About 2 years ago, I bought my first skateboard. I had seen videos of pros online and quickly became attracted to it. I thought I’d give it a try myself. As I started to skateboard it was very difficult. I spent hours in my garage trying to learn easy tricks. It took me forever to get the basic tricks down. Although as time went on and I put in more and more practice things started to become easier for me. I started to figure out that skateboarding was not so much dependent on your athleticism but rather on your mental understanding of how the sport worked. Things started to become very easy as I figured out how to control the board just by thinking about it. When I discovered this it made skateboarding so much more fun for me. This was only the beginning of my love of the sport.
I started to devote hours of practice for skating almost every day. I was getting very good, doing flips off of ledges and flying down large stair sets. The more time I spent skateboarding, I started to realize that it was more than just a gnarly sport. I discovered that skateboarding was my favorite way to practice mindfulness. Mindfulness was always something I wanted to practice. I knew it was very healthy for your mind to let go of thoughts and be in the present moment. I was just too lazy to sit down and meditate. I was relieved when I figured out that one of my favorite activities to do was also a very mindful activity. When I skateboard, I have no choice but to be in the present moment. I literally can not think about anything but what I am doing with my feet when I skateboard. I can’t form any bad thoughts, nor can I think about the future or the past. If I do think about something else I will screw up what I am doing and get injured. This is why skateboarding it so important to me. I can do something I love, while keeping my mind healthy and practicing being in the present moment. I skate every day and enjoy every minute of it. Skateboarding is a huge part of who I am.