The 900

When I was younger, much younger, I was into the whole skating thing. That would be skakeboarding, for those that were wondering, not ice, roller or getting by at work without doing much of anything.

I had a Powell-Peralta Caballero street deck with Independent Trucks, Bones wheels and swiss bearings. We used to skate around town, on a big ol' ramp someone made in their back yard, at the huge drainage pipe at the lake and pretty much anywhere we could find concrete. I was sad to discover when I moved back to Tucson that the pool we had rode in here in an abandoned hotel downtown was now filled in.

The picture up top here is the Mini-logo deck I have now, with Indy trucks, bones wheels and mini logo bearings.

A huge moment in skateboarding came when Tony Hawk landed a 900. This is a 900 degree spin on a ramp that he had been working on for about 5 years and landed at the X Games in 1999. Several other dudes were working on this trick, but no-one had been able to land it yet. After he did it, others jumped in and were able to land it too.

In March of this year, 12 year old Tom Schaar was able to land the first 1080. That's 360 degrees times three spinning up in the air on a skateboard and landing it while still rolling.

Sometimes, we need someone else to show us that the impossible really can be possible. Then we can go on to meet the "impossible" standard and even exceed it.

Here is a pearl of wisdom from Tony Hawk about how he learned to land the 900 from a recent Catalyst conference:

Tony said he didn't learn to land it until he was able to shift his balance while he was spinning.
 I have found that I often need to change my balance in life, but I don't always get a time out to do it. Maybe I should learn to change that balance (focus, effort, etc.) while I am still spinning, moving and functioning.

Here is a picture of the deck I had. Not the exact one, but they are doing a reissue of it. Tempting.....

And here is a video of Tony hitting that historic 900.

http://youtu.be/e4QGnppJ-ys