I’m not a skateboard guy, and I’ve never been a skateboard guy. I’ve always seen skateboarding as a series of bad equations:
Enormous amounts of time invested in learning and practice in exchange for the ability to ride on an inefficient means of transportation and perform a few dangerous, not-so-impressive tricks.
Hours of potential fun spent on concrete in exchange for the very real chance that you scrape, bruise, or break several parts of your body.
It just made no sense.
Then I saw my neighbor riding his skateboard to work one day, and I thought, “It still took hundreds of hours of practice to do that, and it’s still dangerous, but on a sunny day in May, not a bad way to get to work.”
Still not enough to make me want to ride a skateboard, but at least a slightly improved impression of the sport.
Then my daughter and I watched this skateboarding video, which is unlike anything I have ever seen. The combination of outstanding digital videography (which allows you to see these tricks in their true majesty), the latest skateboard technology, and this person’s mind-blowing skill on a board mesmerized us.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
I’ve never been a skateboard guy, and I’m still not a skateboard guy, but I’m a guy who apparently likes to watch people skateboard now.
Or at least this guy. I’ve watched the video three times already.
