6 Life Lessons You Learn on a Skateboard
We’ll let you in on some good stuff only people who skate know, but never talk about. Skateboarding makes you smarter and helps fill that well-rounded life bank. It’s the bank everyone seeks to fill, because it develops individuals who make the world a better place with their brains, creativity and kindness.
It may not be obvious to those on the outside of the skatepark watching bodies and boards fly, flip, slide and grind over metal and concrete, but there are at least 7 ways skateboarding imparts life skills, character and knowledge.
1. Awareness. Parents try to teach kids to get along, be considerate of others, and “read” the dynamics of a room or situation, but it’s a nuanced lesson. Experienced skaters become skilled diplomats who know their place in the skatepark and the world. Just watch any group of skaters lined up around a bowl. They (mostly) wordlessly know: a) when it is their turn, b) whether the kid in the bowl got more air off the hip than his last run and merits a board clap and c) how many tricks and runs they can grind out before annoying the group waiting to go next.
2. Resilience. Falling and failing in skating and life is inevitable. Skaters know how to fall smart, get back up and try again. A skater knows that when things go wrong, they cope by rolling, sliding and using their pads to distribute the energy of the crash. There is always a lesson to apply to the next hundred tries it takes to master a trick.
3. Innovation. Skateparks and skateboards are bursting with physics, geometry, science, engineering and math. Just ask Italy’s Edoardo Papa, who after carefully studying wave images and slow motion surf maneuvers, created amazing skatepark structures that simulate the best surfing waves.
Professional skater Rodney Mullen, who invented the majority of modern skate tricks and basic board designs, is now an innovation strategy consultant to Silicon Valley tech companies. Middle school teacher Bill Robertson calls his student skaters “scientists riding around in a field laboratory, engaging in concepts in motion, forces, and simple machines.”
4. Holding your own. Anywhere, anytime. Skateboarders learn to find and make their own lines amid the beautiful chaos of a busy skatepark. They negotiate, support and make way so others can line up the distance needed to gain speed and perform their tricks. Valuable assets in life, skateboarding encourages strong independent thinking and the drive needed to take on challenge after challenge.
5. Creativity and artistry. Skateboarding is an unstructured, athletic and creative outlet for body and soul. Skaters take and make all kinds of terrain and turn it into a canvas for creative movement. Former professional skater and South Jersey phenom Jose Ruiz said “if skateboarders were architects, this world would be one fun place to live, man. I can’t walk down the street in the city without looking at every ledge, gap, handrail, transition. It’s a big playground. Other people don’t see what we see.”
6. Creating and sharing happiness. Ruiz, who coaches several local skaters and is starting a summer skate camp in Ventnor, loves seeing the perma-grin on kids’ faces who are truly happy and free on their boards and sharing the stoke with their friends. “There is nothing like trying that ONE trick 5, 10, 30 times until you landed it. Or even better, watching one of your buddies land something you’ve never seen before. You better believe that’ll stoke your soul!”
