It’s an autumn day in 1984; I know this as I’m wearing extra layers of clothing under my pads. The sky is a dull Lothian grey, as grey as the concrete I’m standing on but it’s dry – for now. I push the tail of my board - a Dogtown hand-me-down, my first ‘proper’ skateboard – onto the lip of the bowl and place my front foot near the nose. A few moments of wavering back and forth, building up the bravery to go for it as I half-listen to the shouts of encouragement from the other, much older, skaters… and then I commit – I’m dropping in for the first time, a feeling akin to stepping off the edge of a building. Before I realise anything else I’m flat on my front, with the breath knocked out of me and a sensation across my ribcage like being hit by a tractor. Concrete 1, Andrew nil – my first proper ‘slam’.
Like the T-shirt says, skateboarding saved my life. More than that, it shaped my life and still does – from my views on art and architecture, music and movement, trespass and community, it’s been pretty much a constant motif through my life; stronger at some times than others. As I draw near to my sixth decade of life, the beloved useless wooden toy still beckons me to glide and spin my way across concrete and wood; although 40 years on from that first slam at Livingston, the injuries take longer to heal, and some of those little aches have become persistent pains. The surface scabs and bruises disappear but the impact under the skin leaves its mark; and SNAP CRACKLE & POP become less associated with breakfast cereal and more to do with getting up from a chair.
Where does massage come into the picture? Not, perhaps, in the way you’d expect. First and foremost, I can thank skateboarding for planting the spark for movement in me from a tender age and sustaining it all the way through to the present day. The biggest impact has been in addressing posture – it took my massage training for me to realise that I stand and walk ‘naturally’ with my feet at an angle perfectly acceptable on a skateboard, but less conducive to maintaining a healthy gait as my body grows older. Muscle memory is a powerful force and it’s a daily task to be mindful of how I’m carrying myself; and walking in the ‘proper’ way can feel unnatural, but little by little we get there.
Skateboard culture can be resistant to adequate self-care at times: as often as not the treatment for an injury is to ‘walk it off’ and reach for some kind of painkiller; and don’t we just love the slam sections in videos? But those of us old enough to remember Barry Zaritsky’s advice in Transworld Skateboarding around stretching, hydration and treating injuries in a timely manner will (perhaps begrudgingly) realise that, as the late lamented Jeff Grosso said, ‘the hippies were right’ when it comes to yoga. As is so often the case, the proof is in the pudding; who doesn’t want to be skating like Salba (contains strong language) in your sixties?
“Skate and create” and “skate and destroy” have been long-standing maxims – there’s even a song extolling both. There can’t be one without the other – but what is to be created and what is to be destroyed? That’s up to you.