If you’re like me and missed out on being part of the cool crowd, you can join a longboarding group and give it a whirl. I was invited by Melissa Lee to try this very hip form of skateboarding (with a much longer — and often faster — board).
I show up at Christie Pits Park where Lee and her friends meet every week. They are young and hip, and I feel old and not so hip.
Lee seems shocked that I’ve never been on a skateboard, and I’m a little hesitant to try this as I just met a woman a few days prior who had broken her wrist longboarding.
At first, the board feels very wobbly, and it’s tough to get my balance, but once I find my centre, it’s actually not terribly hard.
Safety first: skateboarders are infamous for never wearing any kind of safety gear. Anything from helmets to wrist guards is considered uncool. Because accidents do happen, no matter how much street experience they have, longboarders distance themselves from the negative connotations of skaters who forgo safety gear.
“We like to go fast down roads, and in the interest of everyone involved, safety must be our first priority. This means helmets, knee pads, elbow pads, reinforced gloves, etc.,” says Lee.
Grabbing all the right equipment will cost about $200.
She starts by teaching me the basics: how to push your board forward and gain speed. We are on a flat surface (thank goodness), so we are not going crazy fast. I can’t imagine doing this down a busy roadway.
Shortly after Lee started longboarding, she saw the need for more nurturing spaces for women in extreme sports.
“Longboarding can be a real boys’ club,” she says.
Now, the Toronto Girls Longboarding group has introduced Lee to some of her best friends. New members can reach them through their Facebook page, Toronto Girls Longboarding, and come out to a skate session at Christie Pits, Jane Paths or their beach cruise in the Beaches.
Cindy Zhou is the woman responsible for starting the Toronto Girls Longboarding club. Their most important event of the year is For Us By Us (or FUBU), which will be going down on Aug. 27 this year. The first annual FUBU kicked off in 2010, and last year’s event had over 50 attendees.
“This is an all-girls longboarding event, and the experience is unparalleled in Toronto. The atmosphere is incredibly inclusive and warm, and even the boys will admit that FUBU is one of the most fun events of the year,” says Lee.
I personally didn’t learn any tricks today, but Lee and her friends were gracious enough to share some of theirs with me, like the tail drag and the slide. You don’t want to try these on your first day out.
Is this a workout? Like any sport, it depends on your level of participation. I personally wasn’t able to go fast enough today to really feel any type of cardio workout. However, you do feel it in your legs because you’re pushing with one leg, bent at all times, and it does feel like you’re doing a series of static squats.
The overall experience was really fun. As a person who is accident-prone and has a young child, I don’t see myself getting a longboard. My son, however, is very enamoured with them. So who knows? You may just find us one day doing some 360 tail drags in the park.
