I landed my first gap a long time ago when I was a grom in the city. It was a two step flat two step outside of some office complex in a stretch of road called the miracle mile. An old buddy brought me down there once to shut me up, I would always pester him about where he skated.
I didn't have much else going for me at the time and he had a car and rode amateur for the local shop and had the biggest bag of tricks and all the other skaters would want to film with him and stuff. I looked at that guy and reasoned that he was around the same size and shape as every other skater, so it must be the spots that he goes to, or how he practices, or something.
So I decided to follow him around and take notes. I would frequent the spots he and his crew session but wouldn't skate. I would just watch them skating and shooting the shit with my board on my lap, some of them would give me shit for it, poser this and grommie that, or whatever. But others would teach me things when they had time, one guy showed me how to lay grip tape in a way that won't create air bubbles, another guy showed me how to lean into slide tricks, that kind of stuff.
Then one day all of the sudden I got it in my head that I could ollie that two step flat two step because I had seen it done enough times to know what I was getting myself into. There must have been about twenty people at the spot, a good trick flow, not to many people falling or crossing up, so I skated over to the far end of the office walkway and cued up.
When I got to the circle of skaters they were talking among themselves and didn't notice me, so I spun around and started pushing mach ten toward the gap. I still don't know why, I just assumed the faster I went the easier it would be. I was going way too fast, and it didn't help that I was so scared that by the time I reached the event horizon of the stairset I had forgotten the trick I was going to do.
While in the air my body froze up in the shape of an ollie, so I just went with it. It was a clean pop and the board balanced well, but that landing. I used to do this thing where I would land tricks with my front foot too far back behind the trucks and I did that and the board snapped and I went end over end into a bush that I thought was only a bush but had a concrete divider behind it.
I was only out for a little bit but when I woke up there were office people hovering above me and sirens getting closer and whatnot, all of the other skaters must have bolted when the office people called the law. I had also rolled my ankle, so I was laid up in bed for a month or two, my mom was pissed. After everything healed I went back to the spot and threw down a backside 180 second try. It got a lot easier because I wasn't scared of busting my ass anymore.
The Protoculture Mixtape V.52 Issue: People: Gaps
