The Vic West Skateboard Competition was held last Saturday and it was an inspiring event. It reminded me how different skateboarding is from most of what we consider to be sports. It was the first truly urban sport, the first sport that developed in and utilized the modern urban environment of cement and curbs and railings. It also seems to me to be the sport that is most driven by kids themselves. I can't remember when I last saw a bunch of kids playing soccer or baseball outside of an adult-organized situation. Kids like those sports but they seldom seem to play them unless there is a lot of adult assistance and motivation. If you drive by the skateboard park, however, on any day when it's not raining you will see dozens of kids out there bouncing around and working on their skills, interacting with each other and teaching and learning from each other. It's exciting to see kids so focused on learning something that takes effort and concentration and often results in hard landings. Kids of all ages and both genders took part in the competition and my hat's off to them all.
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2 comments:
No question this is a popular activity for kids in the city, and it is great to see facilities made for it.
I like your observations about the kids themself organizing it.
When I was a kid, we had a comparable place off the beaten-path where large amounts of earth had been dumped and transformed into what we called the "scramble tracks" that we could ride up and down on our bikes. Real adventure.
I remember when skateboarding began to take off in the late 70s. I had one. And I took an awful lot of spills on it too, and I wasn't even trying to do any tricks! Ah youth.
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