Skateboarding Can Teach Young Males Self-Discipline And Hard Work

Nothing is more pathetic than the 30-year-old long boarder appearing disheveled as if he just rolled out of bed, skating down the street with a dumb, smug smile on his face. These people are idiots and should be treated as such; infants stuck in arrested development. However, as a young man growing up in a small town, nothing was more exciting than that beautiful sport of skateboarding.

As a teenager, many boys have teenage angst and aggression. This is just natural for young bucks. Playing war, wanting adventure, violence, and tons of youthful energy; what to do with all that energy? Your body is also going through all sorts of weird changes at that age, like getting hair where you didn’t have before and constantly getting boners. It is a difficult time.

I was no different and needed an outlet. I loved playing sports, basketball being my number one. However, it was missing something. One day, I was introduced to skateboarding by the older kids in school and my childhood changed forever.

Basketball was fun, but it was far too team-oriented for me. Playing basketball in school involved memorization of useless and ineffective plays. It really took the fun and spontaneous nature out of the sport. Skateboarding was not like that. It involved you, and only you, against the world. It retained individualism and the fun of being spontaneous. It also fed into my wanderlust and need for adventure, including finding new spots to skate and exploring my surroundings.

As I progressed in the sport, I realized that all of your skating progress was solely dependent on how you invested your time. If you slacked, it showed in your abilities. In skateboarding, when you failed, you literally would dust yourself off and try again. Eventually through determination and patience, you would succeed, and the victory was only yours. No team, no group, no herd.

Nothing tasted better than this kind of personal victory as a young man. Landing that trick you’d been trying for months was the greatest reward from hard work. If you wanted to learn a new trick, you would work at it like any other craftsman may work at something; progressively getting more technical. Skateboarding is a microcosm of the real world and a good life lesson for young males.

If you did want to skate with a group, it was always a cutthroat competition. You and your friends would see who could “out skate” the other.  It taught you how to work at something and to rise above the group as the best. This was always a trial and error, you might not always be the best, but you would strive for it. It was also fun to skate around with a little crew, doing what boys do; causing some trouble and being rebellious.

I remember sneaking out late at night just to go skating. It was an outlet as a young male to melt away the anger and frustration that comes with being a pimply teenager.  Besides being a great individualistic sport to build character, personality, honesty, integrity and enjoying one’s own company and solitude, girls always thought skateboarders were attractive, which was just an added bonus.

As an older, wiser man now, I have given up the sport (as adult males should at some point). I would say that the experience of skateboarding still translates to many things including progress in career, love, and life. It taught me the valuable lesson of determination, self-discipline, honesty, and patience. It also taught me to enjoy being by myself and to relish the silent victories I accomplished in my solitude. These are the most important victories of all.

It was after I fell on a rail while attempting a difficult trick and needed cortisone shots in my back, that I realized the dangers and hung up my skateboard forever. But in a time when war and violence is nearly unheard of, the new war for young men is a war on your own body. You beat yourself to get better and better. You push yourself to do your best.

It is the most spiritual and necessary thing in our modern world for young males. With no real wars, with daily emasculation and docility forced on young men, with a lack of experience to build courage, skateboarding is a way to gain a skill in a productive and goal-oriented way. Nothing in the world is more important than this kind of personal battle and eventual victory for young males.

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70 thoughts on “Skateboarding Can Teach Young Males Self-Discipline And Hard Work”

  1. Im mid 20s and have thought of getting into skateboarding because I look like current or former, but it definitely seems like the pastime of a young man. oh well

  2. An article about skateboarding on ROK? I think the author badly missed the readership demographic for this site.
    Although the last paragraph was good.

  3. It’s easy to scoff skateboarding as a trivial pastime for young men, but it’s still better than watching sports, following Game of Thrones, or playing video games, which all seem to be perfectly normal for lot of people here.

  4. Skateboarding and dirt bikes also teach the value of strength and daring. They also teach one to overcome fear and accept severe bodily harm as a calculated risk. Pain threshold goes up. gives a kid an air of alpha.

    1. As Ted Nugent said “if it’s too loud, you’re too old “. But then, Ted’s gone kinda strange.

  5. Know what else teaches men the value of self-discipline and hard work? Having a fucking job.
    I’m too old for this shit.
    Jesus
    Christ. I’m trying, really trying, to see what the author is saying, to
    read something into a modified version of rollerskating, an activity
    which would have gotten you called a fag and beaten for being unmanly
    when I was a teen.
    I really don’t give a shit about this stuff,
    except that it’s attempting to glorify a fucking leisure activity that
    doesn’t develop the mind or body, and legitimize it as something not
    best fitted for children.
    I’m eagerly awaiting the next ROK article on the masculine arts of playing Pokemon and watching My Little Pony properly.
    Holy shit we’re in trouble.

    1. Maybe we need an old dudes ROK. Fuck knows I’m no spring chicken. I remember when chicks weren’t into feminism, were slim in a normal way and wore cameltoe jeans (allright – it was the 80’s).

    2. It’s true. The younger someone starts working, the less likely they are to turn into an equalist piece of shit crying about “being offended” or some faggotry

    3. Wow, I actually forget how much ignorant people are when skateboarding is in question. I don’t feel like even wasting any words on you or anyone who actually tries to put skateboarding in the same bag with Pokemon and my Little pony. I will however leave a few links.


      P.S. This article sucks

      1. You say that like it’s a bad thing. 90% of the time, I look forward to
        work. Maybe if one spends less time playing boys’ games as a teen, and
        more time learning to make his own way, the odds of not being trapped in
        an unsatisfying career can be minimized.
        As the commenter who
        gave us his life story based on skateboarding noted, any leisure
        activity doesn’t have to limit ones’ successes or options. He seemed
        pretty proud of his accomplishments, and perhaps he should be. That
        being said, I’m not encouraging or discouraging my kids regarding
        skateboarding as a hobby. I don’t see it as contributing much either way
        in terms of their development, but they’re free to pick it up if they
        choose. I’d rather see them be avid hunters and fishermen like my
        friends and I, when it comes to competitive hobbies, because I know
        firsthand from my own family’s history that it’s a lifelong pleasure
        that can be shared and enjoyed across generations to build masculine
        fellowship. I just can’t see skateboarding contributing that much
        positivity to a man’s development.

        1. Work can be good. I like work as well, but there have been several times in my life where all I did was work, and ironically my work was affected. When Im doing something outside of work like waterskiing or dance class, or motorcycle trips I tend to do better quality work, Im happier and I’ve gotten pay raises.
          Further, getting a job isn’t a lot like getting laid. Its EXACTLY like getting laid. The more options I have on the table the more I get, but solely dedicating oneself to a company (thats not yours) is like being a loyal beta monogamist and they’ll treat you like you’re never going to leave. Of course when there’s shit to be done the job comes first and everything else is second or just plain needs to be dropped.
          Im sure someone will pick that apart.

    4. Bad slippery slope there. And if you think skating doesn’t develop the mind you’ve clearly never set foot on a skateboard

      1. Nah. For like 4 years.Granted, skateboarding is better than couch
        surfing, but so is taking out the trash. As for developing the mind? No.
        No it doesn’t. Opening a book or creating something with your own two
        hands develops the mind. Standing on top of a piece of wood while it’s
        moving is what it is. I used to like doing it right up until I
        discovered girls were no longer boring. Good that it’s entertaining for
        you, but It’s a pretty far stretch to make skateboarding into an
        exercise in developing masculine skills.

        1. Developing the balls to Ollie a
          12 stair? Front board a rail? Deal with cops and seccies? Pain threshold and good harm reduction skills from falling over? In my opinion skating makes you a confident man

  6. The general idea that young kids need to get off the couch and find a way to discipline themselves into something useful is correct.
    However, why skateboarding specifically? There are a ton of different things that guys could do, to specifically saying skateboarding seems a bit random.

    1. When I was 12 I discovered that the bicycle gave me a one day free range of 50 miles radius if I was expected home for dinner, and twice that if I wasn’t. It has proved a useful skill and source of discipline my whole life, and on occasion even a living.
      Skating is a bit of fun (although I wonder if I get a pass on the opening insult by being twice that age and dressed in Harris tweed. I don’t come here to be Peter Pan shamed by other men), but nowhere near as useful.

  7. “As an older, wiser man now, I have given up the sport (as adult males should at some point).” BULLSHIT, I’ve been skating for over 20 years now. “It was after I fell on a rail while attempting a difficult trick and
    needed cortisone shots in my back, that I realized the dangers and hung
    up my skateboard forever.” LMAO the author of this article is a pussy and fuckin poser.

  8. Article is spot on, I too was a hardcore skater until about sophmore year of high school when work and a driving license kicked in to daily practice and dulled my edge. Takes balls of steel to push towards a set of stairs or large gap- concrete is very unforgiving. The culture has largely been lost to marketing of skate brands & clothes, I was passionate about it when original KCKs and Eric Kostons were the meow, and skaters just wore whatever. Now all motherfuckers have to do is dress like a “skater,” it used to be about performance. Funny, I never have been into team sports and accel at free diving, marksmanship, snowboarding, surfing, scuba, and building shit from scratch. Passed the Series 7 & 63 exams also if you want to call me a dirt. To me it is pathetic that sports like football are such a big deal to adults and the USA, get a life or produce something instead of eating Doritos/Coors Light and spending your time as a fan. WTF? Also great about skating is the art/music emphasis. I enjoy my time spent in Santa Cruz and think Tommy Guerrero’s music lately is great, leave team sports for those lost in the Midwest with ugly women. P.S. I cursed God and threw skateboards into the ground in 4th grade when trying to learn to ollie….until finally timing clicked and I never gave up. I was a good skater but the level of practice that those I looked up to put in, was on par with a kung fu master.

  9. Unfortunately, grown men in their late 20s, who play with skateboards, play video games, the mancave, are all a product of cultural and social decline.
    This all correlates with the collapse of our economy. When there are no jobs, and men have no objective or purpose in life, they will resort to the above.
    And yes, the West is in trouble.

  10. I only ever thought skateboarding was cool when Marty Mcfly was doing it. Don’t want to piss on the author though for putting the work in.
    Maybe need some articles on hunting, fly fishing, long range rifle shooting, rebuilding cars or motorcycles, woodworking? These all require discipline, hard work and dedication.

      1. You know exactly who that is – even if maybe you had to google it (which I don’t think you needed to). I feel like I’m being keyboard raped by an intellectual masturbator (which, going by most of your posts, you definitely are).

        1. Now see here, chief: I know exactly who it is. Point of my post was merely to comment, in a tongue-in-cheek way, that your reference may have gone over the heads of some younger readers.
          As for my posts (which are rare, if made at all), please expound upon what about their substance makes me an intellectual masturbator?
          I take no offense and don’t wish to argue–I’m just curious.

        2. There is the hook and there is the bait – and you took both.
          Nothing wrong with your posts – they’re well thought out and intellectually sound.
          You should have fucking blasted me if you responded to my comment and felt you were right.
          You call me chief , and basically apologise in the last sentence – don’t do that. It’s submissive. You should take offense and you should wish to argue.
          By the way, what is a millennial male?
          y

        3. I’ve had two bottles of red wine now, and now I need to know why I am a gay cunt. Tell me why I am a gay cunt.

  11. I can kinda see the point of this article, but on the list of skills men should have, skateboarding ranks barely higher than, ‘smokes a lot of weed’ and ‘successfully slaughters many opponents in Call of Duty’ – useless.
    I get that you need to have fun; I personally love to get out for a surf when I can. Just don’t pretend that it is a useful skill.

  12. Wow, after reaxxion I thought I’ve seen everything, but this is a new form of retarded. This is a fucking blog post about skating, come on.

  13. I get what the author is saying, and skateboarding is fucking hard but…this is kind of corny.
    I think Wrestling, Boxing, and the other combat arts (the ones where you are actually applying what you learn) are far better suited to that purpose.

  14. Skateboarding gave me partying, tattoos, and a arrest record. Unless it’s changed since the early 2000’s.

  15. As a restless, angry, total fuck up of a young man, skateboarding did in fact give me an outlet and teach me something about discipline, self control and courage among boys. I was a skater punk in the late 80’s. I’d say it was a good alternative to video games, prozac, and/or bringing a gun to school one day.

  16. Some of my best memories (I’m 38 years old now) were from my skateboarding days. Back when the Bones Brigade was popular, it was such an exciting time.

  17. Fantastic post, couldn’t have written it better myself. 30 years old and still remember my years skateboarding with nostalgia. The adventure, expression, and creativity was truly balm to my young soul.

  18. Uh…
    No offense to the author but a skateboard is a fucking toy.
    Some might say that getting into MMA or some martial art is “the path”. Sort of.. that depends on the approach to it that you make. And for many it’s the wrong approach with more bluster and less humility. There are too many guys walking around with shaved heads dressed like cage fighters bugging their eyes out at everybody but also being complete and total pussies and beta bitches.
    But I’ll have to agree that getting a job is the number 1 means.
    If that’s out of the question or “off the board” and we’re talking strictly about self improvement, then put the fucking skateboard toy down and pick up a gun. Why? Because I have seen countless young men raised on video games who try to shoot real guns like they played games and they suck. It takes real discipline and skill to shoot a gun. If you want an exercise in that, shooting is the way and you learn a useful skill that might help you fight the tyrannical state that the SJWs are trying to install over us, or survive the wasteland that they dream of causing afterwards.

    1. I mentioned something similar. I’m not against skateboarding as a
      teenager’s interest. It’s better than whacking off to cartoon animals,
      anyhow. Hunting and fishing are wonderful pursuits to me, because they
      can be enjoyed solo or in a group, and both have their own positive
      aspects in terms of what they can do for a man. More importantly, to me,
      at least, hunting and fishing can be a bridge across generations of
      men. I fished and hunted regularly with 3 generations of men of my
      family, and found it a fantastic way to stay tight with my own people,
      In terms of masculine development, you’d have a difficult time in
      finding something that could be more positive than growing up being able
      to connect with your brothers, father, uncles and grandfathers, and
      watch and listen and learn everything you need to be a good, happy
      man… while also hunting and fishing.
      Skateboarding
      can’t offer that. Thus far, my other hobbies, like woodworking, don’t
      interest my kids, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a boy who won’t
      instantly take to fishing and hunting if given the opportunity.

  19. Occasionally I have kids skateboarding on the sidewalk in front of my house. Turning on the sprinklers full-blast gets rid of them real quick.

  20. Skateboarding is good for annoying people, picking up teenage chicks, and breaking bones. Not much else.

  21. Skaterboarders like to coast at 20 mph down the sidewalk that runs in front of the nearest freeway offramp. One time I almost hit one, which would have sucked as my car insurance deductible is $1000.

  22. I’m in my 40s. Taught myself to skateboard last august. You known what? Improved balance and increased appreciation of flexibility. You know what usually kills the elderly? Falls. Guess what experts suggest to avoid that? Balance work.

    1. And for the most part the experts are wrong. What causes most falls in the elderly is muscle weakness and imbalance.
      Do strength and range of motion work and suddenly your “balance” will improve. Particularly of the posterior chain if you spend a lot of time sitting in chairs. I don’t think you could design a device more effective at the producing the Old Man Shuffle.

  23. I find all the comments about skateboarding being for little punk kids and needing to get a job pretty amusing. Like the author I grew up skateboarding from about age 13 to kind of hanging it up a couple years ago(I’m 30 now). I graduated with honors in computer science abroad, paid all my tuition and board without help from parents, always had a job while studying, 25k in student loans all paid off, now have a very well paying job in Silicon Valley and am married. Most of my friends from high school and college that skateboarded are in similar situations. Ironically, it’s the cool jocks that are either unemployed or stuck working shitty jobs and never left our crappy town. Sure in college studying and partying took priority over skating but after coming back home even in my 20s I made sure to get out at least once a week to go skating after work or on the weekend with my friends. If I have a chance to visit them this year for sure I will try to get out and skate. The only reasons I don’t do it now is I live on the other side of the country and skating without my old friends just isn’t the same and my body can’t take the pain like it used to. People don’t scoff at middle aged men playing tennis or pickup basketball games so why skateboarding? At the end of the day it’s just a form of exercise and recreation like any other sport.

    1. Honestly I am surprised by the hating. I don’t know – maybe it’s guys that are intimidated? Most of the skaters I knew were pretty standup guys. We all had jeans ripped at the knees, scabs on our elbows and the heels of our hands … I always thought it took balls to get on a board and take chances with getting hurt.
      I dream of doing a long hill on a longboard. There’s a guy I see in my neighborhood, just goes carving long turns on a gentle hill … guy looks like he’s mesmerized by the turns. It’s the feeling I get when I go through powder on a snowboard. It’s unreal.
      I just don’t get the hating. To each his own, I guess.

  24. Skateboarding destroys the leg joints and leaves many practitioners unable to walk stairs normally by the time they’re 25. I’ve seen numerous cases. Keep your kids away from extreme sports.

  25. Man, what a bunch of haters. Even the author is flinging “pathetic”.
    ANYTHING that gets guys out of their own heads is good.
    Anything that carries with it real risk is good.
    Anything that makes you use your body is good.
    Get your middle aged sorry ass out there on a longboard on a long hill and you’ll see things entirely differently.

  26. Excellent take on a subject that does not initially lead one to think of this blog’s narrative. My son has been skateboarding for several years now (he’s 17) and I realized, early on, watching him and his friends take to the sidewalks, streets, who knows what else (that I probably do not want to know!), that skateboarding is one of the very last male refuges of independence and masculine spirit. Skateboarders allow young men to be “modern outlaws” as they skate down deadly streets and perform other scary feats of daredevilry. There are very few outlets for men to snub the nose our nanny state’s oppressive anti-masculinity left.

  27. I’m 26 and still skate. Author, I’m calling you out as a poseur if you’ve quit! You said, “As an older, wiser man now, I have given up the sport (as adult males should at some point).” If you quit like this, you were probably never really in to it. I know guys who have played baseball into their 90s and don’t think skating should be any different. And I think sports are things that grown men should grow up and stop watching, like the NFL, etc. so this is kind of just a battle of preferences.
    I skated Saturday with a dude in his 40s. Skating keeps you super healthy (do you know a lot of fat skateboarders?). It is a form of interval training so it burns fat well. Skateboarding is a bastion of masculinity which I was hoping this author would add (how many girl skaters do you know?). I am glad, dear author, you mentioned skating at all, though surprised you downplayed it so much. Maybe interview a skateboarder, middle-aged even, on their perspective on skateboarding and how it relates to ROK type thoughts.
    Skate and crate

  28. Gymnastics > Skateboarding
    You can look like a greek god.
    …and meet hoooot nice gymnast girls.

  29. Don’t forget that it teaches the lesson that fucking shit up, results in painful consequences, skateboarded for about a year and a half when i was a kid, instilling the lesson that nature swiftly punishes all those who act in discord with it’s rules, wittingly or unwitting.

  30. That would be Lance Mountain doing a frontside invert in a 9 or 10 foot deep pool. He and I are both 51 now. My 16 year old son is an avid skateboarder and is working with me to build a concrete half pipe in our back yard. Plenty of math and hard work to get it done right. I’m extremely proud to have been a “skater” in my youth, and of him. Thanks, Jon for this ROK skater write up.

  31. It’s the truth. I feel like skateboarding is a right of passage for any male teenager period.

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