In previous articles, I’ve been consistently mentioning the longboarding community as an entity that all longboarders try to adhere to while you know, skating and going to events and doing the things that longboarders do. However, there are many things that really set the longboarding community apart from many other communities, such as the skate community or the competitive spelling bee community. This is an article where I will talk about those differences with a few of my own experiences.
The longboarding community is inherently extremely friendly. Help is given whenever you ask for it, and people will actually come out of their houses a Monday morning if you ask them to teach you slides, and they really will try their hardest to help you understand. This kind of stems from how humble people are in the longboarding community, because everyone understands that they started out as a newbie as well.
For instance, I remember back when I was just starting out, I was having a really hard time initiating slides, so I went online to look for help. Upon finding the local longboarding group on Facebook, I asked for some help with getting my wheels to unhook, and it was astounding how much help was offered. I got people who were sponsored volunteering to come out and give me tips, invitations to slide jams and races, just so that people could help me skate better. Whenever I expressed my nervousness to them, I was always met with the exact same response of, “everyone starts somewhere.”
This was an incredibly new experience to me. Every other community that I have been a part of has always been a decently competitive one. I would ask for help, and people would usually brush me off out of fear that they would create more competition for themselves, and because they didn’t want to fall out of the loop because they were overtaken by someone else. But the community for boarding is helpful.
This type of thinking really defines the mentality of longboarders these days. People always look to improving everyone as much as they can so that they can have maximum fun at the end stage, so that more people would compete and more challenges were faced. We, as longboarders are obsessed with overcoming obstacles and creating more competition for ourselves is absolutely not something that we are afraid to do.
So here it is. The next time you need help, don’t just stew at home and get frustrated by yourself, ask someone to come be frustrated with you. They will come and they will help you. Plus, skating with other people is so much more fun!
Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it.
WEAR A HELMET. Ryan L. Longboarder.