Lil Wayne Hurt in St. Louis Skateboard Accident
Lil Wayne said Monday he is recovering after gashing his head at a St. Louis-area skateboard park.
The 28-year-old rapper whose real name is Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. was in suburban St. Louis Sunday for a performance at the outdoor Verizon Amphitheatre. KTVI-TV reported that Lil Wayne, accompanied by a large entourage, showed up Sunday at DePaul Health Center’s emergency room.
Hospital spokeswoman Jamie Newell said she could not confirm Lil Wayne was at the hospital, citing privacy laws. But Lil Wayne wrote about it on his Twitter account.
“The Lou was good but I busted my … head at the sk8park! 9stitches! Gnarly gash over my left eye! Luv the people,” he wrote.
Messages left with Lil Wayne’s management on Monday were not returned. Details about how he was hurt, and where, were not immediately available.
Lil Wayne is about to release his new album, “The Carter IV.” A previous album, “The Carter III,” was the best-selling album of 2008 and the Grammy Award winner for best rap album of that year. In 2010, he served time in a New York jail after pleading guilty to a weapons charge.
“The Carter IV” will be released digitally after Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards, at which Lil Wayne will perform. The album, which features collaborations with Drake, Cory Gunz, Rick Ross, Busta Rhymes and others, will be in stores on Aug. 29.
Successful Longboarding for Noobs
Here are some of the most common steps that you need to address before physical goals can be accomplished.
- Fear
- Pretensions
- Visualization
- Body Awareness
FEAR
Fear is a universal condition. We all fear something, and it’s almost always very deeply rooted. Some of us fear spiders, or fear failure, or maybe having a heart attack because it runs in the family. Fear can have all kinds of effects on you too. It can mean you avoid thinking, doing, or even accepting what bothers you.
Whether you’re riding 5mph or 60mph on four hunks of urethane, fear IS going to be a factor. Also, any time your out of your comfort-zone, it’s going to find its way in your head. The point is, fear has a real purpose and without it, you’d be a hazard to yourself and others. Fear protects you. However, you’ve got to take the time to rationalize whether or not your particular fear is well founded.
For me, I fear injury – it stops me from doing a lot of things. For instance, when I was growing up I wanted to ollie. I could never commit because I always bailed when it came time to jump. It was the landing and potential for injury that just totally freaked me out. I never learned to ollie – I still have issues committing. What did I really have to fear? The worst that I could really imagine is breaking my wrist – something my parents reminded me of constantly. They were part of the problem too, obviously.
Today I can comfortably skate to 35 mph without fear – once I get out of my comfort-zone (that term’s coming back) I tend to get a little stiff and worried.
At the same time, I can’t seem to wrap my head around committing to a stand up slide at any speed. If things went wrong, I think the result wouldn’t be much different than bailing at a high speed. I mean, it could even be safer than that. This doesn’t stop my brain from freaking out. I know what I’ve got to do, I’ve seen it a million times. But, my brain doesn’t want to get hurt – I don’t want to fail. Failure is a part of learning, and you’ve got to take some serious time and convince yourself that. Injury is also just a part of the game, accept it.
PRETENSIONS
Fear can be rationalized, and so can pretensions. Some common ones I come across:
- I can’t do this
- If I try and try and try, and I keep failing, I’m just wasting my time
- I’ve read a million times how to do this, I just need to think
- If I keep reminding myself what I need to NOT do, it’ll happen
These are just things that psych you out, and they’re not based on any truth at all. You’ve got to replace these thoughts with ones that are POSITIVE and MEANINGFUL. Sure, you suck at that switch shovit and it’s not getting any better. You’ve first got to tell yourself that you CAN and WILL learn this. I find that being my own coach works really well – when try something, I’ll compliment ANYTHING that went well. Never let yourself diminish your accomplishments. Even if you did it right last time and were trying to fix that other glitch in your movement, compliment what went well.
If you’re not smiling, you’re doing it wrong. Get excited about whats happening. Frustration will KILL progress. I’ve got a long history of getting easily frustrated and irritated – and its a waste of time. If you’re becoming frustrated, take a break, give yourself a pep talk, go drink some water, do a couple cross-steps or something and feel good about yourself. Never forget what you’ve accomplished in the past – and build off them. Trying to bulldoze through frustration will make it nearly impossible to do well.
VISUALIZATION
This is one of the most powerful tools you have. Ever have a dream that you were doing something knarly that you’ve never actually done in real life? I’ve had plenty – and they feel great. Have you ever had one, and tried to do it in real life? I’ve had one or two that I tried, I’d try to do what I dreamt and it actually worked out! For whatever reason, every time I try to fly I end up hurting myself, despite how easy it was the night prior.
Of course we can’t wait until these kinds of things happen. We need to use our imagination actively during the whole learning process. Imagine yourself doing some skate trick you can’t do at all right now. You need to feel and see every part of your body, the board, the wheels, the road, etc for EVERY SECOND of the process. Sometimes we only give ourselves a piece of the puzzle – take the time to taste every moment of what it is you want to do. Watch others do it on youtube or something, and then close your eyes and imagine yourself doing everything they did.
If you can see yourself being successful, you’re 100% more likely to succeed.
BODY AWARENESS
The reason you can’t do that nose manual is because your hunched over like your 90 year old grandmother and you’re legs are 4 feet apart. Maybe the reason you can’t pump is because all you do is wiggle your legs and ankles and aren’t doing anything with your torso. I’m not saying you don’t know any better – I’m sure you know exactly what you’ve got to do, but you just don’t realize that you’re not actually doing it.
Developing your body awareness is a HUGE asset, and totally necessary. This is something that takes practice. I practice a lot of things in the grass, because it allows me to take out a few components and get down the basic motion. I also engage my visualization at this point. I think the key is getting out of your head so much and just focus on your body. If you have visualized success, and can cross step on the grass perfectly well, there is NO reason you can’t do it rolling if you’ve dealt with your pretensions or fears or whatever.
Let’s say you’ve mastered this regular cross step business- you don’t even think about it anymore. And now you try to do a switch cross step and you keep messing it up. Go back to the regular cross step that you can do easily and focus on everything your body is doing – where you’re feet are, what your arms are doing, where you’re looking, which way you’re facing, where your body weight is, knee bend, etc.
If you just take one of those factors into your switch cross step, you’ll improve a little. One step at a time.
Another great way to see what you’re doing is to video tape yourself. You’ll be amazed by yourself. You obviously know what it should like, and can easily see you’re not even close despite the fact you thought you were. Video cameras, even mirrors for that matter, are a big help.
CONCLUSION
You’ve got to be your own coach. Treat yourself with respect just like you’d expect from someone else. Never put yourself down. Reduce things into small steps, so that you can have success, and build off them. Remind yourself what went right, and not what went wrong. Wear a helmet. Own.