I’m going to tell my skate story through the seven stages of spiritual development (as told on chopra.com). My journey as of this post stems from summer 2018 up to spring 2021. =) 

Stage 1: Innocence

I was new to skating and very inspired to learn and watch others. I didn’t know anything about the culture. I was just having fun doing my own thing, mostly in parking lots without a care in the world.

Sadly it didn’t take long for that innocence to be lost. I learned the hard way that some people, especially men at the skatepark or rinks, will see a girl with skates and maybe a lot of skin showing because well we should be able to wear what we want… and they will take that as an invitation to touch, follow you, or bother you in some way. At this point I hadn’t made any other skate friends, so it was discouraging, but I didn’t let this stop me from going out and learning.

Stage 2: Fear & Ego

By this stage I had made a lot of skate friends to lean on for support. I was gaining confidence in my skate abilities. I was becoming more aware as well of how other skaters viewed me, especially skaters who were very advanced and have been doing this for their entire lives. Sometimes I would have to remind myself that skating in general does not have to be a competition or a popularity contest. It should be about the enjoyment.

Stage 3: Power

At this stage, I had overcome (mostly) my fear of judgement from other skaters. I also gained a lot of power through learning about the black history of roller skating and how deeply it is rooted in blackness. During this stage I was working at a roller rink in an area where not many black people were popping in. It took a bit of effort to find other skaters who looked like me, but eventually I was able to.

Being on instagram, I have the power to curate exactly what is on my feed. Unless we are connected outside of instagram or we have a dialogue going in the DM’s, I don’t follow anyone who isn’t a queer person of color. The few friends that I do happen to follow but don’t fit that description, at times I’ll mute posts so that I only see black skaters that day. Just having the power to do that on instagram is kinda cool. Too bad I can’t mute people in person… Anyway, once I had the realization that I can control my feed, I started unfollowing all of the white skaters who made me feel bad about myself, whether intentional on their end or not. The erasure of black content is real and I wasn’t going to play into it or let it effect my vibe when scrolling on my personal feed.

Stage 4: Giving

At this stage, I was really starting to build an online community on instagram. At one point I had around 300 followers and then a month or so after the murder of George Floyd I had 10 thousand! That may not sound like a lot in the grand scheme of things, but for me it was a lot very fast. It was clear that people wanted to support black creators who were pushing informational content surrounding Black Lives Matter.

Although I was overwhelmed with support, I knew full well that a click or follow was simply a quick, performative action, one where a person can say, “I did something”. The evidence I witnessed of performative allyship was very disheartening. Still, I now had a small community who regularly would come to me with questions about skating and beyond. So in order to give my input and help others learn, I started doing more tutorials. It was hard not to get addicted to the dopamine highs that followed the likes, comments, views and shares. In order to not worry about those things as much, I made sure to only film and check my social media at certain days and times, and the other times I would put my phone away. So, at some points I was giving my time and advice to others online, but more importantly I was learning to give myself time and space to just be with myself, no internet required.

Stage 5: Becoming the Seeker

During this stage, I was really looking for guidance on how to improve my skate skills. At this time it was hard for me to find moments of joy, due to the political climate. I wasn’t really skating much. Every day I’d ask myself questions like, “why do I even like skating?” or “how can you post footage of yourself having fun when your people are being murdered out here?!” – I would drive to the park, lace up my skates, then take them off right away and go back home. I kept going back and forth on the pros and cons of just going and starting to try and do it again. The main pro was that it gave me a feeling of complete freedom. Although this was typically very motivating, it didn’t outweigh the cons, which included public harassment by way of catcalling as well as police officers following me because they can’t ever mind their business around a group of black people expressing joy. For these reasons, I started skating in my kitchen. I guess it was a convenient time to want to isolate myself considering by now we were already in the Covid-19 pandemic.

After a few months, I started to find the joy and my skate flow again through freestyle jam skating in my kitchen. Because of having to stay inside during the quarantine, I was forced to take a pause on my ramp skating progress and dive more into dance. I started exploring different ways of moving within a small space, which is when my inspiration and creativity really started to pick up.

Stage 6: The Sage:

This is the stage I am currently in. I am really waking up and coming to realizations about myself and making connections between skate lessons and life lessons – mainly, perseverance. I feel that I have almost mastered the art of how to keep going when something gets tough. I didn’t only learn this through skating, but skating was the last straw that made me see that I really do have the tools and skills to be happy and enjoy life no matter what happens.

Through social media, I am currently meeting and speaking with so many other black and queer people, and these conversations make me proud to be who I am despite what feels like constant hurdles surrounding being able to live freely. I’m trying to stop taking life so seriously and give myself permission to flow through it more naturally without controlling it, because that isn’t possible. I’m giving myself the space to flow through different queer expressions and identities. I’m giving myself permission to let go and feel joy and share it with others.

Stage 7: Spirit

This is the stage I imagine I might be at in the future when I am no longer in the thick of things and my life is slowing down a bit. In spiritual practice, this stage is when all the chakras are open, and spiritual energy flows freely. In my journey when I reach this stage, I will know for sure that I have mastered the art of how to be content amidst chaos. I will be free from seeking social media validation. I will be at a point where I can say that I will be okay if I do not progress further in my skate skills, or even I will be okay if I never roller skate again. Right now, in a way, I feel that I need to skate to be happy. I know that this is not necessarily true, but it does feel sort of like an addiction. If I ever go too long without skating, I get upset and impatient and I can only think about my roller skates. Tunnel vision. I’m working on letting go of material things and that includes my skates. I view stage seven as the point where I can say I am happy with my journey and it’s cool if it ends here, but also cool if not.

Until then, I think that it is okay right now that I’m a little obsessed!