Heelychat, the forum for heelys, the shoes with wheels - View topic

So its been a few months (my last official video was for the HSL Contest) but I am back with a vengeance. In my opinion this is one of my best vids (if not my best) from the song choice to flow to trick catalog. I just had some fun and look where it got me.

Anyways, here's the video. Watch it, love it, comment, whore, subscribe if you haven't. Either way, get my video out there and watched. Even if I suck show your friends. You can be like "Man I am way better then this guy" but PLEASE just get my name out there.

So watch the vid, and if you have the attention span to make it through then please read on. If not, comment the video and go on with whatever else you're doing.

******** WATCH THE VIDEO, THEN READ ********

So this part is an HC Exclusive. I am not going to post this ANYWHERE else and when I get famous for being the shittiest skater on two wheels, you'll know where it all started.

So basically, I want to do a run down of my thought process of this video and its entirety. I feel that this is my best video, and its not because I busted out some pretty dope feats. Instead, its because of the meaning behind it, so away we go...

- PRE-PRODUCTION -

I was sitting at home talking with my girlfriend Kara and my best friend Andre. I have been having the "itch". Don't look at me weird, you know damn well what I mean...

Anyways, we were talking about me skating, but doing something to just stick it to the man. The man in this case just happened to be HSL. We just finished hearing about Merlyn's retirement and we knew that this may be just the last ditch effort that I could put out before HSL went belly up. I mean, I haven't been part of the skating community very long (at least in this genre) but I didn't want to give it up without a fight.

So with Slicer's kind words simply put "GTFO AND SKATE" I did just that. With the exception of God's need to make Colorado snow ONLY ON THE WEEKENDS, I was able to get 2 days of good skating in...

- PRODUCTION -

So I decided I wanted to visit the same places my avid followers are accustomed to. I went to the skatepark by my house (the one with the curved rail and the small 6') and then the one with the decent mini-pipe and the weird fun... thing (its not really a fun box... It does have some interesting advantages though).

Originally, I wanted the video to be edgy. I wanted to have more street skating. I wanted to have a lot of new material on the same shit. I wanted my video to wow the Hell out of you people. Unfortunately, I am a few months out of practice and I have gained some pounds over the little holiday season, so I was stuck doing the same stalls on the same ramps. I did add a little flare to them, and I tried to vary them (doing a footy, smith, tru, smith, 180, footy does count as variety). Some comments from the last video kinda stuck with me. I was asked to do more grinds, so I weakly attempted. I am still not 100% comfortable on vert and the pumping, and to be honest, I doubt I ever will. I haven't reached my "Merlyn"-point yet (given because Merlyn felt like he has conquered the Heeling world, he has nothing left that's new so he is switching his interest) but I feel that I will here pretty soon. It sucks not having any heelers to judge myself off of. I have watched nearly every video on YouTube and have yet to learn shit. Most of everything I do I do it because I thought it looked cool. It was only until I came here when I realized that I wasn't the only person.

But anyways, back on topic, I decided that I was going to do some more things that I haven't shown. As you all have seen in my other video, I can jump onto the fun box and perform a footy. But have you seen me jump over a kicker ramp and into a footy??? Nope. Everyone here knows that I can go up and down a halfpipe, but has anyone ever seen me get air off of the pipe??? Nope. I have tried some new stuff including attempting a cab driver, but that failed on the square rail and I am probably not going to try it again until I can get into the groove again.

I did put something in that I thought everyone would think it was cool. People have pinnacled the footy. We can jump in, drop in, and reverse it. We can slalom with it, as well as take it for hundreds of feet. Something I haven't really seen much of are footies that gap the cracks in the sidewalk (and I didn't say AT ALL, so I better not see anyone say anything about this. If I do, Santa will piss under your tree). I thought of the trick when I just tried to straight footy down the sidewalk and failed a few times. Then Andre said to jump and I did, and it turned out pretty cool.

- POST-PRODUCTION -

The song choice is pretty obvious. Listen to the lyrics and then disagree. I had a blast putting this one together because of all the hard hitting notes. It was a really good experience.

The main reason I created the video (as explained above) was to stick it to the man. Slicer has put out that no one has really taken an active role in the Heeling community. Yeah ME has placed a video here reviewing a Shit colored shoe or a new wheel design, but no one has really made a video since the whole HSL thing. Maybe its because school has started back up and the weather is shit, but to be honest this is a crucial time to make the videos.

With Merlyn out of the picture, where is this thing going. We know that the corporate fuck-tards aren't going to do anything about making this into a sport, but we need to show them that we still want the shoes. How are they going to see that people have the shoes? THEY'LL WATCH THE VIDEOS!!! Yeah, people have grown out of the shoes. Hell, probably everyone on this site will have moved onto something else (except for the few diehards). This is a trend that was aimed towards kids. Kids grow up and grow out of things. Now that the Heelers of 2000 are 9 years older, they have taken up skateboarding, inlining, or Hell, just gave up on sports all together. But then there are the people like myself, ME, Slicer... We have found a sport that we enjoy. Skateboarding doesn't appeal to the guy who eats squid. Inlining just isn't for that kooky British guy who blows his checks plus some on a pair of shoes. Shit, just sitting at home playing WoW isn't my thing. We haven't outgrown heeling, so why should YOU deny us that.

If you don't skate and post vids of it, then people will think heeling is dead. When heeling becomes dead there will be no more shoes. Once eBay has drizzled out the last of its shoes, we will be done with nothing to do. We don't bounce back like you kids do.

So please, my request to you is this. For myself and everyone else who will continue to skate for many years to come, do us a favor. Post your vids. You may never know what will come out of it if you don't.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far, and thanks for watching my video. I have taken a lot of time and care I appreciate the sport.

Joined: 03 Jan 2008 Posts: 223 Location: Warshington, USA

HEAR HEAR!
I've been meaning to practice my 180s. I think I'll make another video of that process. Smile

HOORAY!!!

Heck yeah man, I haven't seen much from the Gaub family lately; I've been curious to see your progress

Thanks for watchin my vid man

Joined: 15 Jun 2008 Posts: 1391 Location: UK

Rated, sub'd, faved, and commented on YT but for some reason sometimes my comments don't go through right, so in case it doesn't I'll write some of the same kinda stuff here for now and re-comment later. Smile

Lol, I had to put in that you were having the issues with the poopie atomics as I have named them.

Naw, I think the footy hops are just as they are; footy hops. I don't really think their a trick, but whatever.

As for the grinds and stalls, a lot of it is just from being in the skating community. A lot of the grinds we have come from soapers, and the soapers got it from inliners, so being part of the inlining community, I have a little pre-existing knowledge

Team Heelys - Northeast Joined: 15 Dec 2006 Posts: 1803

I like the frontsides starting at 3:00 - my first grind and always my B&B.

Joined: 15 Jun 2008 Posts: 1391 Location: UK

Team Heelys - Northeast Joined: 15 Dec 2006 Posts: 1803

My normal weight is 135lb.

When I was fighting tournies I was 145lb. (need to be able to take a punch).

When I was skating, I kept my weight around 130lb. (to air better).

Right now I'm around 138lb. Training to climb Mt. Rainier in May 2009.

MDHZ

Joined: 15 Jun 2008 Posts: 1391 Location: UK

i chose the second one, but replace i with you. your videos use to show so much improvement, mav and you can def do alot better. you were hitting alot of the stalls stepped and you ended almost every clip as you lost your balance instead of right before. and youve been skating vert for about a year, on a halfpipe smaller then you, wax the hell out of that coping and try hitting all tru grinds. still a good vid though, and dont take my critcism bad, because i still havent made a video in a month. Razz

Joined: 15 Jun 2008 Posts: 1391 Location: UK

One thing that stood out to me, was the foot positioning when footying. I don't know if I'm different to others, or if it's just my imagination, but your toes seem really high when you do it. I've never been able to see myself footy from the side yet, so maybe I do this more than I think too, but I was just wondering if you catch the brake often?

I do, you caught my secret lol... Naw, my brakes are so worn down (I belt sand the f*ck out of them) that I ride with my toes really high. I touch the back often to control my footy, so I don't get too much speed, keep balanced, etc.

Most people here will probably comment that I'm doing it incorrectly, but it works for me, no one says anything different about it, and its not like I'm getting a butt load of money to do my footies right.

Also, when I first started doing footies I landed on the toe hard and I jammed my ankle. It hurt like Hell and I was staying away from them for a while. When I use my soft brake to slow down a footy, I can avoid jamming the ankle again. So its also a comfort thing.

So yeah, you'll notice I'll do a lot of things differently then what other people can conceive being proper, but I like to skate for me. I will never turn down advise or a skating tutorial with someone, but at the same time, I feel pretty f*ckin good that I have made it this far completely self taught...

Team Heelys - Northeast Joined: 15 Dec 2006 Posts: 1803