Musings on Dance, Food, Geek Stuff
As a newbie quad skater, I love capturing video of my progress as I learn new moves and tricks. And I’m not alone. A lot of the resurgence of interest in quad skating has come from the thousands of skaters posting videos of themselves on Tik-Tok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. So one big issue with…
I’ve started casually teaching folks how to do some basic dance moves on skates. It just happened organically. I spend so much time on my own working on different tricks and steps, and then talking to other people about what they are working on. Soon two or three us are practicing Crazy Legs or spins…
I’ve seen articles that have said roller skating was irrelevant since the ’70s. OK, so what have I been doing for the last 20 years? No, it hasn’t been irrelevant. Roller skating has continued to survive because of the African-American community and our ability to open up the culture to others who want to learn…
This weekend I got together with a few friends to see if we could skate at the new Chase Center in Mission Bay, San Francisco. Turns out its the most incredible space, and totally empty due to the lockdown. So we basically had the run of the plaza for a couple of glorious hours. Here’s…
Happy 2021! On the last day of the year, I did a little video exploring the connections I’ve found between rhythm skating and house dance. As a dancer who has dabbled in many different forms, I’ve been interested in how to incorporate my other styles into skating. House dance, which I’ve been practicing for the…
It was 2011 that my all time favorite holiday dance video — and one of my favorite dance videos PERIOD — came out: “A Miracle on 42nd Street.” Performed by the Yas Initiative, aka Alex Karigan and Zac Hammer, this very Broadway, very campy dance piece is just joy encapsulated for me. Fast forward to…
What I love about rhythm skating is that I can pour into it all of my past dancing — solo jazz, house, breaking, waacking — and find new ways of expressing that on 8 tiny wheels! It’s seriously the best.
I have not been able to find the original source for this quote from author Kurt Vonnegut, I’m afraid. But it speaks volumes to me as a eternal beginner at so many things. When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one…
This evening in the Skating Place there was a boy who was maybe six or seven years old going around the circle with us. At that hour, there were about ten of us skating, all adults. I round a corner and see the boy lying on the ground just bawling his eyes out, while two…
Hey it’s been 3 months since I started quad skating in July! I’m still skating pretty much every day and learning new stuff all the time. My current obsession is unlocking how to do toe spins. Wicked hard! I thought I would celebrate by doing a little jam skate video. I could think of no…