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Skate Like a Girl
LOVES
Seattle Girls' School
SLAG and SGS have partnered together to provide middle school girls with quality programs since the Spring of 2007!

At Seattle Girls' School, students have internships where they pick a topic (arts, enviornment, sports, and other), and meet once a week for 5 weeks and learn in-depth about the topic they chose.

SLAG's internship offers students a chance to learn how to skateboard, along with having activities like silkscreening, making zines, and talking about what it means to be a female skater in a male dominated sport.

This spring we hav an amazing group of middle school gals that are picking up skating so fast! These gals are hecka sharp, supportive and shredders. Watch out! They are rolling off curbs and perfecting their ollies!

SGS Journal
Day One: 09 April 2008
Today Kristin Ebeling and Nancy Chang from SLAG met their students. They were super excited to have the ladies' attentions. Kristin introduced the internship and talked about Skate Like a Girl and had the students' give feed back on what they thought skateboarding was all about.

The girls were quick to be able to list off the negative stereotypes of skateboarding: stoners, unruly boys, skate mags depicted women as just boobs to sell prodcucts to boys, girl products were mostly pink and non-utilitarian.

The gals unanimously talked about how male dominated it was, along with how they perceived skateboarding and the style as just an accessory.

Kristin and Nancy were a bit disappointed when the girls were able to list off a number of guy skaters, but ZERO female skaters. The two instructors were stoked when they heard the girls voiced their concen about not wanting to be the girls that just sat on the side lines, or dressed "skater" but didn't skate. The girls wanted to skate and have FUN!

All the ladies filed out after talking about safety, supporting/encouraging one another to skate radical and to have fun! They went out side and put on gear. Camille Samujh showed up to instruct and cheer the ladies on. The girls rolled around and by the end of the day most were able to push/cruise, tic-tac, and start getting pumped for ollies.

Day Two: 16 April 2008
Kristin, Nancy and Camille were totally stoked at how fast the girls were getting confident. Most of the girls were working on ollies and getting a little pop. Others were riding off curbs and best of all: IT DIDN'T RAIN!

Something bizarre happened: a bunch of crows dropped from the sky a pigeon that they ate. It was so gross.


Day Three: 23 April 2008
Nancy took the SGS students in the van to Mercer Island skate park. As they pulled up into the parking lot, the girls were freaked out excited and that there were boys there. Nancy told them not to worry and reassured them that as long as they tried they were going to get better. They were worried of falling and being embarassed. All the girls skated so hard! Holy cow! They all rolled down the ramps, which was the first for some of them, rolled off the pyramid, some cleared the little two step. Some of the girls were trying shuv-its. It was off the HOOK! They also had a suprise GUEST: local ripper, Chrissie Lathrop. It was a beautiful day.