Video of the Week: Shep Dawgs Vol. 4

The Video of the Week, and probably the homie video of the year, without a doubt goes to Shep Dawgs Vol. 4. With the perfect soundtrack to keep the good vibes and gnarly sessions going, the loads of footage gathered in this true full length video starts off strong and never lets up. It's crazy because quite a few parts could have been the ender, but AJ Zavala (part featured above) puts his name on the radar with some nutty handrail variations and all around ripping. Definitely worth getting the DVD, the Shep Dawgs prove that there's nothing quite like feeding off the energy of each other and skating with the homies.

Cory Kennedy and Bert Wootton had their parts in Rat Poison released by The Skateboard Mag and boy are they awesome! Cory never ceases to amaze in whatever he's trying, be it some dork around trick, some crazy handrail, or a super tech ledge trick (or even making a line out of two varial flips), and Bert strings together some of the trickiest lines (the one at 2:00 is too good) while making everything look like it's nothing.
X Games Real Street is bound to make your day better. Even with some arguably strange competitiveness forced by the X Games overlords, these 16 mini parts from your favorite skaters are always worth it.
Tom Karangelov's Out of Sync part for Thunder Trucks has a couple of minutes of fast and gnarly skating, never slowing down since his Cold War part.
There's lots of rad London shredding in Innocence & Experience from Hold Tight London
Andrew Cannon's latest part for Theeve Trucks is super clean and full of good vibes.
Vince Duran has a Surprise Spring Cleaning, which is definitely not as throwaway as it sounds. His fakie ollie  and variations with it is for sure one of the best in the game right now.
Jon Holland's part for The Cinematographer Project with the Sk8mafia squad was re-released through Transworld this past week and worth a few views if you haven't seen it on the full DVD already.

Next Week: Slams

Slamming is inevitable for skaters. From the random pebble that just jumps out in front of your wheel to the disorientation of balance that throws everything off, slamming comes in the most unexpected ways. It's the harsh reality of skateboarding and the pros know this particularly well. It's been said that pros (let's include am/flow skaters for argument's sake) slam more than other skaters, which I wouldn't argue with one bit. Going hard for tricks when you're as practiced as these guys are make the slightest change in their environment the biggest factor for slamming. Some skaters know how to come out of bails smoothly from experience, some just go straight rag doll and take the full impact. Some skaters play it relatively safe with their terrain, some skaters go balls out at the gnarliest spots. Regardless, this week I'll go over my top 5 skaters that come into my head when thinking about slamming.
Here are some other skaters that have had some pretty hefty slams too:
Jereme Rogers' opening two clips from Yeah Right are just painful to watch. Getting tangled up in the rail/hubba to flipping over looks rough on the entire body, but then the sack on the rail is quite possibly the worst one I've ever seen. And by worst, I mean the most direct sack possible. Jereme's cringing face explains it all.
Nate Akers' Hall of Meat for his ollie down a huge gap (in Washington state I believe?) is never going to be forgotten. I still trip out at the fact that you can hear 3 distinct snaps: the wheels landing on the pavement, the board breaking in half, and then that from his leg.
While I tend to pay attention to most things street-skating-related, there's no way I could not mention Danny Way's shin-shattering slam into the Big Air coping at the X Games or Jake Brown's frightening fall straight to flat off the Big Air quarter. It's a true testament to the sheer strength and willpower of these two guys to get right back up after slams like that.