Written by Toby brocelbank and Aya Birt

There’s an inherent masochistic association with skate parks and street skating. A general understanding that one day you’ll push a little too far and end up kissing the pavement or twisting a limb the wrong way. For some people that’s the point. Injuries are proof of progress or victory. If you have a skinned knee it means you’ve fallen down enough times to learn a new skill. It turns achievement into a concrete ache. Bruises and scraped knees are a goal to work towards.

I know how to differentiate between victory and injury but sometimes the division doesn’t matter as much as it should. I like the bruises on my thighs the same way people like tattoos. Sure, getting them hurts like a bitch but they mean something. I know where the bruises will appear before I even create them. I know by the ache whether or not there’ll be skin visible or if it’ll just be a blackout rainbow of yellows, purples, blues and reds. It feels both familiar and fulfilling in a way I don’t think I can properly verbalise.

Getting a trick is a mental battle, until it becomes a war with your body. It takes at least one good slam to land a trick. You get up fast, turn the music louder, yell at your homies, and drop back in with that adrenaline firing in your eyes. Eventually the aches become a dance with the trick, outmaneuvering each other with the wind as your tune.

I skate best when I don’t care. After throwing yourself at a slab of concrete, rail, or ramp, eventually there’s nothing left. The grazes erode your flesh and the sweat drains your soul. At that point, with nothing left telling you to land the trick yet also nothing left holding you back, no voice pointing out the risk, no noise but a pulse oscillating between your ears, that’s when you land the trick and roll away. Roll away defeated, roll away sore and aching, but roll away. This place, where the pain, trick, and entire world dissolve, is what makes us skaters. To truly enter the ramp, or streets, you have to leave here entirely.

All sports have some element of pain, but action sports are the pain. We dream of when the wheels become an extension of your body, when the dew around you melts into skin, and when the rail becomes a limb you can manipulate, falling is just part of becoming our surroundings. Don’t get me started on pebbles.