If you’re a working-class skater like myself, you know how difficult it is to fit a session or two of skating in during the week. And you’ve probably felt like keeping your regular crop of tricks consistent is enough of a challenge.

And furthermore, what would the philosophical implications of this journey be? Will I reach stance enlightenment? Follow along as I break down my switch life week by week below.

It’s human nature to gather a few opinions before you make a potentially life changing decision, so I went to my local skate park and asked a few friends what they thought about my month of switch.

Most people agreed, “That sounds like hell,” but as I eased into my first two days I got an overwhelming amount of people reinforcing in me that while it might not be fun, it’s definitely possible. I even took to social media to ask, “How long can I last skating switch?” and with that I learned my first lesson of the journey.

If you’re going to run a marathon, you have to garner a crowd to cheer you on.

However, once the initial buzz of online enthusiasm wore off, I realized just how boring this month of skating was going to be. At the beginning of every session you feel like a toddler learning to walk.

I would start with the basics, a few flatground ollies and kickturns, only to feel like there were eyes silently judging me. I looked ridiculous at the skate park, and it made me sympathetic to others out there learning to skate for the first time.

An average session didn’t amount to much in my first week beyond fine tuning the basics I started with. It was a truly humbling experience.

Here’s what the switch gods don’t tell you about only skating switch: the physical and mental pain is substantial. Mentally, you start asking yourself, “What did I do to deserve this?” and it was week two where I started to wonder, “What will skating regular stance feel like again?”

It was also in week two that the soreness started to take hold. My left groin and abdomen were tight. My foot would fatigue quickly into a session. I knew switch skating would work on muscles in my weak leg that overall have been neglected, but I’m an athletic guy, I thought I would take it in stride.

Instead, my body continually asked, “Dude, what the hell are you doing?”

It was a brutal week, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t start with a complete sense of hopelessness. It’s like that feeling you get once the excitement of starting a new book wears off and you’re left with 500 pages to go.

But, it wasn’t all bad. Towards the middle of week two I noticed a stronger switch push and a significant difference in my switch pop. Also, my switch flips had become incredibly consistent.

By the end of week two I started to think, maybe this isn’t so bad? Especially after landing the best switch frontside flip of my entire life.

Winter officially entered the chat, and just when I thought finding the motivation to skate couldn’t get any harder, I had to do it all starting in a puffer jacket amongst an ever-thinning skatepark crowd.

While I’d like to blame it on the weather, in all honesty I was tired, and my progress was stagnating. I did not get one clip of note this entire week, which when you’re documenting your progress for social media, only furthers the mental battle.

That being said, I had a breakthrough. I stopped stressing so much about progressing exponentially, which I had come to find was blurring my sight and ability to celebrate the small wins. I took my switch ollie down a three stair, which had to be the most satisfying ollie since my younger self conquered a set of similar size.

Rather than getting frustrated over not landing more technical switch tricks, like the elusive switch tre, I found joy in some of skating’s in-between moments, like a switch drop-in and rock-to-fakie, two things I would never think about when skating regularly.

It was also in week three that I reached out to switch legend TJ Rogers for advice, and he assured me that there’s no right or wrong way to go about this challenge. To quote TJ, “It’s just experience at the end of the day, XP.”

This was it, the home stretch, and to my surprise, it honestly never got much easier. My body was a lot stronger, but after every session I was still left with one thought: This is hard as f**k.

When I set out on this journey I gave myself a north star. Switch treflip, and it was in week four that I became obsessed. I practiced every night, yet it still felt impossible. While the SOTY race came to a close, I couldn’t help thinking to myself… this is my El Toro.

I was able to tic tac away from a few attempts, but in the end I never successfully rolled away clean. Instead, and as a proper testament to the hardships of skating, I pulled a muscle in my leg. Yes, what a sweet reward!

Did I deserve it? I don’t think so, though I understand why it happened. In the end, I was racing the clock, feeling like not landing the switch tre would nullify the challenge and all my progress with it. Which, writing this now, is a completely absurd conclusion.

But, it’s not uncommon for myself and other skaters to construct trivial goals in our heads and push ourselves towards a finish line that no one else knows exists but us. In the end, I thought I could speed run switch skating, but thinking back to how long it took to learn to ollie, to kickflip, I found perspective.

To nobody’s surprise, I probably won’t take on this challenge again. The mental stress of skating switch every session was agonizing, and while it was a fun side quest to put all my chips into, there are much healthier ways to progress your switch prowess.

Like, maybe you skate all switch, but you allow yourself the lenience to throw down regularly, kickturn, or push between tries. It was these non-tricks, these insignificant moments, that really wore me down.

The most rewarding part of this journey was my newfound perspective on regular skating. The things I don’t think about, like an ollie up a curb or even a kickflip, were once tricks I worked extremely hard to learn. They aren’t skills to be taken for granted.

Along with this, I found myself celebrating the small wins in a way I haven’t with skateboarding in a long time. When you take all your tricks away and bring yourself back to square one, you really start to appreciate every land.

Physically, I may not have learned a perfect switch tre flip or switch front side flipped down a ten stair, but what I did gain from this experience was a strong switch push and a more powerful switch pop. I felt more confident standing switch on the board by the end, from cruising down the street to pumping on a mini ramp.

Overall, this experience was eye opening. After 20+ years of skating regular and trying to go all in the other way, I realized that it’s hard to break new habits and form new ones. The things my dominant foot can do just aren’t things my weak foot understands, and when you mentally understand a trick but can’t physically make your body do it, it gets frustrating.

Though, it’s important to remember that everything takes time, and trying to fit two decades of progress into 30 days isn’t realistic. You know the saying Rome wasn’t built in a day? Yeah, it wasn’t built in 30 days either.

Switch Soldier: Greg Navarro
Header Illustration: Wilson Lucas
Editorial Assists: Ben Komins
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