Photography by me.
Yes, “skating rules,” but it rules for a different reason than you might have thought.
I recently eavesdropped on a spirited conversation. The air was buzzing with human connection. Two skaters chirped like parakeets. What forged their bond? What element sparked this chemistry? It wasn't a band, a trick or someone famous. It wasn't that summer was approaching or there was a solar eclipse tomorrow. No, it was much more surprising than that. It was the shared experience of skateboarding as therapy.
Let's set the scene. Skater A wore a Scottie Pippen singlet, dressed in Gen-Z's reincarnation of the 90s. Skater B wore a business shirt and sweater, his grey-flecked beard neatly trimmed for the office. They had more than a decade between them. They were strangers, yet laughing like brothers. Naturally, my ears pricked up.
“You could take a few weeks off from skating... something could go wrong in your life and suddenly you'll be like, man, I just need the board," confided Skater A.
Skater B nodded in agreement. "I don't know what people do without it, I feel sorry for them.”
Using a plank for therapy sounds odd, but it's not uncommon. A psychology student told me skating was part of his mental health plan. After a bad day, people push through their feelings. They "leave it all on the board."
In Tim Seifert and C. Hedderson's heftily titled "Intrinsic Motivation and Flow in Skateboarding: An Ethnographic Study," the duo investigate why people skate and how finding peace through flow is a part of that equation. It's a good question. Why would a person push through hours of frustration, wrecked clothes and snapped bones just to learn a new trick?
Skating is hard. It can be social, but it's mostly solitary. There isn't a committee overseeing your performance. There's no team riding on your board. It's just you trying to achieve a task with your body, your deck and your coordination. You either clear the obstacle, grind the rail, survive speeding downhill... or you don't.
"Intrinsic motivation" is at the core. This internal force propels skaters through physical and mental pain. Seifert and Hedderson report that skaters are driven by deep cognitive engagement, problem-solving, and self-esteem. Perhaps most importantly, skaters are motivated by flow.
This peaceful state is the mental dimension where time disappears, every distraction falls away and you hyper-focus on a single activity. Whether you're a computer hacker, ballet dancer or Bungy jumper, part of the reason you do these activities is flow. Some might call it being "in the zone." Others call it transcendence.
"People get really into meditating and spirituality - things that make them not think. With skating you get that peace, you get worn out and you get to focus on a trick. When I'm in a trick... there's nothing. Who gets that? Who else gets that every day for an hour or two besides monks?" -Andrew Reynolds, Epicly Later'd, Vice.
It's hard to think about that comment your co-worker said when you're trying to stay on top of a moving object. Often when your concentration slips that's when your body meets concrete. So yes, leave your ordinary troubles behind. Access your inner buddha, grab hold of intrinsic motivation and use skating as therapy.
*On another note, the paper also mentions that sports research could be advanced through the use of ethnography as a means of gaining insight into the behaviours, values, emotions, and mental states of a group. If you want someone to immerse themselves in your audience and discover something interesting in the process, you know who to contact.