Naomi in the Skatepark

Part 1 - The Wonder Years

It was the mid 90’s and I’d been skating for about 2 years when I decided to skate ramps. I’d just started reading an inline skating magazine I found in London, and in it were pictures taken during competitions on ramps and halfpipes. I wanted to be those people. I wanted to be that cool. When I could hover in the air above anything in my skates, I would be that cool. I’d have arrived.

So off I went to the nearest skatepark from the pictures – it was in Bath’s Victoria Park. I felt pretty cool on the way over, with my Bauer H2 Hockey skates slung over my shoulder, and wanted everyone to know that I was going to skate ramps. I arrived at the open-air skatepark and instantly changed my mind. I felt like a complete idiot. I was surrounded by intimidating skaters (boarders, inliners & quadders) all doing massively impressive stuff and so I sat on a park bench and watched for a while and then took the long return bus ride of shame back home whilst hatching my plan – I would return at the crack of dawn when no self respecting skater would be at the skatepark.

And I did… Sunday morning I left home at 7am, and was there by 8.30. Alone. It was bliss right up until I set foot on my first ramp. Whumph. If you’ve been on ramps, and you remember your first time, you’ll know that the minute you hit the slope, you spontaneously fall. I think its like a test, an initiation to see if you can cope with the injury to your ego. You spend about 20 minutes just falling again and again and again, and I will view with great suspicion and envy anyone that claims they avoided this phase.

The weeks went by, and Sunday remained void of lie-ins, until one morning when a bunch of skateboarders that regularly arrived at 10am eventually offered me a cigarette and encouraged me to drop-in to the mini (quarterpipe). 30 minutes and a great deal of encouragement and coaching later I did my first successful drop-in, but not before cracking my elbow and putting a painful hole in it that would never repair. At some point during my 10-15 falls my elbow had swollen to the size of a melon, so I wouldn’t find out about my elbow until months later, but it kind of set the scene for my future relationship with ramps – get up, do it again before the fear sets in, no matter what the injury. I learned two valuable lesson that day that would stick with me:
(1) The skateboarder/inliner divide is pretty much a myth, and only in the heads of those that are so wrapped up in the myth and can’t respect another skill; and
(2) People riding ramps appear more unfriendly and intimidating than regular people, but they are generally a lot more friendly. The only ones with any attitude are the ones that are trying to act a part. In my experience, the better someone is the more friendly they are likely to be.

You might be wondering why the hell my elbow pads didn’t protect me? Well things were different back then – pads weren’t part of my experience of skating. It just didn’t occur to me that I should be wearing pads. It wasn’t that I rejected the idea of wearing them, but coming from an ice skating background, it didn’t even figure in my thoughts. I didn’t buy pads for a good few months, and even then I discovered that they didn’t stop you from bruising your hips every time you fall – I just had to sleep carefully.

Soon I broke my hockey skates when jumping over a bunch of gym benches in my school sports hall, which I used to sneak into after hours to practice freestyle, so I bought my first pair of aggressive skates – Rollerblade Tarmacs. And caught the disease that affects so many that buy a new pair of skates – I stopped skating ramps.

Years of freestyle later, I found myself at uni in Manchester. Manchester is pretty devoid of freestyle skaters, but I met a couple of lads who were putting up posters around campus wanting people to play rollerhockey with them. Id tried that years before, and was crap, but hell, maybe they’ll do some freestyle too. They didn’t, but they did skate ramps, and so off we went to the brand spanking new ‘Projekts’ skatepark.

It was great, very new and absorbent wood, fit for a good bloodletting, so I sacrificed my lower lip. I cunningly tried to stall on the coping, and on about my 5th attempt, my wheels slipped and I did a forwards somersault whist falling backwards down the ramp. This creates quite a lot of whip, and when I landed on my face I honestly thought I wouldn’t have one left – it felt like at least my nose had exploded and all my teeth would be out. When I was able, I rolled over, clutching my face, blood flowing, and hobbled off the midi, over to the mini where the skateboarders who worked there were riding. ‘Uurrruuhhhhhhhh!....Huuuuuuuurrrrrrr!’. They went mental. It was like it was their face on the ramp – complete panic – I quite literally had to guide them through their panic by telling them that a tissue was needed, then where is the nearest A&E and then how to get there. I guess I must have looked and sounded pretty scary. But now they know! It was like I trained them up…

Having my face stitched up was truly an experience. I’m not good in that way – but I didn’t lose the tooth that had shot through it. And I now have a scar to show my grandkids.

I drank my food through a straw for a few days, and had to put up with my boyfriend of the time (an extreme sports addict who had experienced most injuries imaginable, and told me in excruciating detail about them all) laughing at the state of me. He was so proud, I even had to take him to the skatepark to show him my blood on the ramp. He was like ‘My girlfriend did that!’ like a new dad showing off his kid.

The Serpentine Road crew are Baysixty6 on most Mondays and Thursdays from 19.00-21.00.  New people come along regularly, and are welcomed and shown the ropes.

Naomi's website: http://www.skatefreestyle.com/

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