This post is a little long. Anyone who is curious, Rodney Mullen invented the 1st flip trick on skateboarding and about 80% of the flip tricks you see today on video or tv. He has an interesting take on skateboarding where he states you have to try and fail over and over with physical pain to land 1 trick. This process of physical failure to achieve, gives skateboarders a good lesson in life.
@freedom123, I feel your TL;DR version misses the crucial bit.
It's not just failure:
It's the combination of accepting failure (despite risk) with imagining solutions and new concepts, and meticulously applying them until you succeed.
That is what many skateboarders do, and I know that first hand. I'm now a professional coder.
You look at the a bit of land, and imagine ways you could skate it, you look at your board and imagine how you could spin it, or stand or slide on it, and you just try and try and fail and try until you succeed. It's hard to express the creativity and drive you need to have to get anywhere on a board.
Personally, I find my iterative creative mindset and my ability to accept failure help me at skateboarding, coding and lead me at one point to be a pro musician too... These skills exist in many areas. Skateboarding is just incredibly hard to attain any real level of skill at.
Skateboarders (rollerskaters too), because they have to, embrace failure. I've seen skilled guys fall apparently hard without injuring themselves because they know how to diffuse the energy as smooth as possible.
Not really with Rodney Mullen's tricks. A lot of the amazing stuff he does with a skateboard doesn't involve a vert ramp or grinding over stairs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U-cgn3cEGA
And the style that he has just puts it over the top. There are tons of skaters now who grew up attempting to directly copy his repertoire, but when they get to the more difficult flip tricks to manuals and chains he puts together they are lucky if they can land it much less make it look that good. That much physical talent and equal creativity are an extremely rare combination.
I recommend checking out his autobiography, he's led an interesting life.
I'm not sure if any professional athlete has ever dominated a sport like Rodney dominated freestyle skateboarding. At the height of his dominance when he'd show up at a competition it was never a question of who would win, it was a question of who would come in 2nd place behind Rodney.
Great article, but this feels a bit like pseudo-intellectualism. Rodney is a brilliant guy, but like many brilliant people he has trouble articulating his thoughts. He's not an oracle, he's just a very creative person who is desperately passionate. Cherry picking the products of his creativity for some prophetic insight is a disservice to what he's accomplished.
I understand what you are saying but I think the real value in the kind of perspective he brings is how it makes you think rather than the ideas itself.
The specific connections he makes aren't important. It is getting others to think and make connections themselves that are actually meaningful.
The author of the article does a good job of pointing out the ulterior motives for tech culture elites wanting to get him involved e.g. grasps for authenticity. I like how she also points out there may be positives to these ulterior motives like actually getting back in touch with its counter-culture roots.
Great article. Reminds me of good times I spent skateboarding with my friends in the 90's. I still have a VHS copy of "Rodney Mullen vs. Daewon Song" and "Rodney Mullen vs. Daewon Song Round 2" which I watched many, many times over.
Even if you don't like or understand skateboarding, the Rodney Mullen vs Daewon Song series will blow your mind. I wish I still had all my VHS skate videos.
I'm so glad to see him get his "second act". I was a fan during the Bones Brigade days and have always been sad that flatland freestyle isn't really popular any more.
