My
Career in Skimboarding
By: Adam
Jackson
Every day I am at the beach practicing. This is a very tough sport. You
have to keep yourself in top shape. It is also very hard to make a living
off of. You can't really do anything to get better, besides practicing.
It is a very nice job to make a living in when you get to compete a lot.
On the other hand it is not too fun to be yelled at by your coach when
you crash or do the wrong trick in practice.
Five
Years Later
My life went on like this for about five years and I finally got fed up
with this and fired all my trainers and coaches. I started training myself
and practicing alone at my home beaches where I belong. While I was riding
I met these guys, we became good friends, and
decided to put together a MPS (Men's Professional Skimboarding) team.
We trained each other and taught each other our own tricks. We now
had a team that couldn't be beat. We went to the first competition
of the new season. After the final run we looked up at the scoreboard
and we were first (Team Transworld). We went crazy over this win.
It used to be top ten finishes and now it is top three's, at least!
This win meant that we would advance to the Nationals.
Three
Weeks Later
We had made it into the finals and were facing Team Global. We weren't
so sure about winning this one. Their team looked very tough when
they were warming up. We thought we would probably be able to handle
them though. We decided Matt would be first for us. He had
a huge run to put us ahead after the first round. Danny was second;
he had an okay run that put our team neck and neck at half time.
I was riding third for out team. I had a good run, but it wasn't
quite good enough. This took us into the fourth and final round down
by two point seven points. Garrett was up for us. He blew away
a national record by throwing out a huge backside nac-nac-tailgrab
and earned himself a ten point zero. We took the National Championship
in our first year on the tour.
After that we went up to Mavericks to spend the rest of the weekend.
We spent the night right there on the beach and got up the next morning
early to go skimboarding. We were listening to the radio and heard
that there was going to be a swell right at Mavericks today. This
was going to be awesome for skimboarding. We all grabbed our boards
and ran down to the shore. Of course there were other surfers getting
in and out in the water because of this huge swell today. Garrett
made the first move and got a huge jump. He busted out a huge McTwist.
This was a great first ride. We were having a great day. I
pulled off a few tricks that I had never successfully done. This
was one of my most favorite weekends that I have ever had.