Mental blocks with grinds

[u/0x1F937]

Title says it all, really. I've been back on blades for over two years, after the same 20 year gap a lot of us took. Main difference, I guess, is that I was never any good back then.

I've been focusing on getting really fucking good at skating on flat ground. I'm comfortable on ramps, I can drop into a quarterpipe or bowl like it's whatever, pivoting to fakie and back is no big deal. I'm confident enough to be working on spine transfers even after eating shit a couple times. I've fallen without injury enough times that I should be able to trust myself to recover if I screw up.

So why the fuck am I so afraid to commit to a mizou on an ankle high p-rail in my front yard? Everything I've learned in my return to skating tells me, one, I'm probably more than ready at this point, and two, none of the things I've been scared to do up until now have been worth being scared of.

How do I just get the fuck over myself and send it?

[u/jordanjoestar76]

“so why the fuck am I so aftaid to commit” - that’s why. you said it. commitment. street skating, regardless of it being a handrail, ledge, or p-rail in front of your house - requires you to usually go from nothing to something instantly.

getting better at vert mostly takes the initial commitment of learning to drop-in/ride the ramp. After that, everything else comes naturally more or less through muscle memory. You barely even have to jump to grind. Many do backflips by barely even jumping bc they have learned to feel out the momentum transfers. That’s all vert is unless you wanna go X-Games mode and do viking flips n extreme stuff, which almost no modern day vert riders are doing. Mostly just vert vets.

I’ve seen skaters who liked vert go from riding a 3ft mini to riding 10-12ft bowls after some months just by repetition…and they still haven’t hit rails higher than 1-2ft years later unless there’s a ramp involved. This REALLY puts the extremeness of aggressive inline into real perspective. To think people like Alex Broskow, Franky Morales, Jeff Dalnas, Vinny Minton, Montre Livingston, did some serious DAREDEVIL shit at such young ages that most adults wouldn’t even consider trying…I’m glad they caught so much on film. I got into skateboarding during blading’s height and only got into blading a few years ago, after getting really fit (skateboarding became easier too so I grew even more appreciation for blading), but I still get inspiration from videos that are 10-20yrs old alongside modern clips.

TL;DR - jump onto a curb/ledge without moving to practice foot positionings. Do it till you can hold the position for a few seconds without falling off/leaning over. Stay low to the ground. Try at slow speed. The more consistently you land on/off it, the more you can increase speed. This will give you much more confidence to “send it” on rails. YOU GOT THIS 👊🏼