skateboarding magazine

May 31st, 2009 Leave your comment »

Slick and Stylish Skateboarding

By Dina Mardiana


When most people think of skateboarding magazines, their thoughts immediately turn to Thrasher magazine, with its gritty edges and hardcore presentation. They envision articles about grunge skateboarders with tattoos and body piercing spinning their stunts on public streets.

transworld magazine: June 2009

transworld magazine: June 2009

However, the more professional and discriminating skateboarders actually turn to another publication for their monthly fix on the latest buzz in the skateboarding community. This magazine is Transworld.

Transworld skateboarding offers a very professional approach to its articles, presenting facts in an easy manner and giving out tips which are quite simple to understand and absorb. Other skateboarding publications seem to focus primarily on mindless bling bling and the use of light shows and radical senses of humor to get relatively minor points across. Transworld, on the other hand, maintains a systematic and factual approach to its articles that appeals to more mature and professional skateboarders.

It features interviews with the pros, but splits its focus equally between questions about the backgrounds of the pros, their lifestyle, and tips or advice they have to offer aspiring professional skateboarders. Instead of turning these interviews into simple jamming sessions for the entertainment of the interviewee’s fanboys, the staff of Transworld actually tries to get as much useful information as possible from the pros to help other skaters.

Transworld also covers every major skateboarding competition and event with an article, not letting any of the big ones slip though their fingers. Their writers give descriptive, blow by blow accounts of each of these events, and give greater focus on highlights of the events, like crucial turning points in competitions that gave the edge to the winners, or especially impressive stunts pulled off by people during a demo.

skate DVD by transworld

skate DVD by transworld

They also do feature articles on the latest cutting edge of skateboarding tech, with buyer’s guides showing the hottest new equipment as well as special feature articles that cover radical new tech entries into the field of skateboarding. The information for most of these tech articles are usually taken straight from the manufacturers themselves.

Transworld Skateboarding’s primary goal is to further the expansion and support of the world skateboarding community by keeping the heart of the sport alive in its participants, as well as being enticing and understandable enough that it can also attract those who don’t know anything about it into the sport. All of its otherpublications follow the same theme.

Transworld’s magazines have been contributing admirably to the growth and development of every sport that they feature, not only by giving the readers better information, but by actually setting an example for a higher standard of maturity and professionalism while maintaining a good degree of fun factor.


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skateboard gear

May 30th, 2009 1 Comment »

How to Overcome the Fear of Getting Hurt in Skateboarding?

By Dina Mardiana


Getting hurt while riding a skateboard is normal. It might not be too comforting to know that a lot of people get injured when skateboarding; still we can say that it’s part of learning the sport. However, your fear of getting hurt is yours to solve and you cannot blame the sport or other people if you happen to get cuts, bruises or broken bones while skateboarding. The thing is, you need to overcome it. But how?

elbow pads

elbow pads

Overcome fear by getting enough confidence. The best way to do this is to pad up, seriously. Wear a helmet, knee pads, elbow pads, wrist guards, and gloves. You can also wear padded shorts if you want to. Don’t worry if you look a bit ridiculous with these gears. As long as you are protected, you reduce the risk of getting hurt and you’ll gain confidence.

Then, you have to practice. Start with the simplest trick. The ollie can be a good choice. Learning a trick or two will allow you to gain confidence. It may take you a few months or even years to learn just one trick so stay focused with your goal. A lot of newbie skaters give up skateboarding because they either get hurt or never learned a trick. Keep your interest high and fear will be a thing of the past.

Tony Hawk skate helmet

Tony Hawk skate helmet

You also have to ride with your friends. Riding alone in full battle gear will make you look like the mascot. I did not tell you not to gear up properly. What I mean is go out and make friends if you don’t have any. Skateboarding should be fun. And although you cannot invite someone to ride with you on your skateboard, you can ride along with friends who don’t ridicule you if you don’t know how to do a single trick.

Finally, you just need to get hurt. But don’t remove your gears. If you are padded up and you fall, it might not break any bones but you will get hurt a little. And when you do, your body learns how not to do it again. You gain confidence and overcome fear.

Accept this: skateboarding is a painful sport. Even pro skaters break a bone or two once in awhile. You will get hurt but if you ride with care, you can skate another day and improve your skills.


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