Pop an ollie and innovate! | Rodney Mullen | TED

This has been extremely pronounced with skateboarding. Technical tricks that used to take years to land are now being done effortlessly by kids filming throwaway clips shot vertically on their phones. Rodney Mullen, the godfather of basically every trick that involves jumping up and flipping the board and landing on it, has a great TED Talk on epistemology in skateboarding [1]. The biggest block is often just to see proof that something can be done. He also draws apt comparisons with the open source community. Interestingly, he apparently invented a lot of his tricks in isolation on a farm; some genius thrives in the woodshed. Thinking in McLuhanisms, these new mediums have undoubtedly extended epistemology in very revolutionary ways, but it's definitely amputated them as well. The dime-a-dozen landscape and portrait photos that are nigh indistinguishable, the wild west of the content treadmill economy, and the anxiety of influencers [2]. [1] ▶ this video [2] link

Really awesome seeing someone talk about skateboarding here on HN as it relates to the subjects covered by Knuth in this article. I grew up skateboarding and I credit the years those years with a huge amount of learning I didn't even know I was doing. To expand upon what you said: it's amazing when you take that trick, a kickflip for example, and you're so confident in your consistency, that you apply it to something new. Kickflip to rock to fakie, kickflip down a set of stairs, kickflip to 50-50, and so on. The consistency you gain from that trick opens up the door to a whole new world of combinations. There's so much about skateboarding, the culture (or counter culture in some cases) around it that translate so well to programming/hacking (and life in general). The trials of learning something new. The acceptance and overcoming of failure. The respect you shown and earned when you're at the park and you or someone else puts down a sick trick. One of my favorite creative minds in skateboarding, Rodney Mullen, talks a bit about the relationship between hacking and skateboarding in his TED talk. [1] [1] ▶ this video

I'm on to 37 and started skateboarding 10 months ago. Took back my way to block climbing which I didn't practice for 15 years. Also started calisthenics. This is after a sizable weight gain and huge drop in fitness down to rock bottom. I was quite athletic when I was 18-22, but stopped doing sports with any regularity around 23-25 and gradually degraded physically. Some day around 32 I woke up and felt so bad in my own body I decided to put an end to this over the next 7-10 years (since it was the time I took to dig myself into that hole I figured out it would take about the same time to reliably dig myself out of it), changed my diet (this is key!), and started running, which I hate, but basically the only thing I could manage to do. Went like 500m at a ridiculously slow pace (something like 10min/km) and started puking right on the sidewalk. This is when I really realized Things Were Definitively Not OK, and that all the parties and fun and eating and drinking we're not worth that. End result seven years later, lost the 20kg I had in excess, ran 18km in 1h30, stopped running regularly but (now that I'm more solid) swapped for sports I enjoy much more, and I feel so good it's like I could tear walls apart with my bare hands! In many ways I'm in as good or better a shape than I ever was even in my 20s. Random sample of newly met strangers give me between 8-15 years less than my age, and "less than 30, for sure". It's never too late. Pace yourself, one step at a time. Set realistic short term goals, yet look up to the stars because on the long run basically anything is achievable. Your mind will resist change, but it can be overcome. The only obstacle between current you and future you is yourself. Choose what you will become, at every moment, consistently. Fuck if I Ollied down 3 stairs a month ago and I'm now super close to land a tre flip barely a year in, and if that guy[0] can still be at the top of his shape[1] at 51 after having his hip joint basically fuse and fix it through dedicated stretching and exercise (and end up giving a talk where he draws parallels between FOSS and skateboarding), then it tells something about consistency and dedication. [0]: ▶ this video [1]: link

Well, yes and no, my experience tells me it all depends on the level of control of your body that you have, and training for a particular task. Learning to ollie is a typical example of that: there are movements that you have to consciously apply, yet the best way to ollie is to not think about it and just do a ollie, as each movement isolated doesn't mean much and it's only when the whole thing connects together that it works [0]. As Rodney Mullen says [1], you can only be conscious about sub-movements that really don't exist by themselves (only as part of a larger move) and connect together to form (and possibly create) a movement or a trick. It's really hard to describe, because mostly you don't really think about it, you just feel it, but at the same time it's a conscious action on your part, kinda like meditation or doing a kata. [0]: Braille Skateboarding - 5 steps to better ollies: link [1]: Rodney Mullen - Pop a ollie and innovate! ▶ this video