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Hey, this is Eric Muss-Barnes
and you know ever since I started skateboarding, all I ever really wanted to skate
was pools!
I remember when I was probably about 7-8 years old.
seeing footage on television of people skating pools
and I was completly blown away by it. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.
I remember watching it just thinking how desperately
i wanted to learn how to do that sort of thing myself.
Now back when kids were hopping fences so that they could skate
backyard swimming pools that looked something like this
i was growing up
in Ohio, and unfortunately we didn't have round pools in Ohio
in fact most of the pools in Ohio looked more like this.
Or worse yet
they looks like this.
Obviously not something that you can skate.
So, when i finally got the opportunity
to skate real swimming pools
i was really really intimidated.
I coudn't get over
how huge how huge some of these pools actually were.
I mean look at the size of this thing.
It's about an 11foot deep-end.
It's about an 6foot shallow-end.
and this deep end must be
twenty five feet across.
This thing is huge!
Of course,
something like this is really intimidating to learn how to skate.
And I knew that there are a lot of things
that I have to learn
in order to ride this thing.
One day,
I decided i was finally ready, I was gonna begin dedicating my time in skatepark to poolriding.
So I started coming to the skatepark
three or four days a week instead of once or twice and I skate two to four hours
at the time and I spent 95% of my time sessioning the pool.
Cause I knew it's gonna take months of dedication and discipline and I needed a lot of patience to get good.
I mean I had tons to learn.
So before I felt worthy of calling myself a poolskater there were six things that I knew I wanted to learn.
First thing,
is "Drop-In".
Next, backsind tile in the deep.
Frontside tile in the shallow
frontside tile in the deep
backside tile in the shallow
and of course to go the "launch out"!
relatively smoothly.
As far as I am concerned, if I could not do those six things
i wasn't worthy of calling myself a poolskater.
In the end took me about three months of skating for about eight to twelve hours a week
to learn those six skills.
Now as you can see here, I already knew how to skate a bowl. pretty well.
but the timing of skating an 11foot pool is entirely diffrent than than a 5foot bowl.
So I decided to document my progress
and actually shoot video
of my entire learning process of pool skating.
Now as you can see this footage was shot on the 5th of july
and this is actually very first drop-in
that i got in this pool on video
and the very first drop-in that I ever did on vert
and in this pool was actually three days prior to this which was
thursday
july second.
I had actually been skating the pool
for i'd say maybe three weeks or so
before I learned how to drop- in
and thing was it was just so exhausting
team climb into the pool
and try how to learn how to pump back-and-forth without having that extra movement that you need
of dropping in.
So i finally said okay that's it, I have to learn the "drop-in" so i can get
more speed.
I remember that 2nd of july that thursday afternoon,
i've gotten out of work a little bit early for the holiday
and I was standing there
on the edge of the pool. Looking into this thing and I thought
I now have three more days off work
if i can do this, if I can pull this off right now
I am gonna be in such a good mood. I am gonna be so happy for the rest of the weekend.
And so I had my iPod
I was listening to
carmel dancing
yes I was actually listening
to that song.
I don't know I was in a great mood. I was really happy and it was all sunny and beautifull.
And I said, this is it. I can do this!
I am going to pull it off.
And my very first try ...
I bailed.
and did kind of a knee slideout.
it was completely fine didn't get hurt at all.
So I stood right back up
got back on the board
dropped in the second time. Pulled it off!
As you can see from watching this footage everytime I set the board on the coping
and get ready to drop in
it would take me for ever
to actually do it.
Its mainly really because I was so darn scared even though I knew how to drop in.
I would just need my foot position to be absolute perfect
and i have to really take my time and get ready
and as you can see my cards are really really low, I am still
many feet below the coping.
in the deep end.
and if you know it's just because again I had so much to learn
I didn't really know the timing quite yet
sometimes I think I can kickturn a little bit higher but my carves back then when it was still pretty low
and I'm still just working on things
just trying to figure out how to get that rhythm going.
The day before I shot this footage
actually got my very first
kickturns to tile in the shallow end.
You can actually hear the
grind on the tile.
when you watch these clips.
oops, looks like I missed the tile that time.
But you know this angle gives you a better idea of what the shallow end of the pool looks like.
And i will tell you climbing out of this pool sure gets exhausting. I mean sure you do it once
or twice no big deal with do it twenty times in a row and wow!
Now in this last clip not only get frontside tile the shallow but this is my first backside
tile in the deep end.