Next Week: Maintenance

Next week at Skateboarding High Fives, I'll be doing some blog maintenance so there won't be any posts. Hopefully the site will have some improvements by next week to better organize the Top 5's. In the meantime, enjoy Cooper Wilt's part from Almost Round 3, a frequently overlooked treasure.

Manny Maniacs #2: Daewon Song

A writeup about manuals in skateboarding would not be complete without mentioning Daewon Song. I don't need to mention what kind of manuals or tricks he does because he does them all.  Daewon's creativity surpasses any need of spot searching, making a single curb or a warehouse suitable for an infinite amount of manual trick combinations. If I went into any specifics about his video game like manual combos on the crustiest of spots, I wouldn't finish this post. So I'll highlight some of my favorite video parts from Daewon with his best, and a good portion of skateboarding's best, manual moments.
In one of his earlier parts (without neglecting to acknowledge his Round 1 or 2 parts with Rodney and his Love Child part) for Deca, Daewon skates a bench on a rooftop with a manual nonetheless at 1:12, strings a few awesome manuals combo tricks with just a concrete bench and a curb from 0:13 to 0:37, and undoubtedly destroys a warehouse with combinations of tricks upon tricks where the video-game-like manual combos can be seen from 3:51 - 4:36.
In his Almost Round 3 part (above), he has really too many great manual tricks to list, but he works in a wide array of fliptricks into and out of his manuals (as well as in the middle of them) while balancing across a diverse mix of banks and pads and curbs. In particular, his triple fakie manual at 3:02 shows just how controlled and entertaining Daewon is with his board and from 4:40 to the end of the part, he comes through with unbelievable manual tricks that are bound to stay ingrained in your memory.
In DVS Skate More, Daewon continues his extremely impressive and creative use of manuals to coincide with his other really great footage at appealing spots.  A couple tricks that stick out to me: at 3:36, he kickflips into a manual and then basically manuals into a two-wheeled powerslide for a moment, turns it all the way around to a fakie manual and then flips out. Godly control once again. And for his last trick at 5:52, he holds a super long switch nose manual going very fast and along a reasonably steep bank as well. The following speedy fakie big heel and Colin Kennedy's laugh as the picture fades is the perfect reaction to watching Daewon's skating: you just can't help but laugh at how ridiculously good at skateboarding he is.
New Year's Dae, a promo part of sorts, is a very refreshing take on the warehouse/back alley curb kind of skating that was in Daewon's Deca part. Obviously new and improved, Daewon still has all of the skills and style that he had back then.  New Year's Dae comes out with plenty more NBDs and innovative tricks as well as a few newfound bank tricks where he spins 720/900 or so in manuals.  I still can't believe that at 2:57 he actually films two separate clips of his nollie backside flip fakie manual fakie big flip out.
Finally, with Daewon's latest part in Almost's 5-Incher, you really can't explain the feeling you get when watching someone use rocks and tree stumps with his tricks, especially when manuals are involved. A whole new realm has been opened and Daewon's masterful creativity is to thank for that.

Manny Maniacs #5: Rodney Mullen

Rodney Mullen is an enigma wrapped in legendary status with skills that are incomprehensible. Including him with the manual masters is a must when you can combine casper slides (2:43 above) and primo slides (4:38 and 4:43) into your manual combos, not to mention darkslides (2:10) and even handstand finger flips into manuals as well (0:28). Before I was even born, Rodney came out with manual tricks in his timeless part in Virtual Reality that you still see guys doing today (starting around 2:24). I still don't even know if I've someone even front heel fakie manny even today, which goes to show you that Rodney's on an entire different level. Any round with Daewon is mindbendingly insane, but I think his part in Almost's Round 3 (shown above), being one of the first bits of skateboarding I'd ever witnessed, acts as the skateboarding Bible for me today.  Some tricks from this part are untouchable to this day. For manuals specifically, besides the ridiculousness mentioned above, his stationary one wheel manual spinning at 0:33 demonstrates Rodney's freestyle background and explains why he's able to do so much on a skateboard, and right before demolishing the banked manual spot with tricks on tricks on tricks he comes out with an impossible nose manual nose impossible out at 3:46 that to me is still one of the best "straightforward" manual tricks done to this day.
Since then, I have felt an everlasting craving of more Rodney footage (Almost, please tell me you weren't kidding when you said on 5-Incher that he has a part in the works) and was partially satisfied by a few clips in Globe's United By Fate.  After hearing from interviews that Rodney went through some tough physical issues and through his own willpower is legitimately attempting to get rid of any stance that he has, I was intrigued to say the least.  His tricks in the short segment from United By Fate exemplify his goal in that he does a nose manual nollie 360 shove to manual in both "stances"...and makes it look just like a mirrored image! Most skaters show some signs of their stance in their shoulder and foot positioning but Rodney genuinely does not with these two tricks, making me think that once again he is breaking boundaries in skateboarding that no one else would think of breaking.  And just for good measure, he throws in a *switch* kickflip one footed nose manual as well.