Skate Anatomy | James Hardy

LEFT SIDE:
Zig Zaggery
When I was 13, I tried to skate a straight-out ledge off stairs for the first time. I had never skated one before. I was always tripped by the way it looked to go straight out. But one day, I decided to try this one that went off about six stairs and dropped off a little below shoulder high. I don’t know what try it was, but I ended up sticking on a 50-50 and clipping my feet on the end of the ledge so that it made me dive to the concrete. Of course, I put my arms down and the left one gave out and broke. I had the zigzag arm and ran off to the hospital. That was my first dramatic skateboard accident. So, straight-out ledges still give me issues.

Black Box Black Out
Since I live at Black Box, I always end up skating the skatepark at the most random times of the day and night. A lot of time I’ll just be skating around in there by myself. I don’t remember the details too well, but one night I was just in there skating around when I just remember waking up at the bottom of the pyramid. The last thing I remember before that was kicking at a kickflip over the pyramid, and then the next scene was me on the floor. It was like I was missing pieces to a sequence. I had a massive lump above my left eye, and my left wrist was jacked. Who knows how much time passed? I just got my board and went into my room.

Road Hoggin’
I was probably 7 years old when I got my first legit bicycle. One day, I was in some park cruising down a sidewalk way too fast when there was this bigger lady dead in the center of the sidewalk and not moving anywhere. I went off the sidewalk to the right into some tall grass. Right when I got into the grass, a massive ditch appeared out of nowhere. I Evel Knieveled the first bank and the bike landed nose first into the other bank, causing me to plow my ribs right into the handle bars. I broke my left bottom rib and jacked my shins on the pedals.

CENTER:
Backscabber
I started having lower back problems in February of 2008. I did all of the examinations to figure out what the deal was and ended up finding out that I had a hole in the center of my lower back muscle. My doctor compared the injury to a scab on your knee, how every time you bend it, the scab would tear open wider. That was what was happening to my lower back muscle. So I did therapy and it got better, but it never healed. It’s 2009 and it still is giving me trouble.

Unleash the Beast
Hopefully everyone remembers those dumb soccer ball mace-like nets from the ’90s that everyone would practice kicking on. The ones where you hold one end like a leash, and then the soccer ball was in a net at the end about 4 feet away. Well, anyway, my older brother had one that he liked to swing in a helicopter formation and hit me with. One time, I was riding my bike down the street when out came my brother with that soccer ball leash. I had nowhere to go; he already had the leash swinging over his head when it connected with my nose. The force knocked me straight back. There was an instant downpour of blood and, as a result, my nose was broken.

Tainted Taint
Five days before the Fallen première, I went back to try and film a line where I lipslid a kinked rail. I had filmed the line once before, but it was kind of weird. So right when we get there, I guess I was a little overconfident since I had skated it once already. I grinded it twice, and then got lucky and lipslid it quick. I decided to do it again but, of course, I bonked on the way up and sacked the flat part of the kink. My balls were swollen and my taint was tainted. That was the end of filming for the Fallen video for me. I waddled my way to the première five days later and was in the worst pain ever. But at least it was over.

RIGHT SIDE:
Price of Progression
Recently one night, me and some of the dudes from Real decided to drive south of SF to skate some spots, one of them being this rail I was really eager to skate. The rail is right next to a neighborhood, so we were kind of hesitant to light it up but decided to go for it. First go on a 50-50, I grinded the rail and snapped my tail. So we turned off the lights and I set up another board. Second go on a 50-50, grinded the rail and snapped my tail. I should have gotten the hint to just give up, but I set up another board and decided I would just skip the 50-50. I decided to go for a switch 50-50, which was what I had in mind from the beginning. The first one I committed to, I went to a perfect switch ghost ride and flopped down the rail. I folded all my fingers back, and my hand swelled into a catcher’s mitt immediately. I didn’t break anything, but I tore and stretched most of the tendons on the top of my hand.

Fencing Lessons
One night in San Diego, me and Crockett checked out this spot that had a 6-foot spike fenced on the perimeter. While looking at the spot, a heated security guard confronted Crockett. Not even trying to defuse the situation, Crockett ran for it. The massive security guard bolted towards Crockett. One of the Black Box vans is parked just outside the fence, so, of course, it looks super sketchy. Crockett made it back to the spiked fence and over safely. That’s when the security guard remembered me and decided to chase me down. I guess I’m not as fast as Crockett, because this dude caught up to me quickly. When I got to the fence, I panicked and decided to just try and front-flip over it. I caught my right thigh on the way over and ripped my right pant leg off, but at least I got over the fence and in the van. I got in the van and found a 6-inch gash in my thigh and headed to the hospital for stitches. I still thank Crockett for that one.