Hey there fellow shredders,
This post is an outlet to share my personal experience with the highly postive impact that skateboarding has on my mental health: especially over the past year. It's also an opportunity to try to inspire other people to get into skateboarding to help the healtth of their own minds.
Travelling, friendships and buckets of social confidence: some of the things that skating has blessed me with. Something that I've discovered over my past year of skating everyday is that skateboarding is one of the most uniting sports I've ever partaken in. Even when you zoom out your lense to the bigger scene of SLS and Olympic competitions, you will soon realise that there is so much passion and support that comes with our rolling planks of wood. Everyone is always stoked for each other landing new tricks and wants to celebrate each other's successes- no matter how small they might be.
Growing up in the states, I was a well rounded athlete. A runner, football player and primariy a baller. Although these sports are all fantastic in their own ways, I have never felt so accepted into an enviroment until I started going to loads of different skate parks in the UK. There is something so refreshing about the supportive competition that surrounds a boarding enviroment that no other track/ ball has ever offered to my life.
One of the best parts about coaching skateboarding is seeing the happiness that personal successes bring my clients. Seeing someone smiling ear to ear when they come back from a ramp fakie for the first time has no word in the English language to represent the amount of seritonin that sharing that experience with someone brings you. I truly believe that skateoarding is the most versatile sport. It can be a vice when you are not feeling like yourself: where you can throw both of your headphones in and drown out the world or alternatively it can be the most liberating social event.
A form of happiness only skatepark junkies understand, landing a trick for the first time: everyone on this broken planet deserves to experience that feeling. Over this summer and the next year coming up, I hope to do some more research into the psychological impact that skateboarding has in a person's life and apply this knowledge to every single coaching session.
This post is mostly me rambling on about skating, drinking oatmilk coffee, far too early in the morning. If you don't take anything else away from this rant, at least go grab yourself a slab of 7ply with wheels and a sticky sandpaper top and convice your mates to learn with you and see how you feel after a couple of weeks of consistent shredding.
That's all for now...
Peace out mofuckas
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