Casey Clifford
Reporter
When a typical New Canaan student thinks about a spring pastime, for most, longboarding isn’t the first thing that would come to mind. But for juniors Henry Holbrook, EJ Jones and Kelsey Rowley, it’s the ultimate weekend activity. Through this unique and under acknowledged sport, many kids have found themselves in parks and on hills all over town. Together, they learn how to longboard and find new tricks to practice.
This sport has not only given many students the opportunity to become active, but it has also brought groups of friends together. “We kind of found each other. I knew Henry and EJ had long boarded before and when we were in middle school, we brought our boards to school and felt like those really cool kids,” Kelsey said. “We boarded into town on those awesome Fridays that we loved. We would just kick around and play and do some tricks, so it was awesome.”
According to Henry, there is no right way to start longboarding. He himself owes his start in longboarding to youtube. “I got into longboarding after I saw a video on youtube from original skateboards and it’s an awesome video. It inspired me. My friends backed me up on it, and we just all saved up and bought longboards,” Henry said.
Kelsey began longboarding after her brother introduced it to her. “I began when I was about in fifth grade, when my brother first started with his friends. He was more intense about it, but I kind of watched him and I’ve been slowly trying to learn more tricks, and its been pretty cool,” she said.
Although it may look easy when experienced riders skate down hills and do new tricks, longboarding takes a lot of confidence and practice. “I wasn’t able to really start riding down hills and trying new things until about a year after I started longboarding. It really takes a lot of guts to get up on the board and trust yourself,” Henry said.
While performing tricks is more common on the skateboard, many longboarders have also incorporated those moves into their ride. “A lot of my tricks have come from watching videos. Major longboarding companies are constantly coming out with new things that you can do on the boards,” EJ said. “It brings a balance between learning stuff from the skateboards and taking it over to longboarding. I just thought I would combine the fun of riding longboards with being able to do tricks that you can do on normal skate boards.”
According to Henry, what makes longboarding special is it lack of guidelines and rules. “There’s not just one way to longboard, you can make it your own. It’s not anybody else’s sport except for yours. There’s always something changing in the sport and that’s what makes it so great.”
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bT8hjYIZFg
