By: Holden Maynard
This is the Savannah Skate park, the only skate park in the city. It is a fifteen minute walk from Georgia Sothern's Armstrong campus.
The park consists of a series of slopes, stairs, and rails for skaters to practice their skills. The aim of most skate parks is to mimic the elements of urban cities that skaters use to perform tricks.
This is Angel Connor. Angel is a local skater attempting to start his own skate brand who agreed to show off some of his moves for the camera.
Angel drops from one of the parks slopes. according to Angel the hardest thing to learn for beginner skaters is to not fear the drop and how to manage the sudden momentum.
Angel performs an ollie using his momentum to ride up a small hill. An ollie is one of the simplest skate techniques and is used as a sort of jump while riding.
Angel climbs up the slope in order to perform the trick again. Most skate parks don't have stairs leading to it's peaks so skaters will often have to scramble their way up to the top while avoiding other skaters
Another skater, Zak Walsh, shows off his shorter wooden penny board. Penny boards are shorter boards that enable the riders to turn faster.
Zak uses his penny board to practice a technique called "tic tacs". this technique has skaters balancing on the two back wheels of their board and pivoting the front from left to right.
Zak tests how well his wheels bounce on the concrete. After enough practice Zak decided to switch out boards in order to make it easier to land tricks.
Another slightly more experienced skater, Mason Dailey, arrives at the park. He agrees to show off some techniques and explain how they're done.
Mason prepares to drop from one of the slopes. In order to do this skaters will place the back of the board on the edge of the slope and balance their feet on the board. They will then put their weight on the back of the board until they're ready to ride.
After riding from the slope Mason shows off his kick flip. the kick flip is a popular move where the skater preforms an ollie while using their feet to kick the board in a specific way to make it flip under their feet.
Mason then shows off his heel flip. This is variation of a kickflip where the skater kicks the board forward with their heel instead of backwards with their toes.
Zak grabs his wooden board in order to perform manuals. Manuals are a technique where the rider balances on the back wheels of the board and attempts to see how for they can get.
Mason uses the slope as a ramp in order to get some air time. This was only possible after twenty minutes riding back and forth across the park in order to build up enough speed.
Mason falls off his board after attempting to jump one of the platforms in the park. "Honestly you only really land the trick three fifths of the time."
Zak takes a break from skating to rehydrate. The park consists of nothing but concrete and steel and as a result it absorbs all of the summer heat causing the area to be around one hundred and five degrees.
Angel's girlfriend agrees to film him performing a trick in order to upload it to social media. It is very common to see skaters with friends who film them performing tricks and even failing at them.
Mason attempts to balance his board on the edge of the slope and he rides it. Mason couldn't remember the name of this trick so he decided to just call them McMasons
Mason takes a hard fall after attempting to land another jump. "You always know when you're done because you're body will tell you... actually it's more like it'll scream it at you".
