

Skateboarding Legend Rodney Mullen in Silicon Valley - josephpmay
http://www.wired.com/2015/01/rodney-mullen/

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freedom123
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.

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sammorrowdrums
@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.

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visakanv
Absolutely. There's seems to always be this interesting duality to achieving
anything difficult.

You have to have faith that you can do well, but you also have to acknowedge
the hard facts of reality.

You have to be kind, but you also have to be firm and not a pushover.

You have to help people, but you can't be taken advantage of.

You have to get out of your comfort zone, but you have to avoid burnout.

So on and so forth.

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noobface
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.

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jayvanguard
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.

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Lich
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.

~~~
rcarrigan87
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.

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MattGrommes
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.

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romankolpak
He also talked on TED:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBbmNAZWq-E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBbmNAZWq-E)

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tylerc230
Does anyone remember "The Search for Animal Chin"? Classic Bones Brigade
video. It's always good to see someone with such disparate interests.

