bowl practice

Skill set. Requirements. The fundamental building blocks of anything are encompassed in the few…  Vertical skateboarding and bowl riding have a symbiotic relationship. They rely on each other. Some of the best bowl guys out there, have a very strong foundation in vert ramp riding. I think that vert ramps help a skater to develop timing and utilize speed and power on a consistent basis. On a vert ramp, the walls don’t really change. What you give is what you get. In a bowl, every nuance of a round radius and the way one carves and pumps will determine the speed, height and power a skater develops. They are different, yet the same.

We gathered together yesterday at Mancha’s for a little roll around. Omar Hassan, Auggie Rodriguez, Jonathan Spooner, Archer Braun, Brian Patch, Jeff Grosso, Darren Navarette, Peter Hewitt, Rob Mertz, Mancha, Brian Fick and yours truly. Everyone helped mop the ramp down and clean it, as the skatelite had become a bit slippery. Once it dried, we all padded up and commenced some bowl practice.

I took some runs with everyone and then the session started to get heated. I stepped out and grabbed my camera to shoot a few photographs. It was fun to sit back and watch such a talented crew of bowl and vert skaters absolutely terrorize the ramp. Everyone was laughing and having fun. The topic of layback airs came up and I overheard Jeff Grosso say that there are only a tiny handful of guys that should be allowed to do them… and he wasn’t one of those! We all cracked up… Interestingly enough, my photographic talents being pretty weak, the only image I took of Jeff that turned out well, is a poached frontside invert shot that Brian Fick was shooting and I certainly can’t use that…

Omar remarked that the ramp felt really good and it felt rad to just fly around and do airs. It seemed like everyone else felt the same way. Most of the skaters spent a good deal of time above the coping. Peter Hewitt seemed to run out of ramp on every run. I don’t think that they have made a ramp wide enough for that guy. He just goes and goes… awesome. It was a great session and a fun look at bowl practice. Thanks to Mancha and Courtney for allowing us the session. Skate- Ozzie