It's Difficult to Commit to the Unfamiliar

Back in March of 2021, I decided to learn to skateboard. At 45. I can’t pinpoint any one reason why I picked skateboarding as something to try for a mid-life hobby. Its physical activity which is healthy for the mind and body? The gray hairs keep appearing in growing numbers and my body has a time limit for the punishment it can handle? It seems like a more fun activity than golf? Sure. Any and all those might be reasons. There’s probably others. The impetus doesn’t really matter, the execution does. So, I bought a board and all the pads - ALL THE PADS; helmet, knee, elbow, and wrist guards - and started to practice.

Where I live, there’s a various skateparks in most cities. And a lot of them have ramps and quarter pipes of varying sizes and heights. “Dropping in” on a quarter pipe quickly became a desire and, once I was comfortable enough on the board, I set out to try it. And my first few attempts resulted in slamming hard on my side onto the concrete.

You see, in order to drop in, I have to balance the board on the edge (coping) with my back foot on the tail, and, when I’m ready to commit, place my front foot over the forward part of the board and lean forward with my head over my front foot as I fall forward down the ramp and ride it out. The hard part isn’t the physicality of those motions - the motions are easy. It’s the mental hurdle to convince myself to keep leaning forward and fight against forty-plus years of learned habit that I should lean back when going down an incline. That urge to lean back is what causes the wrong balance and the board to shoot out in front and the body to fall hard and backward on the concrete.

There’s a lesson here. I have an ingrained habit that dictates I act a certain way when confronted with an incline. Yet, that habit isn’t effective in all cases of dealing with inclines. In fact, it’s disastrous to follow that habit when dropping in with a skateboard on a quarter pipe.

How many other habits have I accumulated over the years, both physical and mental, that aren’t optimal in certain situations even though I may default to them?