They probably should be bigger. But a lifetime of enduring modern day foot binding has deformed my feet giving me unsightly bunions, crooked pinky toes, and flat arches. I was even afflicted with bouts of capsulitis and sciatica. I'm sure doing parkour didn't help.

Of the millions of species that inhabit this planet, humans are the only animals who wear shoes save for the poor cats and dogs and various domestic critters we subject to online humiliation for upvotes and likes. I imagine our ancestors had better reasons for inventing shoes than just lifting heels, atrophying muscles, and making feet look thinner. The Ice Age perhaps? Thank you, global warming for the reduction in furry boots.

Today shoes protect us from broken glass, melted gum, dirty band-aids, and chihuahua droppings. Steel-toed boots shield construction workers from falling objects while hiking shoes have aggressive tread that keep people from slipping off mountain trails. There are shoes that can track your heart rate, count steps, have built-in pumps, LED lights, Bluetooth functionality, self tying laces, and goldfish. We have even achieved hands-free operation.

The only thing lacking with all these technological innovations is any practical knowledge of how a human foot is supposed to move. In fact, these over engineered shoes are so poorly designed an entire industry has sprung up around making them more comfortable and/or mitigating any pain they cause. After your initial investment of $150 a pair you can supplement further with inserts, insoles, heel lifts, bunion pads, toe separators, foot cream, foot powder, and corn removers. How many cushions does it take before you end up in a padded room?

Would other types of clothing get away with this? If a certain hat gave you headaches would you take Excedrin and wear it anyway eager to rip it off and soak your head in Epsom salt as soon as you got home? If a pair of mittens were so constricting they gave your thumbs bunions or permanently curled your fingers would you buy mitten inserts to alleviate your disfigured hands instead of throwing them away? How about tight pants that forced you onto your tiptoes making you look taller and sexier, even though they constricted your knees, made walking a lot harder, and removed your ability to run?

All these examples are ridiculous and it’s hard to imagine anyone putting up with such restrictive, uncomfortable clothing, and yet people voluntarily strap on painful, nonergonomic, foot deforming, debilitating shoes every single day.

I know because I do it too.

Like the bloody toes of the ballet dancer, the calloused fingers of the guitar player, or the bloated face of the online mukbanger injured feet are as much a part of skateboarding as the skateboard itself. As much as I would love to skate in barefoot shoes with their wide toe boxes, zero drop heels, and flexible soles from brands like Vibram Fivefingers or Vivobarefoot the added protection and durability of my skate shoes—which coincidentally also start with a “V”—help to maximize my focus while engaged in such silliness as dancing on a rolling plank of wood.

They’re not perfect by any means. Many skate shoes are thicker and heavier than casual sneakers and that, combined with the centuries old trend of narrow shoe design, further limit my options. To date only Vans offers shoes wide enough that my gorilla feet can breathe belabored though that breath may be. But skate shoes, while flawed, allow me to do what I love and that’s what’s important. Sometimes it’s better to not complain about the condom and simply enjoy the sex.

But most shoes don’t serve a specialized need. For every soccer cleat, ninja boot, or water moccasin there are hundreds of shoes that lack any purpose. They might think they’re doing good with their useless wedged heels, air cushions, tapered toes, and contraband pockets, but all they’re doing is trying to compensate for what nature has spent eons perfecting. Is it any wonder the most comfortable shoes anyone owns are $5 flip-flops and house slippers?

That was my initial reaction upon unboxing the Magneto Bamboo Dancer. Longboards, by definition, are long boards. Dancing longboards, although not the longest of the longboards, are longer than typical longboards because they are designed to serve as a dancing platform on wheels. This beautifully finished plank of wood was 46 inches long, 9 inches across, and weighed a hefty 9.5 lbs. Carrying it from the living room through the front door felt like transporting a small step ladder using tyrannosaurus arms.

I wasn’t a newb to skateboarding so the basic stuff like stepping on, pushing, turning, and braking came to me right away. But, due to the increased length and weight of the longboard, slightly more advanced maneuvers, like the backside pivot where you step on the nose of the board and rotate the entire thing 180 degrees, were a lot harder to pull off.

Another issue I had was with speed. Regular skateboards have smaller wheels which are great for executing technical tricks like treflips and crooked grinds, but are suboptimal as long distance transport. The wheels tend to get stuck in cracks and hung up on small debris like pebbles and hypodermic needles. They also require much more pushing to maintain speed. Longboards with their larger, softer wheels are designed to roll forever. They’re great for cruising around town, but they suck when a missed landing or off-balanced stumble can shoot the board away forcing you to sprint after it into incoming traffic like a wily coyote.

Of course, before I had acclimated to reliably performing the basics, I had already injured myself multiple times attempting—and failing—to ollie, pop shuvit, kickflip and no comply. My ankles, shins, knees, thighs, chest, and abdomen did not appreciate this.

I also tried my first ever longboard specific tricks like ghost ride and tiger claw, along with some dance moves like cross steps and Peter Pan. I spent half the attempts with my arms flailing in the air as my unsteady legs fought to keep me upright and the other half tripping over the board. Occasionally I’d even slam into the concrete narrowly avoiding serious injury via well conditioned ninja roll.

In mid-December of year one pandemia—2 months after getting the longboard—I rolled my ankle severely injuring my left foot and putting myself out of commission for a month. It probably would have been smarter to ease into the fancy tricks but this was a dancer board and sometimes you gotta dance! But first, I had to regain the ability to walk.

*music provided by www.bensound.com

The dancing longboard, not to be confused with carving, cruising, downhill, drop-through, drop-down, pintail, fishtail, surf skate, all-terrain, freeride, topmount, racing, or electric longboards is a niche product nestled within an already niche activity, so the sheer variety of dancer boards available online was bewildering.

On Amazon, for every recognizable product from a well-known brand, there were droves of copycat items from overseas companies that use numerals or all-caps in misspelling their English adjacent trademarks. Commonalities include poorly photoshopped images of the product pasted onto stock photos, grammatically incorrect product descriptions that often include the words: professional, engineered, precision, and empowerment, and anywhere from five thousand reviews consisting of a single sentence written in broken English, or no reviews at all. And, of course, they were all cheap.

I had no qualms about magically matching the elegance of the skaters I watched online, nor was I even sure that I would take to longboard dancing, so the initial investment had to be small enough that I wouldn’t regret quitting, but sufficient to give me some peace of mind about my safety. There were too many options to choose from, so I devised a list of rules to filter out the rejects.

1. Nothing over $200.

2. No reviews, no bueno.

3. Too much broken English is a no no, unless it’s really funny.

4. If a paid model won’t stand on the fucking thing, neither will I.

5. Enough with the skulls and roses.

6. Broken English. Printed. On the board. Unless it’s really funny.

7. Nonsensical product diversity. “This company makes longboards and light-up, Bluetooth, outdoor survival Christmas socks?”

8. Shipping charges more expensive than the item itself.

Rules 1 and 2 eliminated most of the available choices and some other feasible options were sold out. Eventually I narrowed it down to two.

These boards had decent reviews, videos of people actually riding them, and similar pricing. They also had cool, unique designs. The Bamboo Dancer featured a reversible logo and a natural wood finish, while the Whome Pro had an unusual angular shape and prided itself in being a “Fresh Cream Longboard.” When life boils down to a decision between a natural wood finish or fresh cream things are going well. In the end, price was the deciding factor. At $139.99, the Magneto Bamboo Dancer was $10 cheaper—and two inches longer—than the Whome Pro Design 44. I’ve been skating the Bamboo Dancer for 6 months as of this writing and I have no regrets about buying it, but from time to time I wonder if the extra $10 along with a dose of fresh cream, to go with my used coffee, would’ve been worth it.

*music provided by www.bensound.com

The reduction in tourists combined with the mass exodus of native New Yorkers suddenly opened up numerous biking paths I previously found too crowded or intimidating to explore. The ubiquitous selfie snappers on Brooklyn Bridge, the over encumbered consumers in SoHo and Times Square, the unending hubbub on 5th Ave. were all snapped away. The streets, bridges, bike paths, parks, plazas, walkways, sidewalks, and squares were now more accessible than other time in NYC’s history. And so, I explored.

But seasons change, leases expire, and dreamscapes dissipate. I eventually found my way back to my family in Florida but not before paying it forward and regifting my bike to my roommate, fellow pizza partier, and drinking buddy, Alicia.

Immediately I started searching for a new set of wheels and quickly remembered why my first and only bicycle in NYC came via gift; bikes are fucking expensive. The pandemic also created vastly increased demand, so not only were bikes in short supply they were also overpriced. It was during one of my daily online secondhand sales scouring sessions: Facebook Marketplace, OfferUp, Craigslist, Slickdeals, that I happened upon a different kind of wheeled transport—the Atom All-Terrain drop-through longboard. All-Terrain? Drop-through? Atoms?

Quick digression. I used to skateboard in my 20s and got quite competent mastering the manual, pop shuv-it, ollie and even the occasional heelflip. My greatest specialty was freestyle skating which mainly involves spinning, pivoting, and basically dancing on a skateboard, but I never progressed beyond a handful of simple tricks. I was too scared to attempt the wild ramps, staircases and railings that now define modern skateboarding. After an endless stream of shin injuries, sprained ankles, contusions, spilled blood, scrapes, scabs, and scars I eventually adopted the much safer sport of parkour.

On sale for $114, the Atom All-Terrain drop-through longboard costed a fraction the going rate of a decent bicycle. It had large, Tonka truck-like wheels and was about a foot longer than a traditional skateboard.

Videos showed people bombing down grassy hills, rolling over twigs and pebbles, traversing gravelly walkways and even riding atop boulders. I wanted it. I needed it. I bought it.

And then YouTube decided to YouTube me.

My new algorithmically curated feed, besides hosting endless thumbnails featuring the carnivore diet, political commentary, tech reviews, videogame news, women’s Italian pole vaulting and the Joe Rogan Experience, was now promoting longboarding videos. And that’s when I saw her.

I cancelled my Atom All-Terrain drop-through longboard and decided I’ll have what she’s having. Thus began my newfound obsession with the art of longboard dance.

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