John Dilo’s 10 Least Favourite Tricks From ‘Choking The Bat’

John Dilo put out a new Jacuzzi Unlimited part last week, Choking The Bat, and it was fucked.

So fucked, in fact, that we wondered how horrible of an experience it must have been to actually film. To look at a rail and think, ‘yeah, nose manny, ollie flip nose manny, ollie flip is probably the move,’ cannot be a simple process, so here are John’s ten least favorite tricks - the tricks that were the most bitch - unedited, straight from the horse’ mouth.

fakie frontside flip pier 7

so this trick is one of the only tricks in this part that has some lore. 2019 i was filming with my friend Poobert for this video series called Flora and i tried to do this trick a couple different occasions and couldnt even get close, would just hit on the beginning of the ledge every time. so fast forward about 6 years and now i live up this way and find myself and pier pretty often just kicking it with homies. someone sparked the over block session that day and i started to try it. i stuck one and slammed on my hip real bad and had this pain where it hurt to run so i was kinda trippin on it for a bit. that was actually the last trick i got for this video just before i had to get a knee surgery in October. 

nose manny flip nose manny flip

so contrasting the last story this was my first trick i filmed since my knee surgery which was actually like a week ago. and this was kind of obvious why it was shit to try, its a tech trick on a complicated spot. but what got me so mad was i would get close each day i tried then it was getting dark and i had to stop trying so by the third trip there we brought the lights and my knee was so toast from the week of skating i knew it was my last shot to do it and thankfully it worked out.  

nose manny hop up, nollie back heel. 

this line was one of the few times i was jumping all of 2024, due to this constant knee pain i was having and ultimately had this surgery i had mentioned. but this was not so much painful for me as it was tripping me out how many fucking boards i broke doing it. like 3 or 4 i think. the first trip there i made one quick and ran into the wall and it was deemed unusable. so i tried more and my board broke on the next stick, set up a new one, stick another and break it the same way. i was so pissed. and made a trip back and the same shit happens! broke the nose off and i set up another board and was like if this one breaks im at a loss for this line, fuck this. and im pretty sure it cracked on me real good one stick before the make.  

EMB tailslide mannny tre flip

this trick started with a bit of a fun challenge aspect to it. i rarley get to do this combo or fakie tre flip variations at all so i was enjoying the fight for this one. but it turned into something a bit bigger as time went on, i believe i filmed this trick 3 different days with 3 different filmers haha. i just kept landing it like shit, toes hanging off or weird tic tac and i would be so over it we would take the make and move on just to find out later i hated it and wanted to do it again so the clip of me yelling was kind of an ironic yelling and throwing my board because at that point i could do the trick kind of without me tripping it was more just getting a good one so i pretended to freak out cause the other times had me freaking out. 

nose manny 180 gap to street

this trick was not as hard as it was complicated with timing. its a sunday spot in downtown toronto, at a big financial building and i wanted to skate it from the day i got to town but just waiting til everything died down cause the foot traffic alone is a skate stopper. also when i got to skate it finally i tried so many different tricks and would get the boot before i could make anything really start to work. so i pretty much settled on filming this trick to at least lock a trick in and proceeded to go back every day and try sw manny switch flip which had like a late night 1000$ bet on the table if i made it but it wasnt working out and my knee hated me by the end of my trip so maybe next time toronto. 

180 fakie manny tall toronto ledge

this trick is also right in the financial downtown district and its across the street from a spot the locals called Commerce i believe. its a round manny pad with a 6 stair gap on the end. and i also tried every single day multiple times a day to film a trick at. you get like 5 tries then the security stands in the way so it was like cat and mouse with it all over downtown. but one day i was hella fed up and we ran across the street to this spot just to skate flat and let time pass. i just started skating this tall ass pad and tried a few of these and made it in around like 10 or 15 tries i think. so less of a trick war but it at least satisfied my urge to get one of these downtown tricks out there. 

switch 180 nose manny revert over the handrail

this is such a trippy spot and i wanted to go check it so bad for a manny trick like this. when i got there i learned the roll up is like so fucked off. craters in the asphalt and we used some bondo and i think signs to just make it attemptable even. the funniest thing i remember about this session is this took like 2 or 3 hours maybe which is kind of standard for this type of trick but this was the only try i held the nose manny to the bottom of the bank. every one i would just pitch forward or just switch 180 it. and i was actually trying to 180 out the other direction but i guess the way the bank threw me i just turned the revert back way and i was like fuck it lets take it. 


180 switch manny back 180 library

ok i know this trick in hindsight to people seems like the most mellow of them all but if u really look at my board and how i hacked the shit out of it, it really was not at all for me. i never really do this trick naturally, not sure why it just never comes to mind for me. but the damn knobs made it so shitty to make, i had to thread the needle between them. they are like giant fucking belt buckle knobs u cant just roll over them. i believe this was also the last trick we filmed at the library for this whole section. 

kickflip nose manny library

also something i didnt mention about this spot thats really fun is its only skateable after 6pm, sometimes! so we would show up and basiclly race against sun down for these manny tricks, and thats if all the homeless people were cool enough to let us skate. one day we went and this vigilante ass dude was there chillin and we asked the homeless guys to move so we could skate and they didnt even mind, nut this random ass dude flashed his gun at us and told us to leave them alone like we were robbing them or some shit. anyway, i rolled my ankle one try on this kickflip nose manny and we just sat for like 15 mins hoping i could keep trying and not burn another day into the library obsession i have. and luckily i could just walk it off a bit and was able to pull it but my ankle was hurting for a bit after that day. 

switch flip manny library

i know ive talked a small bit already on my knee pain i had and everything. but basically in a nut shell, i only skated and filmed about 6 months out of 2024 due to this shit and this switch flip manny session was kind of early on in my process with it because before this i was chillin a lot, unsure if skating was going to make it worse or possibly hurt knee some far bigger way if i kept pushing it. when we got here this day i was so hyped to try this trick i just put the pain aside and fought for it and coming out on top was kind of the big catalyst to what made me able to keep filming more and ultimately pull this whole part together despite the pain i was in, as well as being cut short toward the end once i decided on getting the surgery. 

- John