Video of the Week: Ryan Decenzo - Double Down

Friday was a wonderful day in the world of skateboarding. The Battle at the Berrics Finals night went down, live, and boy was it an experience. Seeing everything happen with no editing, just live action, conveys the crowd's energy and skaters' nervous excitement so much more clearly than the usual individual videos of the battles. And it's because of this modified medium of watching the Finals that the whole event was simply spectacular. I legitimately laughed out loud in stoked surprise when Sewa landed Koston's pressure flip, or when Luan miraculously pulled out his pressure heelflip along with some double flip variations to match Cody. The whole night was filled with great moments like these, intertwined with the equally touching and inspiring story of Johnny Romano, along with the unexpected technical insanity that was Cody Cepeda's Recruit part. While you can check The Berrics over the next few days to rewatch most of these features, it's hard to recreate that feeling of watching it all live.

Now to psych everyone up for that wonderful Friday evening was the Video of the Week - Ryan Decenzo's Double Down part - that came out just after noon on Friday. We already know Ryan is a killer on a skateboard from his Hallelujah and Forward Slash parts, so it needs to be recognized and appreciated just how quickly Ryan can churn out these lengthy, extremely gnarly parts. Charging the biggest rails, huge gaps, getting tech-gnar on some famous rails, and redefining how to skate rails with huge drop offs, Ryan impresses in every single clip, without exaggeration. If his trick on a rail seems even on the brink of being relatively simple, he'll be nollie-ing into it to provide that extra challenge. (Cause he really has one of the most insane nollies in the game.) I personally loved the enormous front 360 at 0:56, the big 360 flip lipslide at 3:06 followed by a super sketchy nollie back bluntslide (made to look easy), and then the pair of hammers at 4:23 down and over the steep rail. The whole part is really just an onslaught of gnarly tricks at gnarly spots, and deserves to stay on top of the internet waves for a quite a while before getting swept away in its growing tides.

In other skate news from the week:
Justin Figueroa kinked crooked grind ender from Bake and Destroy, the gnarliest crooked grind ever, is shown uncut with all of the attempts leading up to the epic make. I love raw, uncut footage.
Denzel White's part in Active Ride Shop's "Where Is It?" is super sick! Never heard of him but he is definitely here to stay after a part like this. The one-footed switch front 3 after the craziest roll-in 5-0 are so awesome, and he even has a similar downhill tre flip to Ryan's...doubling down indeed.
Nick Jensen's part in Jacob Harris' Eleventh Hour (highly recommended viewing) is filled with those one of a kind London vibes and the quick-footed precision that Nick is known to provide. The ender's pretty insane too.
Raymond Molinar's Metro Lines part is pretty fun to watch. Always happy with another Raymond part and this night-skating, spot-searching experience is quite enjoyable.
Body of Water is a feature organized by Dave Chami taking Walker Ryan, Dennis Busenitz, Josh Matthews, Joey Pepper, and Nestor Judkins to New Zealand. With a crew like this, good skating is guaranteed.
Shota Kikuchi has a new deck coming out for Consolidated and released this part to go with it. The rough Japanese spots really bring out Shota's raw skating as the part keeps picking up throughout.
Heroin Skateboards worked with The Skateboard Mag last week and introduced both Zack Krull, with a wild and ripping part, along with Joe O'Donnell, who has some quick feet, crazy ideas, loads of board control, and one heck of a nose manual. They also put out a pleasing montage, Egomaniacs Diss, that properly covers a few different skate styles.

Video of the Week: Nyjah Huston - Fade to Black

Best Quality Video at Thrasher

This week has been nuts with the release of way too many good videos. I wanted to pick a video of the week that would not have already been talked about as much as this one, but when a video part is as gnarly and well-rounded (in regards to Nyjah at least) as this one, it's too hard to not highlight Nyjah's hard work that he's put in this past year. From skating enormous rails (several on order of 20 stairs or more) to the most insane kinked rails to some huge gaps and then even to some crazy tech tricks, Nyjah's created one of the sickest parts possible today. I'd love to go over each and every clip and its awesomeness, but watching the video over and over again will work just as well. 

Then there was AB&A, the Etnies video starring Axel Cruysberghs, Barney Page, and Albert Nyberg that is watchable at the Berrics. Great editing and song selection from Etnies? Check. Three distinctly awesome styles and personalities? Check. Some very memorable NBDs from Albert Nyberg? CHECK. This video will be on replay for quite some time.

Narrowing down that European vibe, my previous wishes actually came true and Tom Knox of Isle Skateboards had his part in Eleventh Hour released. (I got the full video myself at Theories of Atlantis and would recommend it to any skate video collector.) It's really hard to beat the London spots and scenery; this video just provides that sense of awe solely from aesthetics. Mix that with Tom Knox's perfect adaption of his skating to his surroundings with his extremely quick feet and great improvisational tricks and you have one heck of a video part. 

The week of the Europeans maybe? It was great to see some new Danny Brady footage in the form of a new full part for Palace skateboards. Danny's great flick put to some unique editing for some more awesome vibes and skateboarding fans are pleased with this outcome.

I'm going to bunch together three parts that came out this week: TJ Rogers for Bones Wheels, a Travis Erickson compilation part, and a minute long Coalatree commercial for Ryan Spencer. All of these dudes rip extremely hard in these clips with just pure street skating from their personal hometown area spots. All of these dudes are also very underrated because parts like these that can be rewatched multiple times show that they should be much closer to turning pro than they currently are at the moment. 

And to wrap up this week, here are some other pretty tight videos:

-Sweet trick selection and style from John Hill in his Mag Minute

-Another tight release from the Old Dominion video by Venue Skateboards, this time featuring Jordan Bradshaw

-A reminder of how great Lakai and its team riders always are with the Lakai 'YIR' Die recap montage.

-A cool NYC montage project by Steve Marino called In The Streets (picks up nicely around 2:25)

-Equal amounts creativity and gnarliness in the Berrics blowup video from Jordan Maxham: Maxham Overdrive (his intro to Warco is still one of the most ridiculous internet videos in recent memory for me)

Return to the Radar #3: Tom Knox

This was the first time I had ever heard of Tom Knox.  Seeing that he rides for Emerica and Blueprint (at the time), there had to be something special about him.  So when the two brands collaborated for this introductory part, I was very impressed at this Londoner's extremely quick feet and spontaneous street style. The edit is fast paced and every clip matches that pace because Tom somehow manages to throw tricks on obstacles immediately after landing a previous trick.  The first line at 0:15 is a good example of how he doesn't stop in between tricks but seems to start setting his feet up as he lands the trick before.  It takes this precision skill set to pull off a line like at 0:41, navigating through the narrow alley without losing any control of his position.  (Just look at this fun clip of Tom skating on a moving train, weaving in and out of the support poles, recovering from veering off to the sides with an alertness I can only relate to Mark Suciu's.)  Quick feet allows Tom to pull of his body varial at 0:57, which looks like he waited for the last possible instant to actually twist.  The fact that Tom has a great deal of tricks and can skate just about anything (adapting perfect to his London environment) makes him that much more enjoyable to watch, not to mention the London aesthetic that never fails to please either.  Other notable tricks from this part include the tightly spaced gap to back lip at 1:47 that requires the utmost concentration in positioning to avoid the brick wall, the perfect finish to the line at 2:14 with the quick no comply off the last step, and a huge fakie ollie at 3:01 that is terrifying but the conceptual simplicity of the trick makes it that much cooler too.
There is also his older Square One part that includes more of that quick-footedness, the precision placement and control, and an even wider array of flip tricks to show for.  The 180 up to switch backside 360 ollie at 1:38 gets me every time.  Skateboarding could definitely use some spontaneous quick footed skating like Tom's to be in the spotlight, especially when he has the beautiful and much less than perfect spots that London offers at his disposal.
Now that Isle Skateboards has officially started up after the termination of Blueprint, I really hope they are working on something as a team so that Tom Knox can again put out his great skating.

UPDATE: It slipped my mind, but I am extremely pumped for his Eleventh Hour part coming out soon!