Learning To Skateboard In Orange County

I’m back in the UK, vacation back at my original home of Orange County,
California, now over. But I had a few things from my trip I still wanted to
blog, with my skateboard lessons at the top of the list.

My two sons recently wanted skateboards.
There’s a
skateboard halfpipe in The Mumbles, Swansea — a seaside town in Wales where
their grandmother lives (as well as where Catherine Zeta Jones is from, but she
never visits, calls, writes…). I bought some cheap boards from the nearby Toys
R Us, but I felt inadequate that their California-native father, from where
skateboarding started (see
here
and here), really could
barely ride a board. Don’t get me going about surfing….

So when we went back home to OC, I told them we’d go to the
Vans Skatepark in Orange,
where they could take a proper
lesson. I
really should have traded lessons for proper SEO of the appalling Vans site, but
I went for the credit card.

I signed all three of us up. That was fun. First the woman taking my money
thought it was just the boys I was enrolling. "No, all three of us," I said.
"Really?" she replied, with no hiding of her disbelief.

You’re supposed to book a week in advance — and it’s a pain, because you
have to go there, pay the week before, then come back. But while we were there,
someone cancelled — so we got right in. The instructor came along, asked if the
boys were both doing it, and I said yes — plus me as well.

"Really?"

You can see how filled with confidence I was

Well, we did some stretching, then went off to learn. Going up and down a
ramp was the main thing. I learned that when coming back down, you need to lean
backwards and you descend, which is against all your instincts. But it’s what
keeps you balanced. With lots of practice, I could eventually go up a ramp, then
come back down on and pivot my board around to kick off and head to another
ramp. Tony Hawk, lookout!

Heh.

One of the best things was how friendly all the other skateboarders were. I’m
use to people talking about how welcoming folks are in the SEO space. Where here
I am this old man stumbling around, but all the kids around would still be
giving me some honest words of approval and encouragement.

My oldest son decided skateboarding wasn’t for him, but my youngest was
hooked. We went back again, and I promised that if we’d made it through some
time on our own — and he still liked it — then I’d get him a proper board.
Being a big teddy bear fan (he’s six), he’d spotted a board he loved.

On our own, we did more practice and got to know the halfpipe, practicing
going up and coming down. Then it was board time:

Yeah, his is on the left — and when we did our second lesson, his instructor
was more impressed with his than my awesome rainbow board on the right.

The picture at the top of the post was us taking the boards out along the
Boardwalk in Newport, which is strictly verboten according to the many signs. So
we didn’t do it much, mainly enough to scuff the boards up for our return to
Vans.

I really wanted another lesson, so the following week we went in. This time,
we learned a range of things. The instructor encouraged me to go down a ramp
from the top, up a smaller one, down it and then up a higher one. Yeah, right –
but I tried, didn’t fall and kept practicing. He also taught me how to keep your
momentum going on the half pipe (throw your body forward as you go up; drop down
as you come backwards). Yeah, I can sort of do that now — but I need a lot more
practice.

My biggest achievement I learned on my own –grinding along a rail. They have
a small rail there that comes up from the ground, then slope back down. So I
kept aiming myself at it and eventually could go up, slide across balanced on my
trucks and come down the other side. And consistently, too!

Overall, we had a great time, and I can’t wait to go out more. I’d really
like to have more formal lessons, but talking to other skateboarders also seems
to be the way to go. But if you’re in Orange County and want to get started, the
Vans Skatepark is well worth checking out.