Skateboarding IS a Sport!

If you’re anything like me, then come spring you’re like an ADD kid that ran out of meds and is constantly bouncing around the room asking: “Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of winter and owe much of my demeanor to those bitter, frostbite-inducing months between October and April, but once the sun stops going down at 4 o’clock, all I can think about is getting back on my board and rolling majestically into the sunset with a backpack full of brew and no specific destination – just hit the streets and feel the freedom of the world rolling under my feet.

I started skateboarding a few years ago just out of a sheer desire to learn the sport. I watched friends skate, thumbed through mags like Transworld and SBC (the latter being a great publication from Vancouver), and thought to myself, You know, that is some rad shit! I wanna learn how to do that.

With barely any experience or background in the game, I wandered into Senate in the spring of 2006 with the goal of buying my first skateboard. I was a rookie at an age where most people had already abandoned skateboarding as a teenage phase, and I’ll be honest when I say that I was intimidated at the prospect of beginning at an age deemed old in the sport. But none of that mattered to me, I wanted to learn and I didn’t give a shit about anything else.

As it turned out this was the exact attitude to have when getting into skateboarding. For the next year, I skated everyday until I was a pool of blood and sweat, went home, showered and passed out, only to wake up the next day and start all over again. I was determined to learn at whatever the cost; and the cost, some might say, was high. I’ve lost at least an acre of skin and more blood than are in my veins now as I write this, but it has been the most rewarding and enjoyable experience of my life and I would never trade a single memory of the devotion it took to get to where I am today.

If there is one thing that I have learned from this sport, it’s this: It doesn’t matter what colour your skin is, whether you have a penis or a vagina, or how many birthdays you have celebrated, skateboarding, and any venture worthy of your devotion for that matter, is about doing something that you enjoy strictly for the sheer pleasure it gives you. Once I started skateboarding, I was immediately immersed into a brotherhood that welcomes new members with open arms and positive influence.

In the past few years I have used a clean source of transportation and cleared a bunch of black gunk from my lungs, learned more about myself than I have room on this page, learned freedom and creative expression that team sports could never offer, and most importantly I have met the most amazing friends. So to anyone that says that skateboarding is gay, or that we’re just delinquent punks, I say FUCK YOU! Skateboarding is the toughest, most demanding and least forgiving activity on the planet (save for maybe surfing, but that game is a little outta my reach here on the prairies).

If it were not for something as simple as a board with wheels, I would not be the person I am today. So if you are at all interested in the sport then I insist that you just go out there and throw yourself into it, you won’t regret it!