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Writer's pictureoutinthe956

From An Activity A Sport To The Possibility Of An Art Form?



Growing up as a child I had a Playstation 2 and one of my games was Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3. I played it so much along with my cousins that I always thought skateboarding was so cool. Pulling off cool tricks and how cool it was something that pulled me into the game and the skateboarding scene. Eventually, I got my own skateboard in highschool and tried learning, but it didn't quite go so well. I told myself to try to pick it up again and I might just do that. I always watch skateboard youtube videos whenever I have free time and while watching countless videos I thought to myself. While this is a sport and possibly even a sport to others can it be an art form? Yes, it can be due to the enjoyment it can bring others and the different styles of skaters and the passion each individual brings. There is so much to skateboarding, but also 2 perspectives from a spectator to the one committing the act.


When it comes down to skateboarding due to two different perspectives in the activity. I have tried skateboard and understand the frustration along with the repetition that comes with it. From there I became a spectator of the sport. The difference from activity and sport from my switches of skating to watching. As I began watching it more I started to see maybe that there is an art form to be had here. With art, there is meaning, a story to be had, and an impact for those witnessing what is in front of them. Of course, we have skaters who have a story to tell when they skateboard and we have famous skaters as well, but what about the tricks they pull off? I'm not talking about a simple kickflip, but the countless tries to achieve what they've had planned then again it sounds like a chore again when put in the perspective of the skater and nelson has his view on this being "Maybe skate videos, yeah, maybe skate art, sure, but the actual act of skating? You just go out there and have fun. You don’t skate a curb or a ramp with the idea that you’re gonna create some grand statement. Even with the intention of landing a trick, there isn’t an argument there." In the end, we can watch countless hours of skateboarding videos, but perhaps if someone has not skated before then their viewpoint would be one of an art form? In the end, Nelson says "Yet we can all still have fun beside each other" I may not skate, but as you mention on your favorite food I'll always be down for rice and bean tacos with tortillas de harina, this is Nelson G. Vargas



Nelson, The Skater

Nelson G. Vargas, @nlsnvrgs

When it comes to chowing down nothing beats a classic as he says "rice and bean taco with tortillas de harina." I love rice inside tacos especially if its sausage and rice together or papa asada inside a taquito de bistec.

We have our favorite music and Nelson shares his "The Germs, Juan Gabriel, Chalino Sanchez, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Rudimentary Peni, Kino." Although we may have our favorite artists we'll always have new music coming up as he says "At the moment though I’ve been listening to a lot of the Chameleons UK, Psychic TV, and the Cure (I just discovered the Cure has actual good songs, who would’a guessed)." I know 2 songs from the cure and I enjoy them, but maybe I'll dig deeper into their music.

Well, what about the local scene? We got food, music, art. We got something we all enjoy from the valley and Nelson says "Ataque de Rabia, Porkeria, Krux, Deep Woods(do they still play?), Jungle Bodies, probably more that I can’t remember. Current bands: Reinforce, Program, and Worst Behavior." and continues to add with local artists "I can’t remember most artist’s name, that’s kind of wack of me, right? I know Enok Kado still draws and his art’s so sick. My buddy Josh is rad too, Travis Trapp, Manuel Zamudio. There’s more but my mind’s blank right now." As long as you support the homies its all good. That's more artists and bands for me to check out for sure as Nelson mentions local businesses "Bobcat & Birdie makes sick stuff. Los Pinos Hardware store’s the shit too. Tokyo Asian Market and Green Beret are rad." I do enjoy the Tokyo Asian Market, but I do see the Green Beret when I'm on the road, but I've always wondered how it looks like inside.




We all have a beginning into our passion and what leads us to take the first step into it as Nelson shares the same reason for my interest "Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater was the coolest thing growing up. I was a little freaked out and turned off though when my family told me that getting hurt was a part of skating, but I think they were intentionally trying to discourage me." My parents told me the same thing when it came to skateboarding, but I still tried. It made me 50/50 about picking up my first deck, but I had fun overall, but luckily he continues as he states "Later when I got back into it, I was excited by the different aspects that came with skating. Building stuff, roaming the streets, hanging with your friends, being really dirty and obnoxious. It’s the best." There a lot of creativity and freedom when it comes to skating as you say "roaming the streets" and "building stuff" especially when its friends. I've been with friends who skate and it's always fun even if it's just watching or trying to just relearn.



I remember when I got my first real skateboard and it was from a local shop. I think it's closed now, but I don't recall the name. It was a Plan B skateboard and I was so excited to take it home and just do my best, but I want to try again. Our first leave a trail for something greater as Nelson says "but I remember it was a Walmart Spongebob Squarepants board. I had it for a week before my brothers smashed it trying to ride off our roof." Trying to ride off the roof? Sounds like a Skate challenge to me, but that being your only board that must've sucked as he adds "My first real deck though was when I was 15. I linked up with some dudes from school and they were trying to teach me how to ollie. I couldn’t manage it with the soggy piece of crap I was riding then, so the next time I showed up to hang out they presented me with a Frankenstein deck they built for me out of spare parts. I love those guys for that." The homies helping the homies is always good. I can imagine the guys coming together and just putting it piece by piece just for you. That's really nice of them and it must've helped the learning progress even more. The first step of many into skateboarding.



When I started to learn the basics for skateboarding it was really hard and sometimes just so frustrating, but I wanted to learn so bad and this is the "chore" aspect of it. The moment it can become so repetitive, but it has a price. Doing it over and over until you master it even if its just the movement of the board. It's not easy learning something new as Nelson states "skating is HARD. Trying to skate to get better or be good is not fun at all, so I’d get stressed trying to focus on learning a trick." When you are trying to do something specific it can get tiring, but also says "Eventually I caught on that I should just follow whatever felt fun to me, and that was skating with friends. Skating in a group allowed me to bounce 'ideas' off other people and figure out what looked and felt cool." Being able to do whatever you want is good and having a focus rather than sticking to the usual learning of any flip trick. If you can ollie I'm sure you can have the possibility of many new things to try for sure and more experimentation as well.





When I think of skateboarding what comes to mind is trying to find cool spots to just have fun in and try out anything you've had in mind. If you see a specific location you think of it and what you want to do with it when you come back during your free time. I feel that you certainly can plan out a skate session, but it grows from there as Nelson says "We’ll usually post up in some area and start with something we’ve had our eye on, but it always leads to us just finding something new and letting our minds wander from there." That being said why bother in the end and have it feel like you have to do something you enjoy a certain way when you can have the freedom to do what you want and see where it takes you as he mentions "it’s not my job to be good at skateboarding. I do this for fun, to get away from work, personal life worries, anxiety, whatever." this activity can be seen in many ways, but in the end, what matters the most is if you're having fun as he says "let's be real, we don't know how many more chances we’ll have to be dumb kids." Just have fun and jump that gap or grind that rail to your heart's content and enjoy your passion the most you can even with the obstacles that may come across as we get older.



From when we began to where we are now we do change due to progress or any experiences we have and Nelson says "I think every kid starting off skating has it in mind that being good requires knowing how to do everything, but that sort of obligation isn’t very fun." The idea of you only being good if you can only do what others do really impacts someone who is learning, but it doesn't have to be that way at all. Our own personal experiences with what we enjoy doing helps us grow and learn as he says "The only thing that hasn’t changed is that I still have way more fun skating in the streets than I do skating in a park. I think people who stay in their parks miss out on a beautiful aspect of what skateboarding." Rather than skating at a skatepark you create your own skatepark but falls into a deeper hole due to the idea of interaction. The idea of stumbling across people who don't skate and are always watching because it's always cool just to watch, but he also says "stepping outside your safe bubble and seeing the world out there for what it has always shocked me and enthralled me. It’s taught me some serious lessons." The important lesson of always getting out of your safe bubble is important because they're trying something new leads to seeing you can so much more and obviously more to witness in this sense.



With skateboarding comes pain with is something you will not escape. I recall falling on my tailbone and almost doing the split wrong due to wrong foot placement, but Nelson shares with us what it can also bring "I broke my left hand when I was 19and tore my ACL in my right knee when I was 22. Breaking my left hand was the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced, and tearing my ACL was the more traumatizing because it kept me from walking right for over a year." The reasons for these injuries were "broke my hand while just standing on top of my board. It was dark and I hit a small crack, fell forward, and misjudged the incline of the driveway I was on. Fingers swung forward a bit more than I expected and immediately felt this surge of pain through my whole body. My fingers were pointing in different directions" and for his second injury "I tore my ACL skating a quarter pipe. I tried to frontside ollie, and I dunno, I think I was tired, or my shoes just had bad grip, but my right knee stayed behind me and tweaked in the wrong direction till I heard a POP sound in my head. Of course when it comes to these injuries and the pain I'm sure surgery comes to mind and life-changing moments for sure. Ripping of the ACL can really cause a lot of daily changes and the most important being skateboarding. It reminds me of Tonya Harding an ice skater for the Olympics when she was no longer allowed to ice skate or rather participate in any way. When it was the thing she was good at and her passion growing up it can really change you when you can't do what you love anymore in relation to what Nelson said "I would suddenly feel like I was imperfect, like the rest of my life was never going to be the same again," but life certainly does go on and in due time things really do change. Its an obstacle we are going to be thrown no matter what we do, but we have to overcome it in any way.



No matter what we do we have our favorite moments and Nelson shares his ”My buddies giving me that Frankenstein deck, my dad watching me skate a curb one time and being impressed by me doing a sloppy" but adds in something interesting in the process of memories "Just that immediate connection between people or to a specific memory, positive or not." Overall anything will stick with you and its what makes you also grow from due to the experiences.



I don't know if the valley or even our local skate parks have competitions, but maybe there is a way skaters compete locally, but Nelson says "there’s a game skaters play called SKATE, it works like HORSE with a basketball. Someone does a flip trick and the other repeats it until they miss a trick, then they get a letter till they miss five tricks and lose." That sounds interesting, but it sounds like it can put a lot of skaters at an unfair disadvantage if they can't do certain tricks and it seems like it'd just bring you down if you know you aren't "good" and end up lowering your self-esteem when you just wanted to have fun. It could go both ways, but no one wants to have a rough time.



Of course, we continue to get better and grow, but what do you want to reach? Do you wish to land your dream job or travel to a specific location? These are not something I personally want to accomplish, but maybe others do and Nelson shares what he wishes to accomplish "skate every day till I die, I think." I can just feel the energy out of this statement by Nelson, with the "I think" being what catches my attention the most due to the idea of aging and that's what he adds as well "maybe get some neat clips here and there so I can have something to look back on when I’m old and decrepit." Which is what we all do isn't it? We get upset if we accidentally erase an image or don't have it backed up to our computers. Although there seems to be more to it than just having, the lesson he wishes to pass onto the younger skaters as he says "So that’s a goal: be a consistent and good person who can talk to someone and guide them when they cross a line in the way dumb li’l kids always do" and continues to add in by saying "I think skaters can do better and if I see a li’l homie do some wack shit like that, I try and make it known that it’s not cool." I can understand what you mean by not having them be a skateboarding stereotype which we have seen in countless videos or rather even in person. By being heavily disruptive and rude to the people around them which it doesn't have to be that way when you just want to have fun, but although Nelson is setting an example and states a goal he says "It should be stated, I don’t see myself as a role model. I think it’s weird to want to have an influence on young kids’ lives. I just see myself as someone who always expects better from my homies and the people I love." There's nothing wrong with that and if that is your goal alongside just skating then that's good either way.


S K A T E


I have never been to a skate park or experienced the scene all too much. I've only ever practiced in my neighborhood and at home, but the skating scene as Nelson says comparing his 2 experiences starting with "I remember when I was 18, I went up to Austin and skated out there with friends. I was blown away by how developed the scene was out there. There were a lot of girl skaters, people were skating in the streets everywhere, DIY spots were built all over the place.There was a huge variety in skill level and influence, but overall people were just having fun and being gnarly." That sounds really amazing, but how is that compared to our own skate park and skate scene he says "a lot of people value a skater’s credibility in how many flip tricks they know or how many stairs they’ve ollied. I’m sure it’s the same in a lot of places, but I used to hate it here so much. It always felt like the focus was on showing off or being better, which made it a bummer to skate in the parks, which is probably what led me to skating street more." I've only seen videos of people skating at UTRGV jumping gaps or at the skate park. I haven't really seen anything else beyond that unless I'm not looking in the right places, but he also states "We can push beyond the desire to figure out who’s better and who can get more likes on Instagram or views on youtube." They may be enjoying the moment and "trying to figure out who's better" when in the end he says "we’re just kids playing with our little wooden toy" overall we should just be having fun with one another and experiment for what the valley has hidden to skate on.



As someone who wants to pick up skateboarding and has seen videos along with the pain that it brings. Of course, now that I'm not 16 anymore and I'm older the pain of skateboarding will be worse for sure. Which is something we'd have to look forward to if we want to start skating at an older state, but Nelson has this to say "The little wooden toy gave me a chance to paint the world in my light and to experience life for every incredible and painful lesson it had to offer, and there’s nothing more that I want for the younger folk than to just let them be kids. I wish I could have more time to be ignorant and stupid with my friends, but the most I can do to hold onto that now is to try to be ignorant and stupid with my friends while also having a bad back, sore feet, popping knees and an aching wrist." From his younger days to now he still manages to skate even with the obstacles ahead of him. Time does fly by and having the chance to be "ignorant and stupid" is slipping by, but if you really want to get out there and skate "stop staring at your little screen and go out and skate. That’s probably the best bit of advice. Shoutout to Jefferey Blaine Grosso." Nelson states to end it all.


Overall if you are spectating skateboarding or actually skateboarding just have fun and experiment with the different options you have ahead of you. The valley is your skatepark and just get out there. Even if your viewpoint on this sport, chore, activity, art form if you can see that way may differ we can all agree that it looks cool and if you're committing the act of skating that it must feel cool landing a gnarly trick or just about anything you're doing.

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