Skateboarding is a lot of things. It’s a way to challenge yourself. It’s a way to meet people. It’s a hobby. It’s big ollies, kickflips, and Tony Hawk. To the non-skater, however, skateboarding isn’t any of that. It’s riding around on a piece of wood with wheels—a skill a cool kid possesses. But for me, it’s everything.
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The day after my middle school graduation, I dug up my old skateboard from the basement. After seeing skateboarders ride around Venice Beach Skatepark in California (on a family vacation in the spring), I was convinced I needed to start skateboarding. Their style was effortless, clean and fun to watch. Plus, the teenage girls that stopped to watch seemed really into skateboarders. It had been around 6 years since I used the board. It was covered in cobwebs and coated with dust. I left my house, walked six blocks to the skatepark behind my former middle school, and, though it was unplanned, started a new chapter in my life. The chapter began with me, a 13-year-old kid in torn jeans and a Yankees shirt, falling off a skateboard over and over in the high heat of June. The first session consisted mainly of me rolling around, reacquainting myself with the board. I put the board down and rolled, learning to find stability on the board again. I rolled up and down the small, two-foot ramp in the middle of the park. I felt really embarrassed. I was sweating profusely; I wasn’t doing anything cool and I was struggling just to ride ten feet. It didn’t help that I was alone. All the skaters were inside because a heat warning had been issued in all five boroughs—so my first skate session was only twenty minutes long.
Each session got better and better, though. I kept going back to the skatepark every day, trying to copy the teenagers doing flips and spins. Copying didn’t work, but I could roll up and down the ramp perfectly. I was sort of a lost sheep. I wanted to ask for help, but I was afraid of being laughed at because I didn’t even know how to do an ollie. After two months, two friendly teenagers, Corey and Mahadi, took me under their wings and taught me what skaters wear, how to spot a poser (a person that pretends to skate, but can’t actually skate), how to deal with authority figures (be respectful, and let them kick you out, it’s not worth it to argue) and a lot more. How to ollie was the most important lesson—an ollie is the most basic trick you can learn. We’d spend hours repeating the same steps until, finally, I got it. This was my first taste of the skateboarding community—the best community, but with the worst reputation.
Why is it the best community? If you can’t kickflip, the skateboard community pats you on the back, demonstrates how to do one, and explodes into applause when you finally land it. If you can’t catch the football, the coach might take you out of the next play; why do skateboarders offer support in your times of need while other athletes don’t?
The answer is simply that you can’t win in skateboarding. There is no “best skateboarder in the world.” There isn’t some trick combo that’ll make everyone recognize you as a winner once you land it. There’s no objective in skateboarding. In football, the objective is to score more points than the other team. In speed-skating, the objective is to get around the rink as fast as you can. In golf, the objective is to use the fewest swings. Skateboarding has no winners or losers. It’s a community of people working to improve very specific skills. If you can do a kickflip, but the kid down the street can barely stand on the board, you won’t think, I’m a better skater than that kid.” You’ll say “I’m at a different experience level. I’m happy that they’re still trying.
Around the time I started skateboarding, I became less interested in competition, which I believe is stressful. You’re convinced you need to be the very best, and the prize is a dominant feeling over others. After learning how to kickflip, I realized that competition is non-existent in skateboarding. The first time I landed a kickflip, I asked my friend, Felix, to film another attempt so I could show the other skaters. His, and others reaction to my success taught me that that competition in skateboarding is a non-issue.
To kickflip, you have to find the right place to position your feet in order to get the proper flick and pop. Then, you have to jump high enough so that you don’t land improperly, and catch the board with your back foot and get your front foot back onto the board. Mid-air, plenty can go wrong. In fact, plenty will go wrong. You’ll hurt your ankle trying to make the board flip, or you’ll land on an upside-down board or, even worse, a board in “primo,” lying on its side, balancing on the sides of the skateboard, shoot pain through your legs. Or, you might catch the board with your back foot, but your front foot will give up and hit the ground, meaning you failed the trick. The worst scenario is a combination of all of these, which may result in something called “getting popsicled” (the board is the stick, and you as the ice cream…).
When Felix filmed my first “real” trick, he was as excited as I was, which pumped me up. I still have the video on my phone—it’s a horrendous looking kickflip, but I’m still proud of it. Showing the other skaters created similar feelings of joy, which was the greatest feeling. Other skaters go further in sharing feelings of joy by creating programs designed to help those moments become real.
Ryan Lay, a professional skateboarder who rides for Welcome Skateboards, is the co-founder of Skate After School. Based in Phoenix, Arizona, it’s a full-fledged non-profit that brings skateboarding to eight schools in low-income neighborhoods. It’s a perfect example of the skateboarding community’s belief in going out of your way and helping those in need. Not only does it provide children access to skateboarding, it promotes Lay’s core values of skateboarding. Those values are: generosity, respect, innovation, and persistence. These values are critical to teach to young kids, making the organization especially important. Who would’ve thought that skateboarding, perceived as a rebellious practice would do that?
Sure, a lot of sports impart similar values, but generosity in skateboarding can be achieved in a variety of ways, from helping someone land their first ollie to recommending the best skate shoes for $40 or less. You respect skaters that are struggling. You respect skaters that are getting professional board models and traveling the world. Everyone’s on their own path. If a football coach calls a play that requires three or more players than the rules allowed, the referees would call a penalty. If a skater positions a flatbar so that it allows him to skate a different way, well, nobody’s telling the skater he can’t do that.
Once I started skateboarding, I hoped my parents and brother would join me, that we’d ride together, and become a “rad” family; I never talked enthusiastically about flag football or baseball, but I wanted to talk about nothing besides skateboarding. I needed to share which skaters make the best videos, where the best skateparks are, what the best board and shoe brands are, and about Mark Gonzales, a 50-year-old skateboarder originally from South Gate, California. Gonzales is regarded as one of the most influential skateboarders due to his pioneering feats, such as riding handrails for the first time. He started Krooked Skateboards in 2002. He once remarked, “If you skateboard, you can’t be afraid to have people laugh at you.” Groups of basketball players used to laugh at us for trying the same trick over and over. Pretty girls would giggle when we tried to do cool tricks in hopes they’d notice (we failed a lot more in their presence, I promise). One time, a middle-aged man pushing a stroller past our skate-park shouted, “Get jobs, losers!” I learned to block out the voices of the worst critics.
Landing tricks is frustrating. Skating the same shoes for six months is annoying. Finding a place to skateboard is difficult. Getting stopped by cops is scary. Looking out the window on a skateboarding day, just to see that a monsoon has rolled in, is soul-crushing. Most skaters, myself included, have dealt with every one of those scenarios. But without skateboarding, I’d be a completely different person. Whoever that is, I’m not sure—I am pleased that I’ll never find out.
