#TBT: Matt Hensley Hokus Pokus
Posted on Thursday, April 2, 2015 by Paul
Matt Hensley is one of the most obscure dudes on the list of skateboarding’s influential elite, because to be honest, although he could be considered one of the first video pros, he never really had that one part that I feel like he should have. If you look at Shackle Me Not, Hokus Pokus, or even Not the New H-Street Video, which were the H-Street videos that helped make Hensley a household name, they haven’t stood the test of time very well, in fact, they’re all kind of a mess, with low budget music and editing and shared parts that bleed into the next part and so on. And this is coming from a huge fan of H-Street. If you weren’t skating at the time these videos came out, it would probably be hard to tell why Hensley’s stuff made such an impact. It really boils down to a few tricks he did that at the time proved he was light years ahead of all the dudes flinging their way to glory. The backside flip melon, his tall flat bar 50-50 yanker, his ability to do tre flips at will and 540 ollies 20 some years before Tyson Bowerbank. All of a sudden we were all rocking chain wallets and wearing cargo shorts because of him. People faked his style, hunching over and tucking in the back knee. He even made hand drags cool. He was cutting edge at a time when skateboarding was going in a million different ways in the late 80s / early 90s, and he showed everyone what direction looked the best. Then, just like Kaiser Soze, he was gone. That’s another reason he’s a legend.
-Paul Zitzer
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