I recently took a trip to Finland and, of course, brought my board, even though this visit was a vacation with my family. Like most freestylers, I can never leave my board at home, it follows me everywhere…
While in Finland, I found a free outdoor skatepark in the town of Kokkola. The park consisted of a small street course with a flat area. Before entering the park, I checked to see if there were other skaters there and decided to do my warming up and stretching exercises where no one could see me. You always have the eyes on you when you come to a new place and it sometimes feels uncomfortable.
When I approached the park, I could see how all skaters watched me closely and I suddenly became very nervous. I had no idea what the Finnish skaters thought about me with my freestyle board. As it turned out, my fears were unfounded. They seemed to like my skating and after awhile one of them started to talk with me. It turned out I had skated with him when I was in Finland about 8 years ago. He told me I taught him how to do kickflips.
The next time I went to skate at this park, I went through my same warm-up routine, stretching alone before I entered the park. This time there were other skaters there and they watched me closely when I approached. I noticed they were smiling and I was sure it was because they thought my freestyle board looked funny with its tailskid. This made me feel more nervous than before. Demos and contests have a different feel because most skaters in the crowd know I am there to freestyle. But here I felt they might not know anything about what I was going to do.
I did some footwork and then I started to practice some lines in my routine. To my surpise, I was so nervous. I fell hard on my first trick, a 360 shove-it. I fell in a way I had never done before. By now I was sure they all thought I was a joke.
As I continued to skate, I began to feel more comfortable and the Finnish skaters seemed to like freestyle a lot. I started to talk with them and they all seemed very friendly, as all the Finnish skateboarders I have met have been.
One of the skaters, Topi Martinoff, showed a lot of talent and might be the next Arto Saari. He did ollie to one-footed noseslides and impressed me a lot. When we talked about freestyle and streetskating, he told me he loves to watch freestyle and has a lot of respect for it. He told me freestyle is his roots.
I had never thought about this before: streetskaters feeling that freestyle is their roots. I was very happy to hear this and it made me proud to be a freestyler.
