Went skating today and wasn't supposed to be anything crazy until I rolled upon a group of kids (17-19 year old's) popping wheelies on bikes. I normally stay away from them cause they're in groups of 8, can be heard yelling and ride a little recklessly, but I saw them popping wheelies full speed up to a cone at the edge of a parking lot and then made a hard turn last minute. It was like sliding on one wheel and then wheeling around the cone. I saw that and blurted "oh shit that was nice".

The leader of the group heard and asked me if I could do that and I said I'll try, not sure how it'll come out considering I'm on skates. But the minute I said I'll try, he rounded up all his friends to watch. All these shirtless kids on BMX bikes were whooping at me from behind the cone like it was a strip show. After that I couldn't really back out, so...yeah

I go to the edge of the parking lot, and with absolutely no plan on what I'm going to do, I bolted toward the cone at full speed, doing cross-overs to get my speed up. Halfway there I remembered a video where Ricardo Lino mentions that to get into a parallel slide you have to skate into a circle, making sure your toes keep turning into that circle, and with enough speed your wheels will lose grip and start sliding. Or something like that anyway. I hadn't practiced it in months, nor did I ever get it down pact but I figured why not? Worst that could happen is I slide out, bust my ass, and keep skating.

I started swerving on my edges to get comfortable, got on the edge that I was going to (try) sliding in, turned with full force keeping my toes going, and then, I actually did it. It wasn't a crazy long slide, maybe like a foot and a half long with my inside foot beginning to drag, but I was right in front of the cone and surprised that I even got it. And the crowd went absolutely wild. They wouldn't stop whooping and scared away a family that was coming through the parking lot.

I don't have any pictures to go along with this post but it was definitely a feel good moment. More of a reason to practice parallel slides again.

Note: after this happened, I tried to do parallel slides somewhere else and just couldn't get it down. It was probably all the hype that helped.