Did Nyjah just give away the secret to picking the perfect skate shoes?
Owweee, there I am watching the ol’ Nine Club Stop n’ Chat and I’m stopped in my tracks.
Did Nyjah just share his secret to kick flips! And it also happened to be the secret to buying the perfect skate shoes???
I’d never thought of that before.
I’ve thought about skate shoes, obviously. Every time I look at my feet I think about skate shoes, but skate shoes and kick flip technique? Now there’s a fresh angle. An angle so fresh it edged a new idea into my mind, a new connection between my last 2 pairs of skate shoes and constant foot pain.
A connection such as this.
Over the past year I’ve been struggling with a foot injury which impacted how I could skate regular and particularly how I could slide my foot up the board to ollie, and flick off the side for flip tricks. As the injury started to heal and I was getting back onto my skateboard I decided it was a good time to buy new shoes.
Finding the perfect skate shoes isn’t too hard is it? You just buy the ones you like, and go skate, simple.
Well I’d had a foot injury, so I thought, you know what injuries need? protection! I’ll buy a slightly sturdier skate shoes and that will give me the support I need (literal not emotional) to skate properly again. So I perused the shelves and my eyes landed firmly on an old favourite, the classic, Emerica Reynolds shoe. Still slim enough for todays liking but much sturdier than anything I’d been skating for years. A real ankle cuddler. Off I went with my new shoes and my new smile and my new dreams of doing perfect Reynolds frontside flips with my well supported flipping foot. Alas, my foot still hurt. Most Ollie’s were a strain on the foot and any flip trick was just a scary twinge of re-injury. This support was not the magic bullet I had hoped it was.
I skated less often, went back to working on my rehab exercises and kept strengthening the foot. Then Covid 19 happened and we all went into lockdown. Then, Shane O’neill dropped his long awaited pro shoe on Nike. A shoes I knew I’d be buying as soon as I’d finished watching his new shoe section. So off I went to purchase myself a pair via the social distancingly safe online shopping. When they arrived I was happier than a kid on Christmas and felt 30kg lighter just wearing them around the house. I felt I could float like Shane does around a park.
I went out and skated an empty carpark as soon as I could, taking my little rail and skating the curb manny pad this carpark offered up. Damn these shoes felt good. Damn my foot felt good! Oooweee I could skate again! Like actually skate and ollie and kick flip and oooowwweeeee I was so happy. So I skated more and more and kept skating happily and thought nothing else of it.
Until, as we now know, I was stopped in my tracks by Njah’s comments on The Nine Club. Was shoe choice really this simple? Well, yes, it is that simple, but I recently noticed there might be a bit more to it than I’d thought. Maybe you can blame your shoes. Maybe. Nyjah talks about how he kick flips, so little grip on his board, on his shoe, the shoe rounded off and soft to give the least resistance.
Resistance.
The thing that hurt my foot all those times. Then it dawned on me. Had the thicker, sturdier shoes been putting undue strain ON my foot when doing tricks rather than removing strain? Quite possibly.
Next time you buy skate shoes, take a moment to think about your technique, how you flip your tricks, what part of the foot you use. How will this new pair of shoes affect it. Will it help? or hinder?
More as the story develops.
