#12: the year of surfskate

15.07.25 - Vienna

Just over a year ago, an exciting package arrived at my door. I’d been vibrating with anticipation for almost two weeks. Bodies aren’t built to quake for that long, but I didn’t have much say in the matter.

You see, my first surfskate ever had just arrived.

I felt the sidewalk surging, beneath my feet, clamoring to be surfed, but I was also under a time-crunch. I had been offered a job, teaching people to surfskate for a beautiful new business - Moon Movements Vienna.

Lena and Ina, Moon’s founders and then co-owners had a vision: a business bringing together mutually beneficial disciplines and movements for the benefit of surfers and yogis landlocked in Austria’s capital.

The opportunity was too good to pass up. And there were only a couple of minor obstacles to overcome when I was offered this gig.

#1: I didn’t know how to surfskate

#2: I didn’t own a surfskate

#3: I didn’t know how to teach

so naturally, I weighed those challenges up and concluded:

“this can really only go well”

I tore the package open like a hungry bear who’d just bumbled into a beehive, and in the back (very, very far back) of my mind, contemplated the series of fortunate coincidences which had brought me to this position.

When I was offered the gig, I was out for a skate on my cruiser skateboard. I was accompanied by a friend who rode a surfskate - a mysterious and punishing device which bucked and tossed me every time I tried to get on board.

My cruiser, a standard setup skateboard with wide trucks and big wheels, had a very aesthetic decal on its deck. It featured wavy lines and a geometric print which - from a distance - seemed like a fairly surfy aesthetic.

I can’t lie, I was nice with the cruiser. I’d been riding similar boards for a few years, and despite my riding skateboards, my style was inherently surfy.

I’m not sure why that was the case. I wasn’t really captivated by big air or flip tricks - I just liked gliding across tarmac, moving fast, and seeking out smooth. And though I didn’t know it, pretty much all of that lends itself well to surfskates.

It will also have helped that without the skill the back it up, I looked the part. I’d been growing my hair out, and I’m sure I wasn’t more than a couple hours from the my last dabble in doobies, or indeed the next.

When I was approached and asked to teach, I was surprised, and flattered. I also thought that I was being asked to volunteer, certainly not that I could be paid to go to skateparks.

And even with the thought of giving away my labour, I was immediately interested.

I didn’t want to get in my own way.

I was at a point in life which felt stagnant. Just a couple of years out of university, working a job which had nothing to do with my degree, and even less to do with my interests. I was lost.

Learning more about myself taught me just how my tendency to doubt my own potential was inducing so much paralysis. So if an opportunity came my way, I had to say yes.

So with this in mind - and don’t get me wrong, a good few years of skateboarding experience which I was fairly confident could transfer over to surfksating, a separate but very much connected discipline - I rushed home and ordered myself a YOW Surfskate.

YOW stands for Your Own Wave. Surfskates are are designed for riders to be able to simulate surfing more accurately on land. You make your own wave.

Surfskates let you generate speed with both feet planted firmly on your deck. Pumping on a surfskate teaches you to harness continuous rotational momentum from your shoulders and torso through your hips and into the trucks fastened to the base of your deck, to drive you forwards.

Get good at it, and you can flummox onlookers, by pumping up hills. It’s a good time.

This motion is about as close as you can get on land to the motion of pumping to gather speed on a wave. It feels great, it looks awesome (in my deeply biased opinion, with which many, many surfers would certainly disagree) and most importantly, it’s very, very fun.

I knew from awesome resources like Mark the Landlocked Surfer and Shane Lai on YouTube that YOW made good quality surfskates, and that they would be a great starting point.

More importantly though, I knew that one of the boards I had my eye on had a truly, deeply, wondrously dope decal of a panther on the underside of its deck.

Medina Panthera. Hot.

Seemed fierce. I wanted that energy in my life. I also desperately wanted to look, feel like and frankly, be, one of the grlswirl girls. I still do. Every time I step outside for a skate, that thought crosses my mind. That flow. Those outfits. dang. dm me.

Roary - my YOW Medina Panthera named for the last roar you’d ever hear - arrived within two weeks, and as soon as they did, the work began.

I hit my local skatepark and started learning how to pump, how to build speed, how to slide,how to fall (inevitably) whilst maintaining at least a modicum of dignity.

Quicker than my pride would like for me to admit, I was at least as good at surfskating as I had been at skateboarding.

Next time I tried to take my skate cruiser out for a ride, I very quickly ate pavement.

I forgot how to not pump on a skateboard. I forgot how to balance. It was strange, and a little difficult to accept, that a couple of weeks of focusing on a skill set so similar could basically override multiple years of skateboarding, just like that.

But whilst getting worse at one skill, I was getting better, rapidly, at another.

The truth was that I valued it more. Surfskating felt more authentic to me, like it aligned better with the ways my body wanted to move. And it didn’t hurt that I had some added pressure, I’d be teaching a class within just a few days.

Prior to that first class, I was nervous. I’d worked tirelessly on getting better myself with the aim of ensuring that none of my students ripped harder than I did.

But beyond looking competent, I needed to figure out how to sound competent too. Translating movement into words and exercises, which can then be interpreted and practiced, to be converted back into movement.

It felt like a lot to wrap my head around.

So I got real cute with it. I took my iPad to the pumptracks where I’d be teaching, and started etching out a lesson plan. It was, in retrospect, much more complicated than it needed to be.

Despite my fake it till you make it mantra, it was a surprise to me when everything went… really well. It wasn’t just smooth, it was fun. Very, very fun.

So much so that as my summer continued, and my life became increasingly tumultuous - my fault, I was making some bad decisions, or taking ill conceived routes towards better decisions - my surfskate classes, and the time I was dedicating to my own improvement, they were keeping me stable.

It’s been over a year now.

Over a year that I’ve been getting on that board and pushing myself to learn more, do more, bebetter, and get better at helping others improve too.

I get to feel their energy, feed their energy, and share in their joy when they succeed, when they start putting pieces together. I get to share in all of that, and I love what I do.

It’s a great position to find myself in, and it couldn’t have happened if I hadn’t said yes to something for which I was absolutely not prepared.

So, last week, exactly a year and a day after I tore open the package containing my good friend Roary, a plank of wood I would use and abuse - “skate it like you hate it” - on every dry day, I said “yes” to something new once again.

I signed up for Austria’s first ever surfskate contest, which will take place on Saturday.

It is being organised by Surfskate Vienna, an awesome collective run by Emma and Mattea, and the wider community of Vienna’s shredders.

Imma be honest with you dawg. Quite frankly, I like my chances.

I know many of Vienna’s surfskaters. I respect them all and am so happy to consider many of them dear friends. I hope (and know) that this event will be grounded in fun, mutual support, and love for the sport. I have absolutely no reason to be confrontational, mean-spirited, or overly competitive.

Yet with all that said:

I will do everything in my power to tear them apart on Saturday.

Yes, I’m a maniac. Move past it. And while you’re at it, get the hecc out of my way.

Jokes (such as yourself) aside, its going to be a really fun time. I’m stoked for the opportunity to participate in this event alongside some fellow shredders, and see what they have up their sleeves.

this can really only go well 🤙🏽

blog the twelfth signing off