WORDS BY YASMEEN “YAZ” WILKERSON
PHOTOGRAPHY BY GIOVANNI REDA
I’ve come to learn your reality is heavily influenced by the way you perceive, analyze and react to situations. In a fast pace, hyper-productive, ever-changing environment like New York City (Brooklyn to be exact), skateboarding has been a constant throughout the years unlike many other activities that occupy my time.
As a well-rounded creative, I have many interests that take my attention: Painting, yoga, horticulture, surfing, rock climbing, the list goes on. All of these hobbies seem so different in comparison but they all have one thing in common: they help me to find inner peace. Keep in mind, everyone has a different idea of what finding inner peace looks like, that’s subjective. But for me, these individual parts of my life have helped me to tackle life’s hurdles and understand valuable lessons. My interests are more than just a simple past-time. They represent profound experiences, interpersonal practice and a healthy lifestyle. Although unique in their own way, none of them hold as great of an impact than my journey with skateboarding.
As the youngest of 3 siblings, I grew up to be shy, mouse-like and curious. I saw the pressures my mother faced as a single parent and often internalized them as my own. As a result, I harbored feelings of powerlessness and inadequacy. As I navigated through the concrete jungle, trying to find my place in this world, I discovered various systems of oppression embedded within society. More importantly, I noticed how they affected my family. The good thing is, no matter how daunting these hurdles seemed, by my adolescent years, I developed the skills and knowledge to deter that feeling of powerlessness. Unbeknownst to me, one of those ‘talents’ would be the art of skateboarding. A lifestyle that became the catalyst for my evolution from a reserved, obedient, wall-flower into a confident risk-taker.
At first glance, skateboarding appears to be a test of physical prowess. It’s a common misconception to think that your strength and agility have to “align” with the difficulty of the obstacle you’re attempting to overcome. In reality, a large part of skating requires a state of mind that promotes peak mental performance and focus. Learning how to understand and manage your brain can help you discover different sides of yourself to better solve problems around you. As a chronic overthinker, I need concentration to think effectively. So when I’m on my board, focusing on my skating, my overthinking doesn’t plague me. I am present and focused on my environment. It isn’t my skateboard that gives me strength, it’s how I feel when I’m on my board. Skateboarding puts me in a positive state of mind that’s aware, proactive and disciplined. A place in which I am ready to solve the next problem or clear the next obstacle.
INJURIES
Unfortunately, skateboarding is an injury prone lifestyle. Although I’ve learned so many lessons and developed positive changes in my life due to the sport, some of my most traumatic memories also stem from it. I’ve had 3 serious hospitalizations due to skateboarding accidents. From almost breaking my eye socket twice, being knocked into unconsciousness, to biting through the skin of my lips and almost losing a couple teeth. So you can say I’ve experienced an equal amount of gain and loss. As skaters, we hold a certain respect for one another because of the experience we all go through. The risks we take either bring reward or consequence.
After my last hospital visit, I was completely traumatized. I was both physically and mentally scarred, feeling as if the power I had been feeling all this time wasn’t real. I had to look at myself in the mirror and accept what happened to me was a result of a failure while doing what I love. These nearly fatal mistakes left me feeling confused, drained, fearful and dejected. I even started to develop a hatred for my body because I felt like I wasn’t coordinated or strong enough. All of the self love, positive habits and inner strength I built because of skateboarding seemed to be torn down as a result of it.
In a unique change of direction, I was able to recenter myself and my mind when I took upon yoga. Similar to skateboarding, it’s physically engaging and helps me to find inner peace, but to the contrary, it’s achieved when moving slowly. Yoga has helped me to utilize my body in a way that doesn’t involve harsh or self-inflicting activity, it’s been opposite to what I’ve been accustomed to so it’s required me to tap into different attributes within me. What started off as a simple YouTube 30-day yoga challenge to help rehabilitate my body, transformed into a sacred practice that has helped me to heal inside and out. There’s nothing wrong with honing in on a specific interest in your life but it sure does help to have other things helping you to find inner peace.
CONCEPTUALIZING VICTORY
When I look in the mirror, the scars I’ve received from skateboarding are a reminder of my resilience and inner strength. My existence is proof that you can learn and even become empowered by past failures. I don’t regret going through any of the struggles I’ve experienced because it helped make me who I am. My journey with skateboarding and the challenges I’ve faced taught me how important it is to visualize success. In other words, a mentality where you believe in yourself and your ability to succeed, is better compared to thinking negatively about one’s self.
Conceptualizing victory is more than just thinking of a fantasy or being overly optimistic. It increases self-confidence in ways that can help you accurately and precisely meet your goals. A large part of the outrageous things we see in skateboarding today are the direct result of someone visualizing their goal, the steps to achieve them and putting visualization into action. As skaters, we understand that we may not be able to change the surrounding environment around us but we can control ourselves. Accessing situations and processing information, even learning how to turn our weaknesses into our strengths in order to land the trick or skate an obstacle.
Within the last few years, my progression within skateboarding has been an interesting one. I progressed at a consistent rate and learned the basics like most of my peers. I learned how to ollie up and even over gaps and pads. My 180’s are solid, pop shuvs are consistent, I even have a few street and transition tricks under my belt—but I’ve never been able to land a flip trick.
Out of my 6 years of skateboarding, I have not once successfully landed a kickflip (or heel flip) and it isn’t because I haven’t tried—of course I’ve tried. I would take time out of the sesh from doing lines and tricks I’m comfortable with and try to figure out how to flip my board. At the time, I felt like landing a kickflip was the pinnacle of skateboarding: that one thing that can give instant gratification to anyone who can successfully do it. I started skating a few years before skating became mainstream in movies, street fashion and The Olympics. So when I picked it up, I was led to believe that having that ‘one thing’ would set me apart from the posers, kooks, and wannabes. Having a flip trick under my belt can give me the validation I was seeking at the time, especially in a community of people who were constantly trying to check me. Luckily, I also learned a valuable lesson about not needing to seek anyone’s validation but my own; the satisfaction of success tastes just as good. When I started to embody that thought after trying so long to land a flip trick, I ended up progressing while learning unorthodox tricks and sharpening my existing plethora of movements. I yet again, felt empowered by taking the route less tread and gained a style of my own.
It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I took upon the challenge of learning a flip trick once again. Covid and its effects on society, caused me to skate solo a lot more compared to life pre-Covid. There’s been less distractions or inconveniences (getting snaked—ahem) while skating alone than not. Using the lessons I’ve learned about visualization, I started to toil away at my plank of wood and experiment. Flicking and flicking and flicking. Until recently after experiencing a bad day, I decided to go to my local park and focus my energy into my skateboarding. As I skated I finally discovered what I had been missing, I could never land a flip trick because deep down I never believed that I could. That’s the “secret sauce” to reaching your goals.
Like any other trick, any obstacle I’ve ever faced, I fulfilled my goals by trusting in myself and my ability. I became so consumed by the idea of how amazing it felt to ignore fliptricks that I completely cut it out as something I can achieve. Maybe it’s the growth I’ve made as a person, but I was able to land my first fliptrick, a heelflip on that same cloudy, fateful day! That day opened up a future in my mind that now includes heelflips to the roster and more. What I felt was an impossible goal to obtain, was made possible by changing my mentality and focusing on visualizing my goal. I came home that same day with a message describing a project proposal from Skateism. When the skate media mogul relayed the information about their mental health April issue (2021), I saw this as an opportunity to share my experiences with mental health hurdles I’ve overcome through skating. I knew I had to take part. It was at that moment that I confirmed my interest in this project, and knew exactly what I’d be writing about…
IG: @yaz.so.mean
