Skaters, Pam Diaz and Vanessa Torres, hitch a ride "three-up" back to the top of the hill, somewhere on the North Shore of the Dominican Republic. Photo: Miranda Guzmán.
When I think about the global skate community it blows my mind. There are skaters riding skateboards in just about every nook and cranny of this planet you can imagine. The growth of longboard culture within the skate community has paved the way for a broader, more diverse future for skateboarders the world over. It’s crazy to imagine, but there are skaters right now, as I write this, mobbing hills and shredding the streets in Bolivia, Africa, New Zealand, Sweden, The Philippines, Mexico, Slovenia, Canada, Russia, the US and even China. And that’s just naming a few. It trips me out to think how big the skateboarding family has become and how many cultures and people it has connected.
All of this has got me to thinking a lot about “Gratitude” —thinking about how grateful I am for our thriving skateboard community—how stoked I am to still be agile and healthy enough to ride and tell the tale—and how awesome it is that skateboarding always finds a way to reinvent Radical. We are no doubt living in some troubling times, but whenever I pick up my skateboard and ride, I am reminded that the flaws and imperfections of our daily lives are only part of the bigger picture.
Skateboarding and the community surrounding it have provided me, and many others, with so many unforgettable experiences and opportunities, and for that I have Gratitude.
This article is extremely true. As a employee at a skate company, it blows my mind to see where orders are being placed from. It seems that on a daily basis, we send to a new area internationally and it gets me absolutely STOKED!
Yeah Grant! It is definitely a wild ride for sure. Thanks for the support. We received your email as well, and will hit you back asap. Thanks again homie!
OH YEAH! Spread the STOKE!
Yeah Pam! We can always count on you to show the Shredlove.