Video: Growing up, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 was one of my favourite games. The soundtrack, the frantic pace and the ridiculous ragdolly special moves made it a joy to play — although I chalked that last bit up as video game magic that no actual skateboarder could ever pull off. Clearly, I’d never met Jonny Giger.
Giger is a Swiss skateboarder who recently started a series on his YouTube channel where he turns those absurd special moves into reality. (Some of them, anyway — quite a few are just physically impossible.)
In the first episode, he tries the fandangle, airwalk fingerflip, m80flip, 540 flip and a frontside bluntstall on another skateboard. Don’t know what any of that means? No big deal. Just know you’re about to watch some great skating.
Giger currently has four more episodes on his channel, attempting both novelty special moves (switch guitar) and legitimate but very challenging tricks (casperslide).