Enter skate park

It was a hot day in July, we were broke and would not spend the summer in the roller rink. Whatever would we do?

Hey my children! We'll spend the time at the skate park! (yeah right?)

It was about 8 years ago I skated outdoors (aside from the flat safe tennis court). My dear friend and derby accomplice Nancy convinced me to go to Greenlake to skate. Sounds so simple.

We went to Greenlake. No I didn't cry, but I wanted to. I had just learned to skate, I had not eaten well. I was tired, hungry, scared and didn't really no how to stop much less maneuver around people on a trail. It didn't go well. Half way around I took off my skates and Nancy had to go get my car and pick me up. She was very kind about it.

Fast forward 8 years. I could fairly well skate. I never got super good. I couldn't really do transitions. I worked at them tirelessly at the roller rink. They just never clicked. I pretty much could skate forward, maneuver, t-stop, center plow, knee touch. That's it. Mediocre at best.

And now we couldn't go to the rink cause we were broke. Let's go outside!

The thought was terrifying. Yes I could skate better now but I was fairly traumatized by my last excursion. I really didn't want to go to the skate park.

The night before the dreaded park I told my daughter we would go early, before anyone else was there. Skate, fall and go home. She was pumped!

The next morning I was hoping she would totally forget about it. She didn't. She woke up, busted out to the dinning room wrapped up in a blanket exclaiming "mom you didn't wake me up!" Shit, now we would have to go.

So we went. And we didn't die. And we had fun. And we wanted to go again!

It was awesome! No I couldn't really skate on the ramps, they were terrifying! But the concrete was smooth, I could roll around them a little bit. And I really enjoyed it.

So we went again and again. Every day we went to a new park, tried out the old ones again. Everyday, sometimes twice a day. No I was not a natural, my children were, and no I couldn't do anything cool. But it felt so good to go up and down the ramps.

I started online research. Blog, videos, groups, facebook, youtube. Anything that talked about park skating, and ramps. I discovered this whole world of park skaters to feed my interests!

I looked for classes or local groups and there were none. No Chicks in Bowls were to be found in my area, and the one that actually was in my area I couldn't find online. When I did find them they were largely on pause due to the admin being in the throws of graduate school.

Then I found Elle Seven and her week long class called "Hold your Own". Which coincidentally was happening in Seattle in about two weeks time.