Longboarding

I've decided to pick up long boarding. Whenever I'm walking to class I'd spot several students gliding by effortlessly and getting from one side of campus to another in a time that's much faster than I can ever opt for on my two feet.

I also recall the middle school days when I skateboarded. It was immensely joyful, but a speed wobbling accident completely turned me off from riding ever again. You can imagine the panic one would feel when going down a huge hill with a busy intersection coming up, and realizing that the control of the board is beyond the user now. There were only two options I could think: the first was to jump off hoping that I don't break anything, and the other was to navigate myself through the intersection hoping that a car wouldn't splatter my guts everywhere. Naturally I decided to jump off and accept whatever would happen to me after that point. Fortunately, I didn't break anything but I did scrape up my hips and elbows pretty badly.

But that was then. This is now. In hindsight, the crash was completely preventable had I tightened my trucks. In addition, a long board is designed to handle speed and down hill cruising much better than a skateboard. The prerequisites for being adept at long boarding are quite different too. Since they are for different purposes, a good long boarder should be able to flow gracefully down a steep hill (sort of like snow boarding on concrete), which is an aspect that I really like. To me, long boarding seems to be much more in tune with the surroundings, and I look forward to picking up where I last left off with skateboarding.