Besides the ollie one of the most fundamental things to learn as a skater is to drop in. This is the simple act of standing on the tail of your board above a quarter pipe or half pipe and then pressing down on the front of your board to roll down the pipe. If you watch pros do it or even kids who have skated for a few months you can see that they barely think about it. It’s as second nature as breathing, as rolling along and swerving delightfully on the pavement. But dropping in for the first time as a skater is one of the scariest and most exhilarating experiences there is. It’s quite literally stepping forward into the unknown. The unknown speed of the board, the unknown reaction of the body as it tries to balance, the unknown reaction of the skater’s mind. Do they go with the board? Or fight against it?
When I attempted dropping in myself I realised something profound. And that is when you drop in for the first time you’ll make one of two mistakes. Either you’ll under commit by not pushing down hard enough with your front foot, sending your back wheels sliding out from underneath you. Conversely, and the other mistake you can make is in overcommiting and pushing down too hard with your front foot, sending your body over the front of the board. Either mistake will serve as a reference point to learn from but only after you’ve made both mistakes do you realise that undercommiting and overcommitting, although exact opposites, lead to the same outcome. You being flat on the pavement with pain coursing through your body.
To drop in correctly you need to find a third way that lies in between the two extremes and simply commit.
A punkish kid looked at me strangely when I realised this. Down at my feet was a spattering of my tears drying on the concrete. The profundity of the moment had clearly gotten the better of me.
“Why’d ya fall twice?” He asked.
Wiping my eyes, I chuckled at the youth and calmly asked back, “Well, how else are you meant to find the mid point?”
Expecting no answer I then closed my eyes to embrace the universal oneness and infinite peace now spreading throughout my body that comes with a personal epiphany.
This peace didn’t last long though as it was broken by a distinctly irritating scratching sound of someone drawing in the dirt with a stick. I opened my eyes in annoyance. ‘This damn kid’ I thought while looking around for his mother. No one was in sight so I ran over to him.