I was guilty of the of it when I was a young grom trying to keep up with the big boys at the Benicia skatepark at Willow Glen(RIP). Dropping in and hitting the lip and flailing out feeble attempts at a 540 double kickflip or something like that. I never landed it. Frankly I never intended to.

When the park was crowded and all the rippers were shredding it up I would resort to flinging ridiculous tricks off the main hip for an odd reason; I would rather the other skaters there think I was good by the fact that I was trying insane tricks rather than resort to the basics that I could handle at 11 years old. I would fake that I was better than I was…it was sad.

I bring it up because I’m starting to see it in the next generation. On a given night I head to the skatepark down the street and the kids are lining up to fling off technical wizardry that never gets landed. I fear it may have gotten worse since I was a kid. In fact, there are more kids flailing than there are skating.

Maybe it’s because there are more skaters and the culture has been infected with an underlying sense of competition…which is completely lame.

Can’t we just skate…because it’s fun?