Thirty-Four Year Old Takes Up Skateboarding. And Re-Tells Some Stories From School.

in vegan •  7 years ago  (edited)

I decided skateboarding might be a really fun way to break myself in a really cool and interesting way.

Get ready for some broken bits, Nancy boy!

What the actual f$%k? I was looking for a fantastic vegan skateboarding image and one of my recently favoured vegans comes up. Chris Cooney from The Vegan Zombie!
Image Source

When I was in school, I was anything but a skater.

As a child, you look for ways to identify yourself. That’s why we all sought groups to sit with at school or somehow found ourselves in.

There were the cool kids, the druggos, the “Ag-Fags” (not particularly nice name for the kids who were interested in agriculture at school), and the athletic kids (we never called them jocks). You know them all.

While I never managed to be a regular in the ‘cool’ group, I remember one of the girls, let’s call her L-S B for reasons of anonymity, either liked me enough to annoy the shit out of me or just liked annoying the shit out of me for the sake of it. She treated me as her little ‘play thing’ and would steal my Toronto Bluejays baseball cap ALL THE TIME. That was as much attention I ever received from her. I liked her, but I think she was too enamoured by her own reflection to have any time for anyone else.

That was was close to 'cool' as I got. I'm glad I didn't get closer. I prefer my own style by far. Sometimes it just takes getting to adulthood to realise you got your shit going on already!

As time continued through school, we developed other interests and things became a little more nuanced. My group of friends would shoot hoops with our mate, Mitch. He was the tallest guy in our group and played basketball outside of school. He was about twenty feet tall and had a voice box like Barry White (as far as my young ears remember). We rode our BMX bikes to school and played model war games – Games Workshop’s, Warhammer 40K after school. Sadly enough, a misplaced comment of mine resulted in my entire group ousting me from our circle of friends. It appeared no one wanted me around anymore. Hard times.

Bullying played a huge role in my early high school life and ultimately formed a part of who I am now.

I’m not going to go into length about the bullying at this point – I may in the future, however, but suffice to say I found myself up with the “Ag-Fags”. These people weren’t gay. They were just a bunch of kids that either lived on farms or rode horses or who enjoyed the company of others that did. The main reason for my transition to the Ag plot was that one of my earliest friends, Blake was a member of this group. We’ve known each other since preschool and I liked him that much as children, that I hurled a massive (for a kid) rock at his eye. Yep. At his eye. He went to hospital. I promise I liked him! And I have no idea why the hell I’d do such a stupid thing. I was an idiot.

"What the hell does all this have to do with skateboarding?” I hear you ask.

Well, nothing really. I just never considered it. Actually, I had a friend, Leigh (also a part of the original group – and was the one who passed my stupid comment onto the guy I had said it about. Real stand-up guy) who was a skater. You can probably see why I didn’t really want to do anything that in any way connected me to Leigh and his deceptive ways. He was a jerk.

I’ve moved on and it’s time to shred!

I was watching a few Youtube videos that inspired me to try something new. I thought it would be a fun, new little adventure to embark on. Of course, I jumped onto Gumtree (Australia’s version of Craigslist) and started looking through some of the used boards. I didn’t want anything new just yet. I’m not making any big commitments nor did I want to unnecessarily get myself wrapped up in more consumerism. I’m all about making the most of things that have already been manufactured.

I scrolled through the ads of brightly coloured cheap penny boards and electric boards costing over $800. I’ve been down the electric bike route and I’d do THAT again, but I was trying to find a standard board fully equipped and ready to be foot-powered (I’m trying to be more active, you see).

Finally, I found the board that suited my needs.

She’s nothing pretty (and the underside of the deck is even more bland), but I think she’s a lovely blank canvas for some cool vegan and pop art stickers!

Vegan boarding anyone?

Source - Redbubble

Source - Redbubble

The problem now is that I’m likely to spend more time searching for new vegan stickers to slap on the deck than I should be spending practicing on the board (in carparks at night).

Any ideas what I should tricks I should be working on first? Are you a newbie skater, too? Let me know in the comments!

Peace, YO!

Nick.

All content is original.

Disclosure: This article was not a paid promotion and was not self-upvoted. Nor were there any affiliate links.


Thank you so much for your support on my Steemit Space. Please Upvote, Comment and Follow @nickmorphew for regular content.

I do my best to engage with all thoughtful comments. This space absolutely invigorates me, so shoot me a comment.. even a critical one. I love fans and I love argumentative a-holes. I don’t discriminate.


I’m still looking for an artist to cover my work on my fantasy saga, Adventures in Elowyn Glade. Please make some noise if you’re interested.


Authors get paid when people like you upvote their post.
If you enjoyed what you read here, create your account today and start earning FREE STEEM!
Sort Order:  

Hey nick - I love skating but don't have the co-ordination for tricks. I ride a longboard with big wheels cause it's nice to cruise on the bike track with. Here are some tips:

  1. Forget about the stickers and jump on - otherwise you might lose the motivation and there's a world of fun out there!

  2. Practice standing first. find your centre of gravity and get comfortable taking your foot off to push.

  3. Push with your back foot - this gives you more control when you are pushing ( nobody told me this when I was learning so I do it the wrong way. I'm trying to re-train myself but it's not easy!)

  4. the front trucks should be a little looser than the back ones. ( so you can steer)

Have fun!!

Hey Bec!

I've just sat down at the computer so I can reply properly to your comment. I love the idea of longboarding.. maybe that will be my next board! haha!

  1. I forgot about the stickers and went for a cruise! I'm trying to build up "board time" before I worry about anything else regarding tricks, stickers..etc.

  2. I found standing is actually trickier for me than moving.. I'm getting more confident on the moving front and I'm also getting better at standing.

  3. Thanks for the "back-footed" tip! I really had no idea whether I was goofy or regular. Whenever I played around with someone's board, I too did the pushing with my front foot (my right), but because I was using my right leg to push I thought I was 'regular'. After trying both ways, it turns out I ride goofy and push with my left foot. I much rather stand looking over my right shoulder than trying to keep pushing with my right foot and have to change the way I stand. It was actually sort of hard to choose, because both ways had things I would have to re-learn!

  4. Regarding the trucks.. I don't know which end is the front and which is the rear. I seem to be able to steer just fine. I might get some tools to play around with the tightness, but right now, all seems pretty good.

I'm having fun!!

Thanks so much for your advice!

Cheers,
Nick

Awesome! Glad your having fun 😊 The trucks won't matter much, it is a bit of personal preference.

way to take up skateboarding!
never to late to start@
be sure to check out #steemskate the weekly steemit skate contest hosted by @web-gnar, me lol.
happy to have you on board welcome mate

Hey mate, great post. Love the skater you bought. I use to skate alot when I was a teen. @nudimar has a great post on the carver skateboard. I recently bought one to learn how to do surfing moves. It is so much fun and highly reccomended if your interested in surfing. Check out the carver as it is so cool :) have fun skating and its never too late to learn. Excellent fitness and improves your balance :)
I tried upvoting like 10 times but it will not work. What the #@$% hahaha

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

@imperialaussie thank u for the support!! I will try to post more about it.

@nickmorphew lets go ripping!!!

Looking forward to it. Possibly a video on bottom hand turns or snaps ;)