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Jobien Groen finds out why so many queer chicks love to skateboard.
“You can relate it to a heroin addiction. It’s something I have pumping through my veins,” says Amanda Ghorra, 23, explaining why she just has to skateboard.
Forced to stop surfing when her parents moved from Bronte to Glebe, she discovered the concrete waves as the perfect alternative and has been skating for 14 years.
Manager of Monster Skate Park in Sydney, a full-time uni student in physical education and sponsored as an amateur skater, Amanda eats, breathes and lives skateboarding.
“I don’t know how I do it sometimes: uni, working full time, skating, the sponsorship, but it’s just something I have to do. Even my friends sometimes say ‘Amanda you’re really depressed, what’s wrong with you? Go have a skate.’ It just makes me really happy.”
Cara Levingston, 29, started skating when she was 13. “I started skating with Dustin Dollin who is an international skater now. He’s really kamikaze. At one point he was doing these crazy stunts, while I couldn’t even do an ollie [a skateboarding trick where the skater pops the board into the air].
He said, ‘If you can’t ollie, you can’t be a skater.’ It was a sudden awareness as a 13-year-old and I was so absolutely destroyed by that realisation that I put my skateboard away.
Little did I know that he had a fibreglass board and that he was destined to become an international skater.” When Cara picked it up a couple of years later, it coincided with her coming out. “It was great; having such freedom and being able to go out there and live against the status quo.”
Nic Reilly, 28, had a break in her early skateboarding career as well, but for a different reason. “When I was 16 dad told me he would take my skateboard or get me into June Dally Watkins, a college where I would learn how to be a lady. I stopped skating.” But she picked it up two years later because she “just loved it”.
Katalea Sweet, 26, had a similar experience. “When I was six my dad bought me a skateboard,” she says. “Mum was furious. She’s a traditional Thai lady and thought that girls shouldn’t be skateboarding. I picked it up again when I was eight.”
Resilience seems to be the key word as these skater chicks reel against the status quo, hanging out with the boys, and not being afraid to fall over. “That’s maybe why many gay girls end up doing it,” Amanda says. “Maybe they like to try things that are not so mainstream.”
Asked where they prefer to skate, Amanda says she’ll skate anywhere. “My skateboard lives in my car, so anywhere I go I’ll find out where the parks are and I can skate.” Nic likes both the road and the ramps. “The road’s a great workout. It’s so much effort to get over the bumps and potholes.
The smooth ramps are great too though. You can just cruise around for hours and interact with other skaters.” However, sometimes the interaction with other skaters can make it difficult. “I get a bit intimidated on a busy ramp when everyone’s watching me and I don’t know what I’m doing because I’m new,” says Nic. Cara meanwhile says she’s mainly a street skater. “I never got really experimental with tricks. I like speed.”
There’s no doubt that skateboarding is predominantly a young person’s game, with most of the women agreeing they do less tricks compared to when they were younger. “I used to do crazy things,” says Katalea. “Lots of free style, skating off brooms, or skating without shoes on a steel board.
I had no fear for things. I still try to do tricks now, but I just crash myself. I get the biggest bruises ever. I stopped doing tricks because I injured myself all the time. I still skate; I just don’t try to do all those crazy things anymore.”
Cara agrees. “When you are younger you have this great sense of survival. Trying out new tricks, dropping in on a ramp – you don’t comprehend that cracking your skull is highly probable. You just do it again and again. I see young kids doing tricks, and it’s absolutely beautiful, because it’s fearless. As an older person, it’s not fearless, it’s crazy.”
Nic, however, thinks that flirting with fearlessness is one of the attractions of skateboarding. “When you go skating it brings back those feelings of fearlessness and childlike play,” she says. “As adults we don’t get many options to muck up. We always have to be professional. We have to do this and can’t do that. When you’re skating it brings back that childhood silliness.”
Unfortunately many skaters hang up their boards for their corporate lives according to Nic. “It’s hard to find other girls of my age to skate with. I would love to have a group to hang out with – girls that really want to skate and have fun, try new stuff together. I do see a lot of girls with boards, but they don’t seem to skate. They just carry their board around as an accessory, looking cool, taking them to clubs and putting on the whole skater look. But if you flip over their decks, there are no scratches.”
When Katalea turns over her skateboard it shows a colourful variety of scrapes, buds, stickers and airplane boarding passes. “I’ve had this deck for five years and will skate on it until it dies,” she says. Cara’s deck is the opposite. “Mine doesn’t tell a real story. I try to keep it minimal. My deck is only a few months old and I just want to go as fast as possible.”
When asked what the skateboarding community is like these days Amanda says it’s a lot friendlier then it used to be. “The community has had some growing pains over the years. It used to consist of kids who were rebellious and misfits that didn’t fit it in with the normal crowd.
At the moment it’s much happier and friendlier. Also, there’s not only one kind of culture anymore. You have arty, emo, surfie, old skool and ’80s retro skaters. When they come together they just try to skate. And if you learn a really good trick, they are just as stoked as you are. Everyone is out there to have fun.”
So, are you tempted yet to jump on a board and perfect your ollie to impress the girls? If so, here’s a few tips on how to start. Amanda recommends after picking a board that’s suitable for your height and weight, to start with a lesson to learn basic foot positioning, moves and etiquettes. “It’s definitely good to take with you if you want to skate on the streets or in a local park afterwards,” she says.
Just cruising around and using your skateboard for transportation is also a great way to get comfortable skating, according to Nic. “And when you feel comfortable with the board you can start to try more suitable ramps, bowls and tricks,” she advises.
The next step, of course, would be meeting other skater chicks. Amanda says she would love to organise a girls’ night at the Monster Skate Park. “You get really amped when other girls are skating too. It’s so inspiring.”
Kat laughs, saying that hanging out with Cara is also a great way to meet other skaters. “She just walks up to people with a board and says ‘Hey, do you skate? I’m Cara. Give me your number. Let’s go for a skate.’”
So head to your local skate park and bug the organisers to put on a girls’ night. Or, take your board with you to your favourite bar or hangout and make sure it’s in clear view. You might just have your own skateboarding posse before you know it.
Visit www.monsterpark.com.au and also www.skateboard.com.au for more info on skateboard parks in Australia.
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