Online Showdown Training Pt. 8

Well, I guess it has now officially been two months since I decided to skate in a freestyle contest, and I have to say I'm ready to be done with it. I'm over doing the same pieces of footwork over and over again, and I've found that I've been ignoring a lot of other things in my repertoire. Honestly, it makes the three pieces (I've broken the routine into three 30 second sections for practice purposes) I've been doing feel stale and old hat. 

So, I've been learning some new things for the last couple weeks. I've learned tiger claw, aero grab, ghost ride fakie big spins, tailstop underflips, and some kind of Peter Pan-ish move where you cross-step and carve/pump from that position. All but the tailstop underflip are longboard dance moves, and the only dance move I would give strong consideration for a freestyle run would be the cross-step pump thing. The rest require stepping off the board which is just not freestyle in a pure sense. You know the old freestyle saying, "Foot down and it doesn't count." It doesn't necessarily apply as law, but unless you can do no comply tricks into your run like Conner Burke, stepping off probably isn't a great look much less two feet down to ghost ride (although I've really learned to enjoy ghost ride tricks).

The one thing I did finally accomplish this week is decide on my music for my run. This is my third and final song choice. I had started off with The Church's song Under the Milky Way, but switched over to Pentagram's Be Forewarned. After seeing myself skate to Be Forewarned I decided that wasn't the right song. It just didn't fit my skating. Finally, after trying multiple songs, I have decided to skate to Maps by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. It seems to fit my skating perfectly, and it is an underappreciated song.