Some Positives and Negatives on Skateboarding

For this weeks post I decided to write about some of my thoughts on skateboarding. There are several things I enjoy about skateboarding, but there are also a few things I wish would change.

In skateboarding, I enjoy the fact that the idea of skateboarding is being free. It’s about you and your skateboard with the possibility of an endless amount of tricks. You can skate whenever you choose to and like many other sports you can learn a lot from skating. Skating has taught me that life is not easy; this includes the classic example, if at first you don’t succeed, then try again.

In skateboarding I also enjoy the fact that anyone can do it. In skateboarding, it doesn’t matter what age, race, or gender you are, even dogs can skateboard. I find it interesting how rapidly skateboarding has spread across the world.

Some things I wish I could change would include the negative stereotypes of a skateboarder. Many people look down on skaters and believe skating is a negative activity for their children. I believe some of these negative feelings come from the skating advertised in the variety of shows on TV, such as Viva La Bam and Jackass. These shows do not portray skateboarding in a good way due to the reckless behavior.

I also wish I could change several minor aspects such as getting kicked out of spots. There are not many skate parks around Ohio that are made for “street skating.” Skating spots within the community is fun, but depending on the spot, you can get kicked out very quickly. I also wish skateboards were cheaper. In the early years of skating, a board could last you months. As you progress and begin to skate stairs and gaps, all it takes is to land in the wrong position to break a board. Without the trucks and wheels on a skateboard, the board alone will cost about 50 dollars.

Our Acting Debut

Many people have heard of the professional skateboarder Rob Dyrdek, due to his two shows in his past on MTV. Rob created the “DC Skate Plaza” in effort to give skaters a security-free environment with street spots that skaters would enjoy. The first Dc Skate Plaza was built in Rob’s hometown, Kettering Ohio.

I planned a trip with a group of friends of mine to visit the plaza during our exam week. We would all complete our exams early in the week, so we planned the trip on a Thursday. This plaza is very popular and many people drive several hours to skate there. Leaving during a school day was a good idea because the park wouldn’t be as crowded with many kids still being in school.

We left early in the morning and arrived sometime around 8 a.m. As we arrived to the plaza, we were happy to see only a few people there. We skated for about thirty minutes, until we witnessed a huge tour bus pulling up to the plaza. We originally had the idea that a professional team was going to skate the plaza, so we were all excited to see who it was. We waited for several minutes, and the first person we saw leave the bus was Big Black. If you were familiar with the hit series, “Rob and Big” on MTV, you would know that Big Black is a good friend of Rob and they always travel together. We waited a few more minutes and were shocked to see a variety professional skaters exit the bus including Rob Dyrdek, Paul Rodriguez, Ryan Sheckler, and Ryan Dunn from the movie “Jackass”.

The pros spent time skating with everyone at the plaza, and we had the opportunity to speak and ask questions. After speaking with Rob Dyrdek, he explained to us that they were filming a movie called “Street Dreams.” The movie was not a typical skate video, but it was an actual movie to be played in theaters. As more people arrived to the plaza, we were ordered to sit and watch as they filmed several scenes. During the last scene he asked my group of friends if we wanted to be in the background of the scene. We were so amazed yet confused, so it took us a while to register his question in our minds to give a response. We were asked to do a few tricks in the background, and that’s what we did.

The movie only displayed in select theaters, and a Bexley theater was the only place where the movie was being played in our area. We all watched the movie hoping to see our scene, and within twenty minutes, we spotted ourselves in the background. We were so excited that we jumped up and cheered during the movie. This experience was one of our greatest throughout our years of skating.

The Arnold Classic Welcomes Skateboarding

“The Arnold Classic” also known as ”Arnold Fitness Week” is known to be one of the most profitable bodybuilding competitions. This exposition is an annual bodybuilding competition named after Arnold Schwarzenegger.  This expo has been around since 1989, and it has taken place every year since then. The “Arnold Classic” takes place in Columbus, OH ever year, and people from all over the world travel to witness this competition.

When this event was created, bodybuilding and strongman competitions were the only events held in the expo. Over the years the event has expanded to feature a variety of sports. These sports may include anything from archery, fencing, cheerleading, or table tennis.

This year is the first year that skateboarding has been brought to the event. The event is going to be held at the Veterans Memorial on the sixth and seventh of March. Many pros will be attending the event and the well-known skate team; “Blueprint” will be judging the contests. The event will be broken down into a variety of competitions such as beginner intermediate and advanced contests as well as a best trick contest. Fans from all over the country will be attending this event to experience skateboarding at its finest.

This two-day event currently has about two hundred participants signed up for the contest. I plan to sign up by the end of the week because an entry fee of twenty dollars is required. This event attracts skaters all around the U.S. because you can win a hefty cash prize for winning. This event is also motivating because it is a good way to get your name out there. A small step such as this competition can lead to a positive future in skateboarding based off of your performance.

Skate Naked?..................new indoor skatepark

“The Flow” is the only indoor skatepark in the Columbus area. This is a fun and friendly skate park, but the park is mostly biker oriented. Many of the ramps were built for the satisfaction of bikers, and the street section for skaters is very small. These are some of the reasons as to why many skaters avoid going to this park.

About three weeks ago, it was announced that a new indoor skate park would be opening in Columbus. The name of the skate park is going to be “Skate Naked.” Although the name is humorous and misleading, it still looks as if it is going to be a great indoor skate park. The park is scheduled to open in mid-February.

Over the weekend, a few locals were invited to check out the park, and I had the privilege of skating it with a few friends. After skating and talking with the owner, I was very impressed with his ideas. The park plans to be very involved with their customers, such as having contests every other weekend with various prizes such as money and electronics. There will also be workers there to film and edit a video of your session for a reasonable cost. Over time, the owners plan to build a shop in the park to provide skate supplies, foods, and drinks.

In the winter, my friends and I would normally have to plan trips to the indoor park in Kentucky, simply because the park has consists of everything a skater would want to skate. It is going to save a lot of gas money and time having a more convenient park nearby. Another good thing about this park is how cheap it is; the cost is ten dollars for a whole day. This is a great price compared to a twelve-dollar cost for a few hours at the flow. Another great thing about this park that skaters are going to enjoy is, no bikes are allowed in the park. The skater’s in Columbus will now have a place in which they don’t have to watch out for careless bikers.

My Experience With The Police

Police brutality has been a general problem throughout America, and it can be experienced in the skateboard community as well. Such violence to teens that are doing nothing more than a recreational activity is wrong and unnecessary.

Two days after my sixteenth birthday, a few friends and I decided to go skate downtown. We had just got a camera a few weeks before, so we planned to go film for a video we were working on. We decided to skate a spot that we have been to several times next to the Nationwide Arena.

Before we drove to the spot, we decided to get some drinks at a gas station, and as we left, we realized that a cop was following us. We didn't have anything to worry about, so we ignored the cop and continued to the spot. As we were pulling into the Nationwide Arena parking lot, we looked back and we shocked to see the cop still behind us. He immediately turned the sirens on and we stopped the car.

"Where's the weed at," was the first words to come out the officers mouth. Our friend in the back seat giggled and the cop ordered us to get out of the car and sit on the curb. My friend asked the officer if we did anything wrong, and the cop pushed him to the ground, calling him a “smart ass.” As the cop proceeded to search the car, we all looked at each other, questioning whether or not this was some sort of TV show prank.


After a ten-minute search, the cop returned to the curb empty handed. He then began to ask each of us several questions as he went down the line, and then it was my turn. I’ve never had to deal with the cops, so I was very nervous; when he asked me my age, I replied, "15 sir.........uh I mean 16." Although my birthday just past, I was still used to saying my age was fifteen.


This answer really irritated the cop, and he told me to stand up. He proceeded by putting me in handcuffs and placing me in the back of his car. After searching the rest of my friends, he let me go and gave us a bullshit excuse as to why he pulled us over; We didn't turn on our blinker the proper distance away from the turn.

Based off this experience, I get nervous every time a cop is around. Cops have the power to pull you over for anything, and there is nothing you and do about it. Even though the cop didn't act violently towards us , I believe the cop was abusing his power to scare us.  Although he claimed he was pulling us over for the blinker, it was clear that the cop was profiling and assuming that a group of teenagers were into drugs.

My Early Years of Skating

Prior to skateboarding, I would enjoy the sport only by watching it on the t.v, or watching my friend’s. I would only watch skateboarding and think to myself it would be something fun to learn. I was introduced to skateboarding during my freshman year in high school. A good friend of mine got into skating a few months before our freshman year, and during the first week of school he got a new skateboard. He gave me his old board and insisted that I should get into skating. I was hesitant at first, thinking I could not learn a sport such as skateboarding, but I have been skating ever since.

The first year of skateboarding, we would skate behind a Wal-Mart within walking distance of our neighborhood. The area was very plain; there was nothing there but the cement ground covered by a large green roof. We named the area,” The Green,” based off the roof, and we would skate there for hours everyday. “The Green” was a good place to skate because it was covered with a roof so we had a place to skate when it rained, it was behind the store so there were no cars or pedestrians to look out for, and the best thing about skating here was nobody cared if we were back there.

We did not know this at first, but “The Green” was used by police as a speed trap to catch speeders going through the area. There were several incidents where we would be skating and cops would pull up, and as we began to pack up and leave, the cops insisted that we stay. We were very surprised to hear this, but we continued to skate while the cops watched us as entertainment. The cops would occasionally talk to us and they allowed us to skate the area as long as they didn’t have any complaints by the workers, or we didn’t trash the place.

We continued to skate the spot for over a years, bringing rails, boxes and building several ramps. Once one of us got our license, we spent our time skating several spots and skate parks around Columbus. To this day we still skate The Green on rainy days and we were glad to have the privilege of having an area in which we had to ourselves.

The History of Skateboarding

Skateboarding can be described in several ways such as an recreational activity, an art-form, a sport, a job, or simply just a method of transportation. Skateboarding is a popular activity that children, adults, men, and women can enjoy. Skateboarding originated in the late 1950's in California. It is said that skateboarding was created by surfers who were looking for an alternative when the waves were uncooperative. With a few simple modifications to a surf board, skateboards were created. In the early 1960's skateboards were being sold in America. Skateboards were very popular for a few years, but in the mid 1960's many stores stopped selling skateboards because they felt it was too dangerous and unsafe. This is when the sport entered its first slump. In the early 1970's a man by the name of Larry Stevenson invented the first "kicktail" skateboard. The kicktail introduced concave skateboards which brought some of the first tricks into skateboarding, such as the ollie and kickflip. The late 70's and early 80's was a large growth stage in skateboarding, magazines and videos were created, concrete skateparks were built throughout the U.S.,skate shops were built and vert skating was very popular. The 80's generation was very important for skateboarding because this is when many pro's were recognized such as Tony Hawk and Steve Caballero. Towards the end of the 80's, skateboarding shifted it's focus onto street skating such as stairs, gaps and rails.  The 90's is what made skateboarding what it is today. A variety of tricks , teams, and companies were brought to the skateboarding community. Skateboarding increased it's popularity when it was displayed in the first ESPN (Extreme) X Games in 1995. The impact of media coverage has helped skateboarding become what it is today by raising the general image of skateboarding , and this has moved skateboarding from an underground sport to a spectator sport over the past years. Today skateboarding is still very popular, you can see it on t.v., magazines, and movies. It has become more than just a hobby to people, some people earn money and can make enough money to live a great life from skateboarding. Due to these changes in skateboarding, a pro can make anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000 a month just from doing what they love to do.