Tony Hawk and Laureus visit Indigo Skate Camp

Skateboarders are all connected.

Growing up in Africa I thought the heart of the skate world was so far off from us. I felt isolated having no contact with the larger anatomy that was pushing skateboarding. The closest I could get to witnessing the possibilities of skateboarding would be by sitting on my friends couch and watching Powell skate videos. The final video part in those legendary movies would always be with Tony Hawk on some futuristic ramp set up. He was a creator who seemed untouchable, until he arrived here to skate with us.

In 91, Tony Hawk visited us as the number one vert skater in the world. He packed out South Africa’s largest indoor arena and smashed apart a steel vertical spine ramp during a live rock concert. At 16, I was skating with the high flying bird man and witnessing the future of skateboarding 2ft from my face. Tony Hawk made skating seem boundless. From the tricks he was creating, to the unimaginable skate parks he was creating, to eventually taking skateboarding to the cyber world. Tony managed to blend his personal interests in technology to his career by creating a skateboarding video games that grossed over 1 Billion US Dollars. The Tony Hawk Foundation was another way that Tony contributed to skateboarding by funding skate parks built for less privileged communities in the USA.

Locally it was the consistent interest that Tony Hawk was showing in South African skateboarding that affected many of our lives here. Next to skating with Tony Hawk, the biggest influence Hawk had dealt me came in 2001 when he designed the snake run at the Wave House skate park in Durban. This park got me to move back to Durban to work at Wave House and skate the parks opening ceremony with Tony Hawk and Bob Burnquist.

It was frontrunners like Hawk and Bob that gave me blind faith to blend my personal interests in African culture into the Indigo Skate Camp. Having visited Bob in his Californian skate ranch where he has built a skate park modeled around a sustainable lifestyle, made me aspire to stand up for something. Now after 8 years of Indigo Skate Camp adventures, we have found Indigo Youth Movement, a non-profit organization which recently became a member of The Laureus Sport For Good Foundation.

Tony Hawk and Bob Burnquist are both former Laureus award winners. The Laureus sports awards were developed to fund The Laureus Sport For Good Foundation which now supports over 70 projects around the world which utilise sport for social change. Indigo Youth Movement is their first skateboarding funded project. This is a milestone for skateboarding as it’s being further recognized as having positive spin offs for our youths.

So there we were at our project launch as Tony Hawk lead a delegation of Laureus founding members, award winners and ambassadors to Indigo Skate Camp. During our 30 minute journey, Tony and I reflected on what my motives were to take skateboarding to rural africa? I explained how there was a need to make a positive example of how skateboarding could unite our divided youths. It is the surroundings and sense of community in the Valley of 1000 Hills that has created a skateboarding destination which is listed in Thrasher magazine’s book – ‘100 places you must skate before you die’.

Driving down into the Valley I mentioned to Tony that the skaters he was about to roll with had no idea of who he was. This news to Tony brought about a comfortable grin as he was about to meet skaters pure and unconditioned by the media. As we rolled up Maswi Msomi confidently landed his newest trick, a full cab to fifty fifty. Tony snapped a quick pic and then stepped up to skate with the locals.

For the days program we had arranged for a group of North Beach skaters to join the Indigo Skate camp children to participate in activities which were to encourage interaction without the necessity of spoken language. Fun games with balloons and obstacles courses through ropes hanging from trees. In an attempt to transform our ramps into an educational facility, we set up a numbers game on the decks which used arithmetic and dice.

Tony Hawk was able to meet there with our regular group of 50 primary school students who attend our Laureus funded programs 3 days a week. Everyone was able to meet on equal grounds as skateboarding was the shared experience which brought people into each others spaces. Skaters and visitors made themselves comfortable around the ramp and campfire. It felt good to offer Tony Hawk something refreshing in skateboarding on that day. His remarks from his blog read, “Indigo Skate Camp is proof that skateboarding can change the world”.

Next it was onto Wave House with our platoon of skaters where Tony Hawk skated the vert ramp. Hawk entertained the crowd there by landing 360 varials, 540’s and a 720. Landing all his airs precisely below the coping. During that session I felt at ease with just trying new tricks over the roll in gap. I avoided getting caught up in the same routine of laying down the tricks that I have done before. I found my skateboarding mirrored my thoughts, as I was rather looking for progression.

We are at a good place as Indigo Youth Movement now has the world’s top skaters and sponsors behind us. Times have never been better for our young skaters. We now have the resources to give them the ability to reach their full potential. Things that are vital for their health and for the longevity of skateboarding will flow down from the Indigo Youth Movement.

“Let skateboarding take you places…”