Freedom for some, illegal art for others

The other day I saw a nike commercial that really inspired me to write a post. Commercial was about skateboarding stereotype—it shows the perception of how people see skateboarders. They see us as adolescents who never grew up; like our sole purpose is to invade or destroy other people’s property and stress them out. They see us like we are some kind of criminals because we do something we love. JB Gillet said in Transworld’s skateboard movie called “First Love” how those people could never fully understand what skateboarding means to us and what is the feeling we get from it. I perceive skateboarding as something where I can free my mind—it is like meditating with my eyes open. It is the mixture of having fun and being free which makes it all so interesting. I don’t know whether it is constant rush of adrenaline or the feeling of freedom that keeps us addicted to it, overlooking the injuries or pain.

Although freedom plays a high role in skateboarding, you feel really connected with other skateboarders not just because you share this same feeling with them, but also because you share the same point of view and vision—vision to do something you love.

Imagine yourself in a community where you are accepted unconditionally. No matter where are you from, how old are you or how you look like. Your culture background or the color of the skin is meaningless. You are accepted just being who you are.

Skateboarding itself has so much possibilities. Not only because there is nobody that will tell you what to do, where to do it and how to do it (unless there is a trick tip obviously), but also because there is an endless list of trick variations and skateboarding styles. Every skateboarder is unique because they add their own personality to their style.

What is skateboarding all about

Skateboarding is so much more than just a physical activity. It is all about you and how you express yourself. It is allowing you to be what you want to be. And that is the main reason why skateboarding is so popular.

But for every individual skateboarding means something different. For somebody this is a way to escape from all the troubles and for other it is all about pushing yourself so you can grow. All I can say for certain is that skateboarding is everything you want it to be.

How skateboarding helped me to be a better person

In this world full of influences it is hard to find the differences between what you really want and what you think you want. Constant bombardment through either media, celebrities, society you live in or even by the people you are influenced from is putting a heavy weight on individuals in a way of how to live life or what is right, cool and what is not.

Lets not forget how fast and busy lifestyle has driven us to the point we stop spending enough time with ourselves. And this brings a massive consequences. People don’t know who they are anymore because they are not connected with their inner voice. That can lead to rapid (in most cases wrong) decision making.

Skateboarding helped me to become more independent. It taught me how to set and achieve goals, how to challenge them. But most importantly I learned perseverance—how not to give up and how to get up when you fall.

Skateboarding truly changed my perception of the world and it will never be the same as before. What changed the most is how I perceive architecture. Now everywhere I go all I can see are skateboard spots—what is skateable and what is not. Sometimes when you see a certain spot you immediately start thinking about which trick would look nice and how could you exploit its full potential. Over the years I developed the ability to quickly examine all the details certain spot has to offer. As a photographer that ability helped me to notice things I couldn’t see before and to start thinking out of the box.

I can’t imagine where would I be at this very moment if I would have never met skateboarding. It really changed my life forever. I’m not saying that team sports don’t bring you the pleasure, but there is something different about how skateboarding does that. The feeling of being a director at the endless list of possibilities. It is unexplainable.

So next time you see somebody skateboarding stop for a second and observe what is really going on. You will quickly start connecting the dots I was talking about.