In a situation where you have either borrowed or bought your very first skateboard, and now you are pondering on exactly what you should do with the skateboard, bearing in mind the fact that you have viewed all the skaters skating at the park or either on television and you know exactly what skating is supposed to look like, but you just keep asking yourself “how do I get started?”

Well, the very first thing you are going to do is go and purchase or borrow a pair of skate shoes. Even though it is possible to skate while in your regular shoes, it is going to be a whole lot harder and sometimes it can even be dangerous. Skate shoes are going to be created so that they have a flat, large bottom that will better grip the skateboard and often it is going to include some other features such as reinforcement within the areas where you have more than likely wore the shoe completely down. You may also invest in a helmet. Even though you see skaters all of the time skating without helmets, and the though of even wearing one makes you feel weird or stupid, you shouldn’t worry about it. It is very common now for all of the skateparks to require the use of a helmet.

Not to mention the fact that when you are first starting out, it is plain out smart. It may also be a very good idea to invest in some protective pads as well, but it generally depends on what it is you are planning to do. In the event that you are going to be doing tricks within your driveway, it may be a very good idea to wear elbow pads, but the only time that you are going to need knee pads is when you are going to be skating while on a ramp or when you are planning on participating in some very crazy tricks.

Even though wrist bands can be a very good idea as well, you should be very careful not to get used to catching yourself with your hands each time that you fall.

Getting Comfortable With Skateboarding

At this point and time, you know all of the basic essentials you need in order to safely skateboard, so it is time to begin learning exactly how to skate. First and foremost, before you start trying anything out of the ordinary, you need to make sure that you are going to be completely comfortable with your own skateboard. In a situation where you have borrowed it or you went out to a skateboard shop and purchases a totally complete skateboard that was already built, there may be a chance that there are some things about the board that you may find as being uncomfortable.

Take the time to set the board on the carpet within your study or in some grass and try just standing on it, then jump on it, and whatever else you may want to do. Then you should try to balance on the back or front wheels. Now, while standing precisely on the skateboard, you should move your feet on into completely different positions. Make sure that you get accustomed to the size and feel of your board and make sure that you are comfortable with standing on it.

This skateboard contest had three sections which are listed below. Section One, Section Two and Section Three.

Here is a picture of the winner Ronnie Creager

Section one featured a bump to box by the judges stand, a hip to blast from, Hubbas, and rails. The bump to flat bar saw the most action in this area—Chad Bartie heelflip front board, Reynolds kickflip front lip, Sheckler kickflip front board, Colt Cannon kickflip front board, and on and on.

Section two had some of the same stuff but with a couple Euro gaps, gap to Hubbas, a half of a square bowl complete with a deathbox and a long pyramid—most had trouble finding the speed just to clear the top with an ollie. Bastien kickflip backside 180ed it, Andrew Reynolds frontside 180 kickflipped it, Tosh Townend kickflipped it, and Ronnie Creager floated massive switch ollies over the top.

Section three could easily be called the “Crowd Pleaser” section because of the snowboard kicker that flowed to a massive quaterpipe reaching about eighteen feet high. This thing must of had like three to four feet of vert. But this part of the course also had a long Hubba, an extra-long round rail, and a gigantic big-four Euro gap. Chris Senn, Bob Burnquist, Josh Evin, Tony Trujillo, Danny Way, Rick McCrank, and Mike Peterson were feeling at home on the massive quarterpipe. The thing was so big, at any moment I thought the roof was going to retract and a helicopter was going to descend into the arena with Danny Way on the skid to bomb drop in. But that didn’t happen. He pulled a kickflip Indy, though, which was pretty gnarly, considering that the Indy wall only gave up a few tricks—Mike Petereson got a rock n roll, Bob Burnquist handled a frontside invert, McCrank threw a disaster, Josh Evin got a madonna to tail and Chris Senn had lien to tail. Then there’s Trujillo. He ripped the course like no other—ollie off the massive quaterpipe into the adjacent bank, boneless and fastplant transfers off the quaterpipe to the bank, and a five-0ed off the quaterpipe into bank.

Here is a picture of Greg Lutzka Doing a 5-0 Grind down a hubba ledge

Globe World Cup of Skateboarding did something extra special and Chris Senn and Mike Peterson each had a gap named after them. Senn found a transfer line from the half bowl into the wall ride on the street course. Super sketchy, but he managed to pull his board enough to clear the testy gap. He even fast planted it a couple of times. Peterson was ollieing from the top deck by the half bowl into a bank in section two—long drop off. He managed to frontside 180 it in a later heat, but fell short of qualifying for the main event.

As the heats progressed through the day, you could feel the temperature rising in the building. The competition was on. And even in the concluding seconds of the final, you had no idea who was going to take first place. Paul Machnau handled business on the long rail with a Smith grind, a crooked grind, and lipslides and nollie nosesliding the long Hubba. Tony Trujillo did a massive boneless off the quaterpipe into the bank and carried his speed toward the half bowl where he aired over the Senn gap the opposite direction (wall ride to half bowl) and floated to flat. Easily a twelve-foot drop. Tony is an instinctual skater—flowing from one element to the next not really knowing what’s going to happen, but knows it’s going to be okay. During the final seconds Sheckler threw it all on the line and kickflipped the Peterson gap, hoping that was enough to take first place. Ronnie Creager had other plans. His consistency and switch 360 flip up the massive big three Euro gap boosted him to first place and walk away with his first-ever contest win and a 20,000 dollar prize. Give it up for Globe Shoes.

Results

Globe World Cup of Skateboarding

1. Ronnie Creager

2. Rick McCrank

3. Tony Trujillo

4. Ryan Sheckler

5. Carlos de Andrade

6. Paul Machnau

7. Colt Cannon

8. Danny Way

9. Greg Lutzka

10. Chad Bartie

And last but not least here is a nice long 2 minute video clip that captures the highlights

The nude bowl was famous skateboarding pool for about 20 years. They buried and and around 2000 Bluetorch went out there and dugg it out and reskated it. The Nude Bowl is a kidney shaped swimming pool that was at the nudist resort the Desert Gardens Ranch hence the name the nude bowl. It is located outside of Desert Hot Springs California. Here we have a video clip of El Gato skateboarding the nude bowl in the late 80’s.

A skateboard distributor is a company that supplies a wide variety of skateboarding products to skate shops. Its kind of like a one stop shop. Here is a video clip of what the inside of a skateboard distributor looks like and its called Vk Skateboard Distribution
Here is a video clip of a tour I took of the Vk Sports Skateboard Distribution Warehouse.

Here is a picture of the section. To be a skateboard distributor you need to have a couple thousand decks available for skateshops at all times.

You also need lots of different skateboard trucks available as your customers are going to burn through allot of trucks as well.

H-street skateboards, founded in 1986, was the brain child of the late, great visionary Mike Ternansky and current Osiris proprietor Tony Magnusson. H-Street was named after a street in Chula Vista, California. It was on H-Street that several of the original team riders lived, in the “H-Street House”. The original H-Street team consist of Ron Allen, Jeremy Allyn, Dave Andrecht, Mike Carroll, Eddie “El Gato” Elguera, Richard Ezekiel, Art Godoy, Matt Hensley, Carl Hyndman, Ben Job, Darrin Kimura, Jeff Klindt, Tom Knox, Chris Livingston, Brian Lotti, Tony Magnusson, Ryan Monihan, David Nielsen, Steve Ortega, Jeff Pettite, Jason Richardson, Brennand Schoeffel, John Schultes, Ray Simmonds, John Sonner, Dave Sornson, Aaron Vincent and Danny Way.
Here is a video clip of Ron Allen from the H Street Hokus Pokus Dvd. Also here are some pictures of the Ron Allen Signature Decks

Here is another picture of the H Street Ron Allen Skateboard Deck

And yet another picture of the H Street Skateboards Ron Allen Skateboard Deck

Here is Tony Magnussen’s vert ramp part in the H Street Skateboard Video Hokus Pokus from 1989. H Street Skateboards has recently done a release of some of the old decks from the 80’s. Here are some pictures of a signed Tony Mag reissue deck that is available here. I have included three pictures below of the deck that Tony Magnussen signed. If you are interested in one leave me a comment below.

Here is another picture of the T Mag Deck

And here is a third picture of the Tony Magnussen H Street Hocus Pocus Deck

When you watch a skate video you see all the great tricks that where pulled off. Behind the scenes in most cases they landed those 1 out of every 10 times. Here is a clip of a bunch of different skateboard crashes and this is the reality of skateboarding, its not all fun and games.

What is the best and most exiting part of a pool? Well its the slide of course. Here we see Dave Ruel rolling in from the slide over and over again until he lands it. Rueler is pretty narley and so is this slide. Skateboarding down a slide is nuts.

Some people actually like you to come in and skateboard in their pools. If there pool and house is all broke down and they are going to get kicked out of there anyway bring em some beer and you are good to go. These are some of the best skateboarding sessions because the cops don’t show up.

Pool Skateboarding is illegal you don’t have to worry about the cops so much when you are in Southern California specifically in the Inland Empire. It’s the gang bangers according to Salba that you have to watch out for. Orange County however is a different story the cops suck there and bust you allot. Either way you will rack up some trespassing tickets but it’s very worth it in the end.