Skating has become a large part of my identity and I absolutely love teaching Park skating.

When it comes to life things, I get a lot of anxiety, which I'm still working through with counseling. But when it comes to skating, as long as I drop into the bowl, I just go for it when it comes to trying a trick that's a little bit more dangerous.

I think of it as a fear curtain: A lot of people don't progress very fast because they have this curtain of fear that they can't seem to push through. Skating is the only aspect of life where I can actually draw the curtain back and push through it fairly easily.

For a while, I was one of just a handful of people that was trying what's called a ‘faking front flip’ where, you go up the ramp backwards and at the height of the ramp, you try and front flip, then land and come down, which is a blind landing.

It's really difficult and pretty dangerous. But it's taught me that I'm a lot more capable than what I thought I was, and I'm a lot stronger and a lot tougher. It's brought my pain threshold up a lot.

At the moment though, I'm in a bit of a lull with my skating. For so long, I used weightlifting and skating as a form to control and save my mental health. And now, there's been a lot of really good stuff that's been happening for me.

I just started dating somebody a couple months ago, and it's going really well. I'm in a really good spot, and I'm really happy.

I'm still doing a lot of roller derby, but I haven't been able to do as much park skating.

[Continued under ‘Support’ tomorrow]