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October 12, 2003

Double Tailwhip

I just turned on the television, randomly and landed on the Gravity Games. Some kid named Chad Kagy just performed the world's first Double Tailwhip over the Channel in competition. It's a heart-stopping manuever.

If I haven't written about it before, I have a gripe about organized sports for kids these days. It's too organized. When I was a kid, you had a football, you go to any neighborhood on the planet and play tackle ball with whoever. No parental supervision. No mandated helmets. No dumbass signs saying 'No Football'. No insurance waviers. Just kids playing ball and enforcing the rules of sportsmanship without adults telling them to play fair and all that crap.

But since I've been carrying that gripe for a long time I've been thinking that today's kids are soft, dependent and cheated, but I've recently had an epiphany. Skateboarding is just like the old days. It's the one thing kids do on their own in their own neighborhoods without grownups telling them how, what and why. Kids develop their own skills, they have their own hierarchies of talent and adults, for the most part, let the kids do it independently. Good.

At the high end of this sport, is some incredible talent. And although nothing makes me laugh quite as hard as watching rollerbladers fall on their asses (I was a road cycler, and lardass bladers are real pests), I've got a good amount of respect for the best of the Extreme sporters. There are limits, of course. I can't stand folks who feel the need to inject danger into their own lives for its own sake. Base jumpers I think are pretty idiotic. But the competition and the art of many of these new sports is very attractive.

If you haven't checked it out before,... Wait Dave Mirra's on.

Wow. He did a 540 tailwhip, a double tailwhip over the channel and a one-footed flair.

Amazing!

Posted by mbowen at October 12, 2003 02:34 PM

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Comments

Posted by: dillon Mckee at April 26, 2004 07:35 AM