#13: fish sizes and humility

I slept like absolute doodoo the night after winning my first surfskate contest. It was to be expected, I was processing something which meant a lot to me - sometimes that means not being able to sleep past 3AM.

I had a whole lot of skate in my head. That isn’t where skate is supposed to take place.

The contest allowed me to put a total of three minutes of surfskate together, and I pretty much put everything I had into those three minutes. It wasn’t flawless, by any means, it actually wasn’t even pretty - but it was enough.

After all that excitement as I tossed, turned, then gave up on sleep entirely, I was obsessing about all the possibilities left on the table. All the tricks and work that lies ahead in order for me to up my game and do something new - for me at least - on a surfskate.

Kickflips. Those are an essential - and I still haven’t even got close. People generally don’t know what a surfskate is, and that it isn’t really designed with flip tricks in mind - but the truth is that despite this, they can be flipped by the right rider.

I can’t do that yet. Shocking stuff.

From there on there were 360s to hyper-obsess over. A 540 off a wall and back into the bowl, both of which would require a comfortable ollie on transition.

None of that is my reality yet, but I can see it all manifesting in my mind’s eye.

Transforming that hallucination into a reality which can be perceived by the face eyes of other humans is going to take some time. On Saturday night, it didn’t feel like I had that time.

The excitement of having worked towards something, putting blood, sweat but (so far, I’m sure they’ll come) no tears into my practice, and then having achieved that thing, that hasn’t faded for me.

I’m very proud of myself. I put my mind to something and I did it.

And that said… heavy is the head.

I’m mostly joking. Any pressure I’m feeling is self-imposed.

During the few hours of tossin’ turnin’ shuteye following that contest I dreamt of another contest with a very different outcome. My subconscious pitted me against some of the best shredders I’ve seen online, and it didn’t go so well for me.

The homie Surfskate Ottawawas there with his deeply flowy, technical street style, and Pyojany was there to kill my dreams. Bahciin ripped a 540, and a fourth person, a surfskater amalgam I dreamt up to torture myself was furious with me.

She’d been surfskating for 20 years, and she wanted me to know it. She looked at me as if to say, “what gives you the right?”

I’m not certain what her deal was. Just a physical manifestation of my imposter syndrome, I suppose. The other two, though, they stood for one thing, and one thing only. Stray far enough from your immediate environment, and you’ll discover what you already know.

Look beyond your pond. Across vast oceans, there are big fish awaitin’

I got a tattoo in Bali. Well, I got a tattoo on my arm. But my arm was in Bali at the time, attached to the rest of me.

It’s a fish on a skateboard. Fine lines, very simple. Elegant, if you ask me. It wasn’t necessarily going to be, but I settled on a design I loved as soon as it was jokingly scrawled on my arm with a biro.

I’d had the idea for a while. My first piece of ink was going to be much bigger. Rather than just the one fishy, there were going to be 5 fish in a ladder, arranged in ascending size order. But this felt much better.

The fourth fish, second from the largest, was gonna have a cheeky little grin on their face, and a skateboard under their feet. (Fish with feet, we live in the future.)

That’s the fish that made the cut.

What may seem like a tattoo of a fish on a skateboard - which it is - symbolises humility. Wherever you come from, whoever you are and whatever you do, there will always be a bigger fish.

On Saturday, taking the mic and commentating while contestants ripped around the bowl, before dropping in for my own rides at the end of every round, that was big fish behaviour.

Before I even started, I knew that if I put my best tricks together, nobody in attendance could or would beat me. Big fish.

And yet, many people who were not in attendance would have lit me up. 

I’m not the biggest fish, and I have a permanent reminder reminder that becoming that fish/person - I think that’s commonly known as a mermaid - is not and cannot become my aim.

This time next year, if I’m fortunate enough to have been on my board and grind doing what I love as much as have over the past year, having as much fun as I possibly can - my actual aim will have been achieved.

When I tried (and struggled) to sleep on Saturday evening, all I saw around me were schools of bigger fish swarming. They swirled en masse, appearing even bigger still than the sum of their parts.

I was focused on everything outside of myself, on everything and everyone I could not and cannot affect - and I needed to refocus my gaze.

Surfskating is how I refocus when I’m feeling overwhelmed. That a coping mechanism has been a job, a passion, and something that I excel at, is an immense privilege and source of joy.

The attention required for me to stay on my board and flow requires that I reassert my physical presence in this world. That flow allows me to focus on what is near and relevant - not what is a distant, vague and a driven by hypotheticals and their associated anxieties.

You may have ascertained that this is a big deal to me - certainly a bigger deal than it is to anyone else. So this week, I’ve been focusing on preventing my head from swelling - but letting the swagger I’ve earned shine through regardless.

Yes, I’m the same person, the same skater that I was a week ago. Sure, I have about 6 new followers (!!) on instagram. I have a a great t-shirt, a beautiful new surfskate deck and a set of wheels I know I’m going to thoroughly enjoy (ab)using.

Most importantly, for the sake of balancing the books on the cheques my mouth has been writing for months, I can finally substantiate my big fish, small pond claim to fame:

I’m the best surfskater in Vienna - until someone snatches that crown.

come and get it - see what happens.

if nothing else

I’ve unloaded some thoughts

lighter is the head

long live the king

blog the thirteenth signing off