Look, I know it's just an abandoned hockey rink (yours might be a tennis court, a parking garage, or even a basketball court), but for a fledging FS community, this space represents SO much more.
Lets talk about skateparks. Traditional skateparks. they might seem like a lovely place to practice your new maneuvers but any seasoned freestyler will tell you, STAY OUT!
Just kidding… kind of. Look, skateparks are great, but the flow of the park and the lack of flatground at most American skateparks make them AWFUL for learning freestyle tricks. Head to the skatepark and you will likely find yourself cutting off most other riders or pogoing in the flat bottom of some abandoned bowl. Neither is ideal. Pick yourself up, king!
Instead, let’s head to the local freestyle skatepark. This tennis court, roller hockey rink, or parking garage is the ultimate flat ground destination for a local footworker. It may not have been designed specifically for freestyle but it has the 3 essentials. The holy trinity of freestyle spots: smooth surface, no pedestrian, and a wide flat area.
A freestyle skatepark exists in most towns. Despite their humble appearance, some have even become destinations for traveling freestylers. Slatina Skatepark in Romania, Shin-Yokohama park in Japan, Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, El Dorado park in Long Beach, and many others. These spaces represent so much more than places to play. They’ve become community spaces. Having a regular meeting place galvanizes a community. It turns a cold, salty parking lot into a sort of watering hole. A club house for collectors of bearing spacers and skid plates. A place to vent about work or share photos from your vacation to Iowa.
Any freestyle skatepark has the potential to bring people together. Regular sessions and a couple friends are all you need. With consistency (and maybe a flyer), you’ll find that other freestylers are out there too, looking for a space to ride. They might ride a street board. They might dress kinda funny. They might even call it “old school” or “Rodney tricks” but they’ll come around.
The freestyle community in Long Beach is like a second family to me. In a world so divided, our weekly sessions have become an invaluable source of local community. This silly little hockey rink where we meet has allowed us to organize jams, competitions, and holiday parties. Wherever you are, I hope you can find your own Eldo. It’s probably way nicer 😂
