Competition Nerves

Nerves are crazy. I’m talking about the figurative nerves, but literal nerves are pretty wild too. I recently entered a competition, and I haven’t felt a nervous dissuasion like this in a really long time. It’s easily been at least 15 years since I had last entered a skate comp, and it’s probably been longer than that. I’m 36 and haven’t had sponsors or even been at a competing level for a long time. I’ve just been trying to find the time to skate once a week, and not get destroyed during the session. That’s it. That is until about a month ago. 

I was getting on Instagram when I saw that I had a DM. I checked and it was from a former coworker, and it was just an event poster for a kickflip contest. A kickflip contest? Oh, hell yeah, bish. I got kickflips all day. That’s been my strong suit for most of my time skating. Asking no questions, I reached out to the person throwing the event and put my name in the hat for the contest. The flyer didn’t say much besides “Kickflip contest,” the names of some of the people involved, and a date, so much was left to the imagination. I was picturing maybe a flat ground comp with the most consistent and stylish kickflip to win. If I had known about this in the past, I would’ve had a better idea of what I was in store for, and I probably could’ve asked for some details, but sometimes I like going into things blind with no expectations. Well, I did have one expectation for this contest and it was getting first place. 

Knowing that I have only been skating for about once a week for the last few years meant that I needed to stay sharp and comfortable on my board if I wanted to win like I thought I was going to. I hadn’t skated in a couple weeks due to injuries and soreness from going too hard weeks prior to learning about the comp, so I went out to a local park to get some pushes in. I brought the fam, so we could picnic and play with the kid and doggos before I went off on my own. Lunch was good, my son and the dogs were having fun with my wife, everyone was content, so I pushed on over to the park, and the little hour sesh went well too. Fuck yeah. Solid day. We headed back to the car, I leaned my board on one of the tires, got the fam loaded, and we hit the road to head back home. 

The next morning, I wanted to keep up with the comfortability on my board by taking my kid in a little stroll around the neighborhood, and that’s when I realized that the day before wasn’t so solid. I never put my board back in the car after getting the fam situated. Just drove away with it still leaning against my car. Fuck. There’s no way it would still be at the park. Even if kids were being respectful and thinking it belonged to someone still at the park, there would be someone hanging around when the lights were shutting off to realize that it didn’t belong to anyone, and they were about to come up since my deck and wheels were brand new. Now it’s three weeks until the competition, and I don’t even have a skateboard anymore. Sweet. I ran out to get a whole new complete, and regrettably started the process of breaking everything in. That may seem innocuous and inconsequential, but any skateboarder knows how much of a pain that is to do. For those that don’t skate, a whole new complete skateboard feels very foreign. It doesn’t feel like yours. It takes a while to get things broken in and adjusted accordingly. Once it feels like your board, it’s then nice to get a new part or board here and there. Almost everyone puts off getting new trucks. That’s the hardest part to get feeling comfortable, but I digress. 

I’m now pushing around on a board that feels like it belongs to someone else, and it isn’t feeling any more mine. The first few sessions are piss poor, and now I’m getting frustrated and nervous. My kickflips are still pretty much there, but skating isn’t feeling natural. It’s taking a lot of awkward effort, and it is not reassuring with the impending comp. I keep going out twice a week and tweaking my trucks until it finally felt right. All was good except for my wheels. They were too grippy for my liking, but by this point the contest was half a week away, and I had already spent all that time adjusting to this setup, so at this point it just was what it was. 

Morning of the contest comes, and the people involved with the event post something on their Instagram stories that eluded to what we could possibly be in store for, which seemed to be doing huge kickflips off of a launch ramp. Hmmm. I’m almost 37, and haven’t been hucking stuff due to the toll it’s taken on my body. Also, a couple days before the contest they announced that there would be some pros attending the comp. So, with the prospect of having to compete against pros in a launch ramp competition on a basically brand new board that still doesn’t quite feel right, I wasn’t feeling super confident about this anymore. Oh, did I mention that my one weak area of kickflips is off of ramps? All things considered, my expectation was now to place in the top three or at least get close. The event was being held by a glass blower, a glass gallery, and a local rosin company, so it seemed much more like a cannabis event than an actual skate comp, so I couldn’t imagine who all was going to show up for this kind of event and actually participate. There were also some other skate comps that day, which is why I figured I was still going to have a chance of placing. Once the address was released, that’s when my brain couldn’t make heads or tails of what to expect. I had been to this venue before, and it didn’t seem big enough to have a gnarly launch ramp competition. The flat ground idea I initially had made more sense in this venue, but all the things advertised the day of suggested otherwise, so I figured I’d see when I got there and tried to keep my mind off of it.

I arrived at the venue early, so I hopped out of my car and smoked a joint while I stretched. I rolled over there at 4:45 when it was advertised for the skaters to arrive and practice before it opened to the public, and to my surprise there were already a good number of people in attendance. There were crazy flatbar pole jams of all kinds, and the pros were already ripping. I could see some other good skaters already warmed up. I looked around for someone to check in with, but didn’t see anyone, so I made my way through the crowd towards the back of the building, and that’s when I saw the obstacle. It was a four foot tall ice sculpture and a launch ramp. I was shook. This kind of thing has been out of my wheelhouse for a while now. I got to the back of the building full of doubt, and just watched the pros and other skaters rip the pole jams while I felt more and more out of place. What am I doing here? Why did I think I could do this? I’m a 36 year old dad who shreds on the weekend. I’m not on par with any of these guys. I’m going to have to go home a total failure and a quitter. Fuck. My head swirled. I stood in my insecurity for a few more moments before thinking “naw, that’s not me.” I’m not a quitter. I’m the kind of person who likes seeing things through. I set out onto the course, set my backpack down, and started pushing. I pushed from one end then pushed back, and did a shuv-it. Next was another shuv then a kickflip. I kept warming up with some flat ground tricks and worked on blocking out the growing crowd while more skaters arrived making it a full-on session. Eventually, people started  hitting the ramp over the ice sculpture. By that point I was pretty warmed up and was feeling surprisingly comfortable considering the anxiety I felt upon arrival, so I figured it was as good of time as any to try out the ramp. I went to the back of the building with the other skaters and got in line. My turn finally came. I ran, threw down my board, and felt kind wobbly, so I swerved around the ramp. Haha, alright. Sweet. Got back in line, my turn came again, I ran, threw down my board, and bop… landed it. Ain’t no thang. My worries we’re immediately alleviated. Did it a second time. Then did a couple melon grabs over it. I’ll be able to kickflip this. Anything I can ollie, I can kickflip. Now, I’m having fun, and there’s some serious competition, so this will be good. Who knows how this is going to pan out. The comp is about to start and the pros go sit down to judge, so that levels the playing field a bit. Also, one of the competitors knocked over the ice sculpture during warmups, and it broke in half. They raised it back up on a small platform, but it wasn’t quite the same height anymore. It was slightly lower, which leveled the playing field even more. 

The energy was high. The skaters were all warmed up and eager to launch. The crowd had grown. The sidelines were packed with spectators. Some were merely watching while others filmed. Some people were taking dabs paired with ice cream. Other people were smoking blunts and joints. The place was packed with people and smoke. I contributed to the aforementioned smoke towards the end of the warm ups. I kinda wore myself out a little bit, and needed to relax my muscles a bit. The place was lit. Literally and figuratively. 

The comp started and two people landed their kickflips first try. I figured that I had a real good chance of nailing mine first try too. I rolled up, popped, caught it, but, naw, didn’t get it. I immediately knew there went my chance for placing, but oh, well. I headed back to the line to keep trying. I probably got it on my fourth or fifth try, but it couldn’t have been better. Great pop, I caught it high and early, floated back down effortlessly, and coasted away. I accomplished what I came here to do, and didn’t back down. I got another melon grab over it, then a shuv-it tailgrab as well before I called it. 

I smoked another joint and watched the competition wrap up. After everyone had landed a kickflip they ended the contest. Everyone threw down. It was a great contest, but there were some clear winners. Everyone hung around for a while to hear the results. Some of the crowd began filing out into the streets, and some people kept skating. They announced the winners (one of which smashed out some of his teeth right before they announced his name), and then I bounced. 

I left there feeling really good, and no it wasn’t all the joints I smoked. I was proud of myself for not only seeing it through, but for also accomplishing my constantly changing goal. I went from initially being overly confident that I had it in the bag, to expecting to still place in the top three, to being unsure of how it was going to go, then to thinking I was gonna have to bail on the event. It’s honestly wild how nerves can just shake our whole self, how they can cause such doubt, and how they can leave us almost paralyzed. Luckily, they don’t really paralyze us because just moving forward helps to get rid of those feeling of doubt and insecurity. Sometimes you just gotta go for it. And, sometimes we have to shift our expectations.  It’s okay to do so, especially if your expectation is failure or quitting, because you can’t really fail if you at least give it your all.  We can learn a lot from trying something that we are interested in, and even though we may not come out on top, we can achieve personal success and win over our nerves that dissuade us by telling us that we’re not enough.