A question of style....

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Marty Agather
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Joined: Thu Jun 29, 2006 4:20 am
Location: TwinTown, MN

A question of style....

Post by Marty Agather » Fri Aug 25, 2006 4:01 am

As an old school skater returning to the fold, I bring virtually no competitive experience, but plenty of gravity fed hours of skating. My primary venue was Boulder in the late 70's, and thus the source of my conflict and question to the assembled group:

Having watched ARA events and the stars of the era, our group picked up the parallel style, and used it for our downhill street rat riding. It provided great performance and kept us in shape for the winter ski season.

Having recently found my way home, I've geared up based upon my history, and begun to practice TS with new gen foamie and old school style. Although the rust is thick, some things don't get completely atrophied, so after a couple of hours on the board, I'm getting the old balance back. Weighting/unweighting is something you don't forget, and I'm getting some acceleration and pump.

While skating with a long time midwest slalom guy last night, he suggested a more traditional hybrid surf/parallel style, with one foot forward and one foot back. After working a half dozen or so rides on his new school set up (absent foam and glass), I was pumping quite a bit stronger with better acceleration.

And so the question is this:

Is "pure" parallel style by definition a less competitive form?

Numbers of skaters using each and overall race finishes would suggest that modified parallel or surf is more competitive, but is that a function of the proponderance of skaters using one as compared to the other?

My heart remains with parallel, but seeing as how I'm going to need to practice hard to gain nuance and technique, should I spend time with my history, or cherish my memories and romance a new woman?

I realize this discussion might be the equivalent of whether you prefer Ginger or MaryAnn, but:

WHAT DO YOU THINK? And yes Wes, I'm listening....

Stick to the fall line,

Marty

Steve Collins
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Post by Steve Collins » Fri Aug 25, 2006 4:47 am

You should do what pleases you, why else skate?

1. yes

2. the faster skaters do what works best and none of them skate parallel. It's less stable and you can't turn as hard. At this point skating parallel is liking driving that old restored GT with the teak dash, you do it for the art, not the race.

3. both

4. MaryAnn
Last edited by Steve Collins on Fri Aug 25, 2006 4:54 am, edited 3 times in total.

Stephen Lavin
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Post by Stephen Lavin » Fri Aug 25, 2006 4:52 am

Marty, I'm back skating after taking 25 years off. 28 years ago I was pure parallel and was relatively competitive. I moved to modified parallel as speeds and skill increased then I stopped skating. I am struggling with the modified parallel now. I finished 14th at the Buckeye in TS on a Hobie Flex and quickly realized things have changed.

Decks are stiffer, trucks are vastly improved, urathane is best it's ever been and speeds have increased in a big way. IMHO parallel will not get you through the cones at today's speed - no way to leverage the upper body. I moved to a more solid deck, Mollica Pocket Pistol, for the US Nationals, opened my stance, got my trailing foot over the rear hardware and have yet to raise that heel - I finished 25th I think in the TS.

I feel like a dinosaur but know I have to change if I hope to be competitive (in the least) again. Wes has changed his style a bit too. When things got fast last weekend we both had some trouble. We have to get deeper in the knee, get the upper body swinging more, and raise that trailing heel. Of course we could just stay the way we are :) and keep the comfort zone.

I have a thought about modifying the Hobie...

SL
LAVIN

Wesley Tucker
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Post by Wesley Tucker » Fri Aug 25, 2006 6:08 am

Marty,

I didn't change my style to get faster. I changed my style to get faster on a start ramp. It's ALMOST possible to go over in a parallel stance, but doing it with any acceleration is almost suicidal (at least for me.) A couple of years ago I watched Piercy at Catalina on a rerun of the WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS on ESPN CLASSIC. Guess what? He rode in an unparallel offset stance for pretty much the same reason: ya' can't get over the ramp with any speed!

If I were to describe my style now, it's more along the lines of what John Gilmour and Paul Dunn demonstrate: my toes are still pointing forward but the back heel is over the back truck and the front toes are just over the first two mounting screws on the front truck.

I try and keep my weight centered but I don't turn the back foot perpendicular to the board. It feels comfortable, I'm getting pretty decent turning action and I don't feel at all "twisty" when I run a course.

I've told just about everyone who'd listen, though, about a problem I've discovered. Where I'm not keepin up at all with the fast guys is my BACK FOOT. It's really just going along for the ride right now. I need to work on driving with BOTH FEET simultaneously going through a turn. Unfortunately, without that back foot driving the back truck through a turn, I start losing my line with speed. So for the past two or three races (The Farm, The DHB July Races and the Nationals) I more or less blew out the bottom of the course on almost every run. Is it because I can't slalom? No. It's because as things get faster, I'm not responding with any intention with the back end of the board. It gets softer and softer as the speed builds and WHAM! I've hit nine cones in a row. It's a bummer, but at least I know what I'm doing wrong. That's a little better than being clueless. When I rode a straight parallel, it was left foot pushing left, right foot pushing right. Now with the right foot up front (I'm definetely a mongo pusher) it's doing all the work and my back foot just kind of hangs there. So I'm getting no thrust in the back of the board into and out of the turn. Thus, I'm consistently 2-3 seconds slower than the fast guys.

By the way, I got your e-mail about set ups but it came right before I left for Colorado and I didn't have time to answer it. By the time I got home it had already faded from my "old mail" box (AOL is pretty inconsistent about how long it will keep mail available after reading it.) If you're a full on parallel skater, I would recommend something simple to start: a full cutaway like Roe's PS Bottle Rocket, PP's hardcore Stealth or even a Fibreflex Response Pro. Nothing beats starting on Tracker RT-S/X trucks and 3DM Avalon wheels. With that setup you can run just about any hybrid/TS arrangement and feel good doing it. Later after you start feeling the juices a little more you can consider upgrading the trucks to something a little more exotic. Turners, Icks, Foam core Roes and foam core Pocketpistols all work well. The ROE PS Bottle Rocket and the Bahne Black Hill, though, are about the least expensive offering you'll find that will work well while deciding if you want to stay Parallel or open up your stance a bit.

About the closest thing we have to a "trade show" where you can see and try everything is a race. Try and get to one and look at what's going on. Trust me, slalom is not like the old days where you can find out everything in the pages of SKATEBOARDER. If you don't go to a race, you're almost flying blind when it comes to what equipment is happening and what works best. And don't be shy to ask a racer about his set up. Hell, most wlll hand it to you and say, "give it a spin."
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Marty Agather
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Location: TwinTown, MN

Post by Marty Agather » Mon Aug 28, 2006 7:21 pm

SC: Amen to the pleasure thing. That is what keeps us coming back for more. BUT, to further your analogy, while I can show up at the F1 race in my classic GT, chances are good that I won't qualify to participate in the main event. Skating solo for pleasure is all well and good, but I'd bet it's as much about the camraderie as it is about the competition that makes the race events great to attend.

SL: I'm glad to hear that you too have returned. I think that you are correct that as equipment and technique has changed, so to have teh requirements for what it takes to be competitive. I saw in a post referring to Vlad's "ugly"(sombody elses word, I don't know what they look like as far as I remember this was dated a couple years back) boards that maybe we'd look at his design vs what we use today in the future and realize what a revolutionary idea he had. Perhaps the only place for decks of yesteryear is in someone's collection out there.

WT: You bring up the valid point that by truly understanding both your own and the competitor's styles, you can analyze and make adjustments based upon the theories that are developed with experience.

Ultimately, what you are all saying is that (I'll throw out my own analogy here) basketball has moved beyond the two handed set shot. It was effective in it's day, but as the equipment and athletic skill improve, the game changes. So be it.

The real bummer of the whole deal is that over the past week and a half, I've gotten pretty darn good at running clean in parallel. When I shift over to modified, I can't turn worth a darn. Not only do I need to change my style, but I'll probably need to add to the quiver, as my race rocket is designed for a bygone era. And that's a post for another forum.

Regards,

Marty

Steve Collins
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FRONT FOOT

Post by Steve Collins » Mon Aug 28, 2006 8:20 pm

Marty, I've never skated parallel seriously, so I can't add much for the transition to surf stance. What I can say is that my surf stance has been helped greatly by focusing on turning primarily with my front foot. Drive from both, turn from front. I'm naturally mongo so I've been a tail steerer all my life. My good friend and coach, Steve Evans, has been hammering me to skate balanced, stop twisting and steer from the front. It makes all the difference.

If you're ever out this way (south Los Angeles County/north Orange County, California), come skate with us. Steve is really cool and great about coaching whomever he happens to be skating with. Richy Carrasco is the same way, incredibly helpful.

Marty Agather
Posts: 63
Joined: Thu Jun 29, 2006 4:20 am
Location: TwinTown, MN

Post by Marty Agather » Tue Aug 29, 2006 12:28 am

Steve,

Actually get that way somewhat frequently. Unfortunately during the work week tho. I'm coming in next week- LAX probably too late to get anything going for Tues evening, but as I get a trip headed out that way in the next month or two I'll send you some info earlier on and maybe I can set up my flights so that we can make a couple of turns.

The mongo thing is new to me, but I guess I'm Goofy - Non. Ride with my right foot in front, steer mostly from the front (in a surf/ modified position) and push with my left leg.

Which brings me to a point I forgot to make earlier. In reading Wes's comments, he reminds me of skiing slalom on the water ski. I think the process is very similar. Ignore me if I bore.

Early in your learning process, you are riding with most of the weight on your front foot, because that is the way you ski on two skis, you've just (un)intentionally left one behind. But as you begin to learn, you begin to distribute your weight onto both feet, front and back. Then as you advance a bit more, you want to throw up a big wake, because that's what the really good skiers do. So you lean back, placing all of your weight on your back foot, which results in the ski throwing up a lot of water, because your weight is concentrated on the narrow tail of the ski.

But to ski hard, and cut aggressively in order to make a slalom course and multiple bouys (think major offsets from side to side) it becomes obvious that you need to weight your feet evenly. In the turn you intitiate with the front foot, and then shift your weight back as you drive thru the turn with your back leg. (and this is actually how good skiers throw major water, as you are displacing it with extremely sharp turns). So in essence in a turn, your weight flows from evenly distributed as you approach the turn to shifted forward to initiate and then cg moved toward the rear to finsh the turn and then finishing up evenly weighted as you cut back across the wake (or maybe fall line???) Hint hint nudge nudge.

And in theory (mine anyway) what I'm getting from all of you is that modern technique requires good weight control along with subltle shifts of cg for maximum turning potential.

And so another BST is born.... (t stands for theorem, you can deduce what BS is for...)

Thinking on this turning thing from a new angle,

Marty, Spawner of BST's

And oh by the way, those same edging patterns run in snow skiing as well. Anybody able to comment on snowboarding?

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