Thursday, September 12, 2013

Ams that Should be Pro #2: Kelly Hart


It feels like Kelly Hart has been around for quite a while.  And all through that time I always felt that he had a very grown up, professional steeze that would grant him his own deck at some point.  Kelly is easily one of the butteriest skaters out there with his easy-looking but dominantly high pop, flicking and catching tricks, and bending his knees for one of the best landings styles I could imagine.  Kelly can manual like he's in a video game with cheat codes, holding a single pose throughout entire long manuals like nothing.  He's got a mastery of nollie and fakie pop shove its and varial flips (and when I say POP shove it, I mean it), which no one else has as smooth as him. Another thing I doubt many people give him credit for is that with his skills to skate switch as smoothly as he does regular, he is able to film tricks that are mirror images of each other, which is a clever way of making his parts more interesting to watch (nollie pop shove nose manny followed by fakie pop shove fakie manny for example).  One of his first major parts was in It's Official, where I'd say all the tricks from 0:50 - 1:11 perfectly demonstrate his pop shove it abilities, his pop, his manual abilities, and his gorgeous tre flips.  His part in Give Me My Money Chico (above) is also really pleasing to watch, just to see exactly how tricks should be executed.  I love his varial heelflip at 2:18, he has a perfect switch heel over a bump to bar at 2:50, and he displays his craftiness with his last two tricks by mirroring a fs 5-0 kickflip out with a switch one afterwards that looks just as buttery as the first. His Berrics Recruit part once again comes through and shows Kelly's mastery of good-looking flip tricks and perfectly balanced manuals. He comes again with two nice mirrored lines starting at 1:02: a front tail then a beautiful fakie tre over a bench and a switch front tail and nollie tre.  His nollie inward heel over the fire hydrant at 1:57 is just another piece of eye candy. Kelly also has some great clips in the latest Expedition offering Madness with some very speedy and smooth cruising lines, in one of which he approaches a handrail and decides that with a tre flip as good-looking as his, he might as well just tre flip over it instead of worrying about any grind tricks, which I fully back.  Throwing a switch flip in the middle of a switch manny at 2:23 is not even fair because he almost doesn't flinch or waver at all! And the fakie POP shove it at 2:35 may possibly be the best one ever done.
So with a really solid collection of video parts, a proper style that is the perfect amount of butteriness without going overboard, and some of the most correct flip tricks in skateboarding (he has the most Berrics' Trickipedia entries for a reason), it's really a shock that he hasn't gone pro yet.  Even just some talk of turning him pro would be nice, but all I can hope for is that he's working on another attractive video part for his first pro board.

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