New Bruises
A life-changing story
Chapter 1: The Dream
presented by
The TerraDome
Sports Science Research Centre
Dedication
The Dream is A Novel
Accomplishment
Pro-tip: It ain’t easy.
Freestyle BMX saved my life.
I decided to think about how that’s even possible.
To celebrate turning 50, I put my understanding into words.
Eat pain.
Build strength.
Learn to speak.
Follow your language back to the source.
Tell the full story.
The Frog speaks to everyone.
Everyone hears The Frog.
The State banned The Frog.
In my world, we don’t call it The Frog.
But Everyone hears The Frog.
The new age
Back in the day
The world was different when I was growing up.
It was a World of Turbulence.
I was an observant kid. And I got injured.
My father was a soldier who found a true Korean Master to teach me discipline, self-defense, and confidence.
I learned those tricks at a young age compared to kids these days.
I found BMX as a Black Belt.
I rode with discipline.
I made art with confidence.
I took art on tour with Rock & Rollers and kept my nose clean.
I took art to South Miami Beach and kept my nose clean.
Then I found The Digital World.
I learned to solve puzzles for people in that World.
I make my living there now.
Discipline, BMX, Art, and Digital are tools for storytelling.
That’s what this story-within-a-story-within-a-‘zine is about.
One more story point before we turn the page - There’s been A Frog appearing in my dreams since childhood.
As a kid, I endured headaches and body pain. Those accompanied painful yet enlightening dreams of The Frog.
That World of Pain drove me to learn how to navigate pain.
I figured out how to control my dreams. I figured out how to sooth my stomach cramps. I figured out how to meditate through migraines.
That prepared me for new forms of pain after childhood.
On more than a few occasions as I grew up, I discovered a transcendent experience on the other side of pain.
In time, I discovered other people who understood that pain accompanies transformation.
They’re fantastical people. Like characters in a dream. They’d come and go on their own time - and when they appeared, I knew I had to be at the ready.
One such group of characters goes by the name The Plywood Hoods.
They’ve got their own culture, language, and rites of passage.
The Plywood Hoods transformed the trajectory of the BMX Craft. Their Craft is still practiced across The World today.
I heard them long before they heard me.
Inuits have 50 words for snow. I have 43 words for pain.
I didn’t ride for 8 years after South Miami Beach. I was learning Digital. The years without BMX were occupied by an in-between kind of pain.
Then something happened in 2002. The Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2 video game got me stoked to buy a bike.
Not long after, that in-between kind of pain faded.
BMX changed my life.
Present day
BMX is my North Star.
The concepts and rites are in a manuscript titled The Way Of The Stoke.
Riders who read and follow The Way experience happiness that persists.
Pro-tip: Only trust happy Stoke dealers with a scar and the story of how they got it.
I am The Creative Director of The TerraDome Sports Science Research Centre.
We put The Stoke to work.
We are Templars of The Way Of The Stoke.
Our direction is set using guidance from a council of mentors and coaches.
We craft word permutations.
We know the arrangement is right when the feeling arrives.
“The Science of The Feeling of Belief”
When I get the words right, it means I got the thought right.
When I think right, I act right.
When I act right, you can see the trick.
It’s a magick trick - on a bike - in a video labeled “BMX Flatland.”
This is how I do the tricks I do. They’re magick tricks.
When we get the concepts right, it means we got the reflection right.
When we reflect right, we create right.
When we create right, others can absorb the trick.
It’s a magick trick - on a bike - in a video labeled “BMX Flatland.”
This is how we do the tricks we do. They’re magick tricks.
I noticed something curious about magick tricks & martial arts & storytelling.
It’s brutally simple. It’s brutally honest. And it requires brute force of will to not quit once you have committed to learning the trick.
Inventing the trick requires added force of will - because at that point in time, nobody had survived the trial of solving the puzzle of the trick.
Inventing tricks is play. But it isn’t child’s play.
Do your own laundry. Prepare your own meals. Pay for your own education.
Find a true life partner and reciprocate joy.
Refuse free money from The State. It came from others who worked. Too often it’s bait.
Do this every day without exception and you will build the strength to learn BMX tricks.
Your tricks are your language.
Only do tricks you want to do.
Only if you choose, invent the tricks you want to see.
Disregard anyone who tells you to do tricks they want to see.
Tell them to build the strength they need to learn the tricks they want to see.
Seek-out the riders who invent trick languages you dream about.
Talk with them about their tricks.
Share the details you see in their tricks.
Share the details of their tricks you see in other riders’ tricks.
Seek the trick language root.
Follow it wherever it leads without hesitation.
When you pursue the root, you’ll find yourself near Amish country in Pennsylvania, in a town that birthed the band Live.
When you listen to Live’s lyrics, you’ll have an awakening.
You’ll figure out why The Plywood Hoods preserve and practice the rite of The One.
The Frog speaks to everyone.
Everyone hears The Frog.
The State banned The Frog.
In my world, we don’t call him The Frog.
But Everyone hears The Frog.
Your next day
