more maneuvers down
the stretch, but there's no doubt he
left a lasting impression on every
grom, mom and sweaty palm in the
audience.
As the awards were handed out in
a chaotic final rite, SF funksters the
Limbomaniacs cranked up the
tunes on the City Hall stage as the
crowd boogied off into the night.
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