Today, I decided to tell you about the story, from the deck, that was ordered right after my previous skateboard from part one, snapped. Since boards from American companies were a bit more expensive than their European counterparts over here in Germany, I chose to purchase the “SK8DLX Nerd Is Over” deck.

After buying it, I checked social media pages and saw a post by a skate shop owner; “A TV-Channel just hit me up and was asking for skaters to shred in a TV-Spot. Everyone who’s interested; PM.” Guess who was the first one to go out and send him a message? The idea of skating, and being on TV for that, was so mindblowing to me that I laid my very limited ramp and park experience aside. As we remember from part one of this series, I just learned how to kickflip and (board-)slide. The same night, I agreed to arrive at the fixed time and date at a notably packed skatepark.

The board came just in time. After school, I set it up, got in the car, and let my supportive mother drive me to the mentioned park. It was a struggle to find it because neither my mother nor I knew that city well. Next, she parked the car, then I got on my board, and felt, how the shape was different, the grip was rougher than the one, that I was accustomed to, and many more things were twisting my mind. “Whatever,” I thought, while rolling up to the spot and immediately recognizing a camera crew.

After greeting them, talking for a bit, I started to warm up with the basics. Tricks didn’t want to work at all. Then, the cameraman asked if he could start filming, the other skaters said “yes,” and I responded with a nod. They began doing maneuvers, which I could not come close to back then. So I started to approach a little ledge and tried to grind it, failed miserably. I’ve tried it again and again, and it eventually worked. A small 50-50 on the edge of a manny pad wasn’t what they were looking for though.

A skater (let’s call him Jim), dropped into a quarter pipe, rolled towards a kicker ramp and barely missed his attempted frontside flip. Jim tried it again, as the filmer was focusing on him, and Jim landed it smoothly. Someone from the filming team seemed impressed, looked over to me and asked if I could do that too. Wondering if he had watched me skate at all during the warm-up I giggled and answered “No.”

Everyone (except for me) continued to shred this park into pieces, the most impressive trick, that’s still stuck in my head, was done by a skater and a BMX-rider. They speeded towards a large quarter pipe; the skater went for a 5-0 grind while the BMXer got some air and flew over the skater. To me, seeing this being filmed by a TV-Channels camera crew, made me feel like I was at a stunt show.

As the day came to an end, they asked all the skaters together that arrived for the TV-Crew. Then, they were giving away some goodies and a discount code for a fashion store, which I later sold to my sister for 50€. The director of the filming team approached me and said: “keep practicing, you’ll get there.”

Weeks passed, I continued to shred the deck, became an owner of this new technological device called “Smartphone” and was getting into Instagram. One evening, I was questioning where the TV-Spot was, so I started to look into it. Eventually, I found it and watched the 45 seconds of footage. The tricks I mentioned above were shown in slow motion, pretty much taking up all the time. I’ve rewatched it multiple times and eventually found myself in the background, picking up my board after bailing a trick while the cameras focus was on Jim.

Sure, the camera focus wasn’t on me, nor was I worth being filmed for TV. It didn’t disappoint me though. After all, I skated for TV and got paid to do so. Who else can state that?