“Land or Slam”

Did you know that photographers in skateboarding cannot publish images of tricks that aren’t landed? It’s a cultural norm that has stood the test of time. After all, it’s landing the trick that ultimately makes it real after all. 

Rule #1: You must land the trick. 

It doesn’t matter if you grab your board mid-air just right and the camera catches a nice lens flare and it’s the Image of the Year. If you don’t land it, it’s not real and you can’t claim it. Period. 

Hell, a few years ago, Kelly Slater and a couple other of the world’s best surfers had an ongoing internal banter around which waves they should “claim” in a contest. To “claim” a wave is to celebrate it with a fist pump or by pressing your fists overhead as if to say, “I got it.” Their general assertion was that surfers needed to celebrate fewer, more deserving waves.

All this to say, maybe we can borrow some of the unwritten rules from action sports for some perspective these days. With the prevalence of social media and amplified individual voices, I’d argue that humans are “claiming” many, many more tricks than we are landing. And, that’s a shame. 

If there’s a trick you want to claim in the world, make sure you land it first.