Dec 13, 2013
Start your morning right and take 1:00 to watch Anthony Flis in The Spot V3 #longboarding
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Start your morning right and take 1:00 to watch Anthony Flis in The Spot V3 #longboarding
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Check out the second part of the Comet DCDC Tour.
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HELL YES! It's finally here, go peep the Comet Skateboards DCDC Tour Part 1 video NOW!
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Skatesgiving: NorCar Raw Run
!!!!BEASTCOAST FTW!!!!
This one stars our good friends Anthony Flis (Beastcoastlongboarding,Comet) and Ludovic Trembley (Team Quebec,Rotule) slithering their way down a seemingly never ending hill in North Carolina filled with twists and turns rarely filmed, or even seen on the east coast.
High View-17.JPG by Olivier Séguin Leduc on Flickr.
Anthony Flis throwing a big toe-side pendy in the rain at High View! Big thanks to Anthony again for the great write up on BeastCoastLongboaring.com Also another big thanks for all the great photos by Olivier Seguin Leduc
Bails and Slams!
Musings by Anthony.
I’ve found that after years of downhilling I got entirely too used to bailing onto my hands and shoes and when skating street or transition I kept destroying my wrists when I’d fall. This happens to every skater who rides street and parks but I wasn’t used to getting hurt so often so I did a lot of thinking about how to bail and have been watching a ton of videos. Bails and slams come with the territory of skating no matter what you ride. They aren’t the same thing either: a slam is you eat shit, a bail is you understanding things aren’t working out so you get out of the way. Slams end with you in pain while bailing can save you from serious injury keeping you skating for the rest of the session or forever. Bailing out is a crucial part of skating and knowing how to bail properly can save you from serious injury.
You probably already know this but you probably don’t understand the difference between bailing in a street skating context versus longboarding or transition skating. Knowing how to bail in each context is actually important and keeps you agile, and able to deal with any situation that may come your way regardless of what you’re riding. Also each way to fall can be applied to all types of skating. There are guys shredding tranny without pads and guys that knee slide like pros while longboarding. Things don’t transfer every way but having an understanding of each will make you less likely to get hurt.
Let’s start with what you already know: bailing from your longboard. The common practice is to go onto your gloves and shoes or gloves and kneepads. This is a great technique if you are skating hills and have gloves on. It’s also common to slide out onto your ass or hip in situations where you can’t make a corner and need to slow down before going off the road. You always want to be going as slow as possible before you leave the road because hitting rocks, trees, storm drains, guard rails or rock walls sucks and will break you. Sliding on your gloves and shoes keeps you off the ground and from getting road rash while simultaneously slowing you down. Sliding on these surfaces are your best bet at higher speeds with good gloves but bailing this way while skating other styles will sprain or break wrists really easily and you get the permanent palm bruise.
The next context longboarders would probably be used to is bailing to your kneepads like vert and tranny skaters do. A lot of guys already wear kneepads but do you know how to use them well? It takes some practice and you have to have reliable pads and be confident that they aren’t going to slip when you need them. Kneepad slides are the same concept as getting to your gloves and shoes. This is definitely better for slower speeds such as during a slide session. If you knee slide while downhilling and have to slow down more it would be harder to get more contact with the ground to slow you down in a pinch, you’d have to throw yourself on the ground. At slower speeds though it is easiest on the body and lets you stand up quickly to get your board and keep skating. You’ll also lose less of your pants to the pavement. Knowing how to kneeslide well while skating a bowl or ramp also gives you some awesome confidence to try and go big but know that you can always just slide it out.
The bail furthest from what a longboarder would be used to is how street skaters bail. It’s not that they don’t catch themselves, but they stay loose and roll or slide in more creative ways since they don’t have pads or slide gloves. You develop this sense of falling after you wreck your wrists and have permanent palm bruises. Basically it’s all about slowing your fall rather than trying to stop it by catching yourself with your hands. It’s so easy to sprain your wrist and bruise your palms so instead of putting your hands out you keep them out of the way and roll out the fall. The key is having your bearings and starting with your feet under you so you can bring your body to the ground slow enough that the fall won’t suck completely. This works for street skating so well because unless you are going huge then you aren’t going very fast and can usually run things out if you can keep your feet under you. Being comfortable with this can make situations like commuting or running into some friends and not having your pads a little more comfortable and give you a lot more confidence.
To bring it all together, bailing like a street skater is good in slower speed contexts, such as street, board walking and commuting. Knee slides are the easiest on your body and are great for everything except high speeds because you don’t slow down. Bailing to your gloves and shoes is great for higher speeds but catching yourself like this while skating other styles easily means messed up wrists and palms. Everyone gets hurt skating though and there isn’t a sure fire way to never get hurt again but the more comfortable bailing you are the less likely you are to get hurt. The only way to get good at bailing is just go skate and eat it. You can only be told so much but until you jump into a ramp on your knee pads or dive off your board over 40mph it doesn't matter what you think you know. Once you eat it enough and understand how to bail well, progression is that much more possible because you know you can always just step off and it’ll be alright.
2010 Recap
2010 was an interesting year for East Coast Downhill and 2011 is looking incredible. Here's some of the highlights from our year. Keep coming back to see things get gnarlier. Special thanks to Annapurna Kumar for the new intro animation, check out her vimeo at vimeo.com/annapurna and also thanks to my composer friend Greg Brown for the ridiculous music, check out his stuff at potentvibes.com
Anthony's New Board: Comet Ethos
This board has been in the works for a long time and it's finally out. For all the info check out todays Comet newsletter: http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=6f7b4107a9&id=9c02273eb4.