Skating is the polar opposite of other sports, if it even is a sport. We aren’t competitive. We do what we do for us, not them. We don’t care what other people think. It’s all about having fun.
Or is it? Do we really not care? Were we born with a rare no-compete attitude and naturally gravitate toward skateboarding to be close to similar souls? Or are our views of ourselves flawed? Perhaps we’re just really clever hypocrites, blind to the facts of who we are, convincing each other, and ourselves, that we’re something we’re not.
Maybe there’s no real way to know, but there’s a question I like to ask people that I think goes to the heart of the issue, and it’s this:
How would you skate if you were the last person living on Earth?
Think about it. No one to impress. No high fives. No likes on Instagram. Sad yes, but something to consider. My guess is that El Toro wouldn’t see any more action, that those 700 try ledge tricks to flip out would be shelved for good, and that super scary handrail moves with exceptionally high danger levels would permanently fall by the wayside. But why? If we’re so pure in our motivation, why would our motivation change if we were on our own? My answer: While it’s true that all of those things can definitely turn out to be a lot of fun, I don’t think they’re necessarily fun for the reasons we think they are. I’d wager that part of the joy of the celebration after the triple kink 50-50 is the celebration itself, the bro hugs, the anticipation of how the trick is going to look in the video, the thrill of accomplishing something that no one else has accomplished. No one is celebrating how much fun they just had.
Last year in an interview with Andrew Reynolds for TSM, he said something that perfectly illustrated the point. I’d asked him who he liked skating with the most. He named Bryan Herman as one of his favorites because they both have fun trying to outskate each other. He want on to add, “Lizard said this thing to me one time which no one wants to admit but it’s pretty true, he was like, ‘The only reason I go skate is so I can show off for my friends.’ I thought that was so awesome.”
I think it’s awesome too. Passion might be less about having fun and more about showing off.
-Paul Zitzer
