I’m not talking about pipe. I mean stuff like this
I understand bailing. You roll out of a fall, that makes sense. I mean when you do land something like this, how is it that your body can take the impact? Is it dispersed through the momentum of the board?
In: Physics
Adrenaline and the fact he’s pretty young and athletic helps too. Older skaters rarely jump down stuff this big. even the young skaters can’t hit stuff like this forever you notice his clothes change halfway through probably because he got too fatigued. Only a handful of good attempts before it sets in.
Yes on the last sentence. The more forward momentum you have, the better, and you land sort of pushing forward as your legs flex to absorb the impact. It’s basically the same as rolling out of a bail, only the wheels are doing the rolling, instead of your body.
The body can take impacts pretty well.
But, it isn’t just that, it’s how you land.
If you watch that video, he hits the ground, beds his knees all the way up into his chest, and then rolls out onto his back.
In that, he is using the muscles in his legs to start to slow his fall.
And then he falls/rolls out onto his back, spreading the force of his landing out over a larger area.
Then the fact that he spreads out the fall by rolling/sliding instead of one sudden stop lowers the impact on the body.
If you made the same jump and landed poorly, you could easily break you leg, arm, head.
Skateboarders learn how to fall.
You are generally killed by impact force, that is what we can’t handle well. Impact is about how quickly an object comes to a stop. Its a simple function (but maybe not for a 5 yr old):
F = (m * v) / t,
* F = impact force,
* m is the mass of the person/object,
* v is the speed of the person/object,
* t is the time to come to a stop.
Alternatively, after a bit of maths, you can see impact as a function of distance travelled during a collision, as per:
F = (m * v²) / (2 * d) ,
* d is the distance travelled during collision.
The skateboarder never comes to a quick halt (as per someone jumping from the same height strait down onto the pavement). Thus his impact force is divided by double the distance he is using to slow himself down. Many of those falls looked like he got 2m worth of slow down; so similar to a car crash.
So, as we are in that ball park, lets compare to car crash stats. Assume he was a very fast runner and can get to 30 km/h. In terms of pedestrian vs car safety stats, via google: that’s < 5% chance of a fatality and < 50% chance of injury for the average person. The skateboarder is a lot fitter than the average person and has practised falling a lot. So he probably will take some damage, but otherwise probably be fine.
Kids are bouncy.
I always said that skateboarding is 95% slamming into the ground.
The psychology of “leaving your board unintentionally” is a massive deal, and isn’t really discussed as far as I can see. But its something you really have to get comfortable with.
At first it’s scary as fuck, losing balance, slamming into the ground. But you get used to it, accept it, and work WITH it to mitigate more long term breaks that go beyond mere, inevitable, pain. What you see in the video is simply a more evolved version. In the beginning, the concrete is your enemy and when you first slamming it hurts your body, your pride, and your natural instinct is to feel upset, but when you get used to it, the ground is like an old friend, and you’re just giving it a cuddle…
Basically these guys learn how to fuck themselves more dangerously, but more safely at the same time.
In karate/ju jitsu, you’ll get taught how to “breakfall” and this is no different.
Also, landing on your board, both feet/good balance=good.
Landing on both feet, on solid ground= good, you can roll out of it.
Landing half-on your board,off balance, while your trying to run-off your momentum= worst fucking nightmare…
They don’t. Right now he’s young and immortal. But there’s one scene where he completely loses the board and lands on his feet. So, why bother with the board? Just jump off 2nd story roofs for fun and thrills. He’ll break an ankle, knee or hip. Or, if a few years will need new… ankles, knees, and hips. And they last only 10 or so years. Good luck!
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