Skateboarding brings joy for so many reasons, clearly the feeling of making a trick or a run brings a huge sense of joy and accomplishment, but there is something amazing in the repetition in learning a trick. Now I work more on things that I already know.? Settling into a good stand up front side grind, brings more comfort to me now than trying to figure out those tricks that I could never figure out. Years ago, when I was younger, when I was still learning things trying again and again, inching closer then retreating back, landing with one foot on, then both feet on but then stepping off. Standing there thinking about what I needed to do differently. Asking someone who could do it for help, for a tip, watching them do it, pouring over photos, pouring over videos or whatever it took. Some of us were more patient some of us were more rushed.
Skateboarding brings us the chance to learn how to keep trying
When I think back to the salad days of skateboarding for me it was those afternoons after school, it was with my friend Josh, at the school down the street from where we lived. Where we would do the same tricks over and over and over. Together we learned style, learned speed (Okay, not that much speed for me, I was always slow.), we learned the technical things. We learned to be consistent. It was clear that neither of us were going pro, as much as that seemed like the goal, but we both had so much fun learning tricks. Maybe it was because in between trying a new trick we had great conversations, or argued about something / everything. There was a sense of relaxation there was a sense of excitement there was a sense that we could learn any trick as long as we had more time (which clearly wasn?t true, but it felt like it.).
Skateboarding brings us the chance to learn how to keep trying, to learn slow progression and to get the joy of accomplishment the joy of rolling away smiling.
