By frontside
I remember the first time I went to Youth Park Penang skate park, I think it was late 90s or early 2000. I don’t remember, I am an old man now. Until today, I still think it was a shit park. Everything was so huge, the trannys were just not in the right place, the jump box was so huge and you can’t go to the other side of the bank no matter how fast you ride.
After a few years moving to KL, I remember going back there and see Koya Miyasaka ripped that park with Azreen Azman. I spoke to Koya and he said something like, its not the skate park, its the skater. Something like you have to learn how to skate there but he admits at first, when he was little, he thinks it is a bad park but he get used to it and skates very well there.
Why am I writing about this? When I saw Grindland at Thrasher, Red, the Burnside bridge ‘park’ builder said almost the same thing, I quote him “You can skate anything. You just gotta get used to it”.
“It took a few years to understand like, if you have money, you can do it the right way but, you know, if you’re on a budget you’re gonna do it the wrong way, but even the wrong way turns out more organic and raw and rad, you know?” – Red said in Thrasher Magazine’s Grindland documentary.
Raw and rad! How you manipulate the normal environment, that what makes us a skateboarder. I always forgot about it when people started to complain to me about the condition or the way some skatepark was designed or built. Yeah, a skatepark is a place where you don’t complicate a skater like the street environment, but if you think about what Red or Koya said, you’re missing the point of being a skateboarder.
So now, we have multiple skateparks, training facilities built in the last two years, reminds me of how we used to have the same spirit during the X-Games hype in the early 2000. Almost all Kompleks Belia have skateparks, but no maintenance. Kiara was the best, but everytime they closed for maintenance, we saw the same shit at the park, we always wonder what they changed or repair.
The demand for skatepark died maybe a decade after the X Games hype until the pandemic came, everyone, including a 60-70 year old grandpa, started skating and picking up surf skate because it was better than picking up road cycling as a safe individual sport to play during the lockdown. Everyone found a good excuse to go out and have fun, the healthy way. (clap your hands). By the way, Covid-19 was bad and f#$ked up, but there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel, just look at how skateboarding boom your business skate shop owners.
But with the big budget to built a park, we all (including me) expect it to be like how we think we want it to be; smooth flooring, nice coping, SLS design, whatever lah. We sometimes forget, we don’t share the same idea or the same favourite colour with the person next to us.
Some will say it’s a good park, some say it’s shitty. To me it is very subjective, unless the park is something like the Cameron Highlands park lah, that park was designed by monkeys. (I think there was an explanation from the authorities about the park, but can’t remember what they said, you have to ask Boy Ipoh)
The fact is, we are still learning how to play with concrete, but we learned that we have to stop using steel and wood to built our park. It’s not sustainable. If we let experienced contractors that don’t skate hands on everything, we know they will get their imagination wrong. We must monitor the outcome, as a consultant we can’t just check every other day to see if the contractors are doing the right thing. We must be there when they are building it.
In conclusion, I think we should just celebrate all the efforts being done in the country to build skatepark and skateboarding community, and skate whatever we can. Don’t like the park, skate the streets and there are other parks, parking lots, diy spots where we can channel our creativity and strength. We are skateboarders, we are supposed to be creative and not conform to the norm.
If you haven’t watch Grindland, you should. – Ian