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270 spinner, leg lift and pivoting nose perch, aft weighted toe tap, pivot half spinner to backpedal
This is another routine with a 270 spinner to the nose. This time I worked out a challenging balancing trick near the nose. It's a one legged stand and half turn without setting down the other foot. I'm not sure how great it looks, but it was very difficult to do.
270 degree spinner
Once again, I start in the narrow stance. My front foot is right on the middle of the board.
I begin to cross step up and into a spinner.
I turn to face left and place my right foot down near the nose, pointing it to the left. The left foot pivots along with the spinner to finish pointing to the left. Now I'm in switch stance near the nose.
I continue to pivot to the left, continuing the spinner. At this point I have turned a full 270 deg to face backwards.
Leg lift and pivoting nose perch
I now weight my left leg and prepare to take a step with my right. Only this time it wont be a step.
I swing my right leg out like a slow kick, and hold it there, while facing backwards and riding forwards. This pose is like something you'd do in Tai Chi, a dance-like martial art. Or maybe like the kata stuff the Karate Kid does on that piling in the movie.
There's more. I intend to turn on my left leg without putting my right foot down.
From the position I last held, facing backwards with leg extended, I now rotate my shoulders slowly to the right (clockwise). I keep my right leg up and swing it around until it points toward the nose. I try to do this without touching it on the board. Once I've turned a ways, I can see forward.
Still facing backwards but able to look over my shoulder, I extend my leg out toward the front. In this transition, my toe points down.
Keep in mind that this is my switch stance. I worked out this trick to pivot facing switch because I balance better on my left leg. It makes sense because that's the one I stand on when I'm pushing. If you want to do it regular, you could skip the half spinner and balance on your right leg.
I keep turning until I'm almost facing forward. The way I do it is to leave my foot planted and turn my hip in the joint like a swivel. I also pivot a little on the planted foot. I now point my toe up. I try to make my leg really straight and hold it there. My left foot remains planted where it was, knee bent.
It is necessary to be pretty flexible at the ankle or perhaps the knee to do this. This is because you end up really turned out when you turn your body a whole half turn to face forward. It is also a test of strength and especially balance to hold on one leg while you are changing leg positions and turning.
If you cant turn out that far, stop the shoulder rotation with your leg pointing out to the side, and just look over your shoulder to see forward. That will still give you plenty of challenging tai chi to do on your board.
Another thing about this is any time you ride a board on one leg with your foot pointing straight to the side it has an insane tendency to want to shoot to one side under you. I think it's because you have so little leverage on the board with your narrow foot. If you keep your foot diagonal, it's easier. Maybe high top shoes might help as well, though I haven't tried.
Aft weighted toe tap
I lower my foot and touch it on the nose. This is a switch toe tap or hang five. All the weight is still on my back foot. Even this normal hang five nose perch has something a little different about it. My back foot is turned out and points backwards at an angle. This can be hard to do. If you can do it, it puts the weight and control differently on the board, and opens up a bunch of different ways you can do your nose perch. This is really useful if you longboard surf. You can keep your weight aft or way back almost to the trim spot and not look like you're doing a "cheater five". For skateboarding, the toe tap with back foot pointing back could set up a nice forward backpedal step toward the tail, as shown in the Prison Walk Chain. Maybe I should have done that, as it turned out.
Pivot half spinner to backpedal
I step back off the nose. From switch stance, I'm going to step back while pivoting to the right, bringing me back into my regular stance.
From the toe tap I place my right foot back behind me. This is a half spinner out of switch into regular. I pivot my left foot out of its turned out position back to facing forward. After all that difficult balancing, I lost my balance slightly in the simplest part, the pivot back pedal. That's why I keep my arms way wide, to recover from such mistakes easily.
This routine would probably be impossible or really sketchy on a little 45 inch board. The glide and weight of the classic board makes complex footwork easier. Actually, the hard wheel set up I'm using for this project probably made it harder. You could practice some of the advanced footwork on a soft wheel big board.
