Mother/Son Skate Date!

Micke Alba. Soul Brother #2. Duarte Skatepark. Hot as hell.

It's well known by my friends and family that I skate. I was forbidden to skate as a kid. However, when I could get away with it, I did. I had skateboards hidden in the closet in my room. Often, when my parents were off doing who knows what, I would sneak a skate or two in. I even found an empty pool within a few miles of my house. I skated that too.

I didn't skate much after that. The pool was off-limits once I told a few folks at my high school. They let the cat out of the bag. The place was overrun by skaters, even though the pool was in a black neighborhood, and was eventually made unskateable by the owners of the property.

Mind you, I was still sneaking around to skate. (Aren't teenagers normally sneaking around to have sex?) I got caught a few times and finally stopped skating. Then I went off to college. I didn't skate there either . . . until my senior year. I don't even remember what set me off. All I knew was I wanted to skate. And skate I did. Then I graduated. I stopped skating once again.

Fast forward a couple of decades to find our heroine once again drawn to skating. By that point, I was surfing. The surfing, of course, sent me right back to skateboarding. But before I could truly get my skate on, I learned that my left knee was so riddled with osteoarthritis that it would have to be replaced with a joint made of titanium and plastic. The knee replacement, and the spectre of never surfing again, trumped any thoughts I had about skating. My concern was whether the joint would work well enough to allow me to surf.

Then something amazing happened: I got the knee replaced and decided that life was too short not to skate. Period. I decided I would skate to the best of my abilities given the fact that I had a knee with limited flexion. I had a miniramp built in the backyard. I found a group of women who skated. I made my first visits to skateparks. (I've only been to, I think, three skateparks in my entire life!)

That brings us to the present.

I met Malba awhile back while at an informal session at the home of one of the women in the skater chicks group. He'd been invited to give lessons to anyone who was interested. I'd spent about 15 minutes with him and was completely impressed by the way he does his teaching thing. So, I decided I'd try to hook up with him at a later date for my own lesson.

In the meantime, I realized my kid had been quietly talking about skating. There were little comments here and there. I didn't immediately catch on that he was expressing a serious interest in it. Thankfully, I pay attention to what he says. Before I called Malba, I asked Soul Brother #2 if he wanted to take a lesson from Malba. Wasn't I shocked when the kid said yes? Now, this was especially surprising to me because my child is self-conscious about certain things. As the day for the lesson approached, I could tell he was getting nervous. He was worried that people might laugh at him because he couldn't skate. Mind you, this kid hadn't been on a skateboard at all. My hope was that his will to learn would trump his fears. I was also counting on Malba to put the kid at ease.

Today was the day that my child became a skater. He didn't even know how to stand on a board before Malba got hold of him. He looked truly unhappy at the beginning of the lesson. But by the time we left, he was truly stoked!! (He came home and practiced outside on four different occasions! He's hooked!!)


I wore my favorite pair of Vans with my favorite pair of socks from when I was still a competitive cyclist.


Soul Brother #2 and I split the lesson—he got the first half and I got the second. Micke had me working on tic tacs going up a slight incline. Learning to do that maneuver from a standing start, while going up an incline, will help me learn to generate speed around a skatepark without pushing. We also worked on some other things. Of course, I can't leave a skatepark without taking a good slam. (No, there's no picture of that.)


I think it's safe to say, even after only one session, that I'm now the mother of a skater. The child's got it bad. Malba gives homework. Again, the child went outside four times to practice. FOUR TIMES. He's now talking about when we can to go the skatepark, more lessons with Malba, etc.

August 27, 2011—the day "Mommy's Little Skater" was born.