Greyson Beal – Brothers in arms

All the photos used in this article and the footage for the accompanying video part came together organically. Dave Hoang and I were filming a lot during 2021 and most of the footage was going towards Element’s “E.S.P” video. Along with the footage from the Element trips we were going on, not everything got used for the video, leaving us with a bunch of unused stuff from that time.

Dave and I traveled to Paris for our first Element trip overseas together and, from there, we went to Barcelona along with Nick Garcia on more of a homie trip. We originally planned to stay in Spain for two weeks then come home, but once we were there, we decided to extend our stay for almost a month and a half. Spain is one of those places where once you’re there, it’s really hard to leave. The energy, the culture, the food, and the spots! Everything is just so different than what I was used to from Long Beach, so it was a breath of fresh air in a lot of ways. Dave and Nick are Barcelona veterans, so they showed me the ropes and introduced me to all the right people. The trip pretty much consisted of us skating all day then going out all night and repeat, the classic Barcelona tale. One of the days we were out filming, we linked up with their good friend Gerard [Riera]. This was my first time meeting him and he was nice enough to show us this spot at this huge church. The spot was kinda hectic just because it’s in the center of a little roundabout road right in front of the church, so we had to avoid cars and traffic, but luckily enough, we were able to get the crook bonk on the out ledge photo in the same day.

This past June I went on a trip to Portland, Oregon with Element to shoot their latest Polo collaboration at Seek Skate Camp. Unfortunately, on the last day of the trip, I ended up breaking my humerus bone in my left arm from trying to frontside flip this quarter pipe they built in the middle of the woods. Right after this happened, we had to hike back to camp and hop straight in the van to drive 30 minutes to the nearest hospital. Once I found out it was broken, I was pretty devastated because I had a two-month trip planned in Europe the following day that the doctor recommended I definitely cancel. I was looking forward to this trip for months prior, so that was a hard pill to swallow. I was planning to meet my roommates in CPH for the event, so once we left the hospital, I called them to break the news that I wouldn’t be going anymore. I called Patrick, who was on a trip in Boston for New Balance at the time, and when he answered the FaceTime, he was lying in a hotel bed with surgical gauze wrapped around his arm. I was almost speechless and asked what had happened. Come to find out, we both broke the same bone in the same arm two days apart. His ended up being more gruesome than mine, so he needed immediate surgery, but mine was a clean break, so they just put me into a demobilization brace. So as terrible of a situation as this was, it made both of us feel a lot better knowing we’d at least be going through it together.

The following months of healing were pretty brutal, to say the least. You never realize how much you need two arms until you only have one. Something as simple as putting on a sock had now become the hardest task to accomplish. But each month it felt better than the last. Patrick’s arm was healed within the first month or so and he was able to start physical therapy pretty shortly after. On my end, it was a lot longer of a healing process considering I didn’t get surgery. I was in the demobilization brace for a full month without being able to take it off. The worst part about this was that I wasn’t able to take a shower the whole time, only sponge baths… After the brace, they put me into a regular sling for another two months, and I wasn’t cleared to start moving until the three-month mark. Once I got cleared, I started doing a range of motion exercises to regain the movement in my elbow and shoulder. They were both completely locked up from it resting for so long. It took about three to four weeks to gain back full range in my elbow and shoulder. Now I’m at the tail end of the recovery process. I’ve been slowly starting to restrengthen the arm and I’m able to do regular day-to-day activities with it and I’m slowly starting to skate again. In hindsight, looking back at the whole process, it was a big eye-opening experience, to say the least. This was the first time I really had to take a step back and not just think about skating. As skaters, I feel as if we get very caught up in the lifestyle that comes along with it and lose track of ourselves more often than less. I feel I’ve grown a lot from this experience mentally and will carry this new mindset forward to the new challenges ahead.