My name is Damian R., I was born in Rahway, New Jersey and I grew up in Alpharetta, Georgia. Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve always been interested in skateboarding. Despite my love for video games and superheroes, skateboarding has always been there in the background, waiting for me to pick it up and start skating.

I remember when I was four years old, I used to play Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 almost all the time, besides the many Spider-Man games I played also haha. I started to like skateboarding through video games and when I was 7, I taught myself how to ride a skateboard and I would mainly just ride down hills and stuff.

After that, I bought a ton more Tony Hawk games like Underground 2, Project 8, Ride, and then Proving Ground, which made me like skating a lot more because it showed me the sponsorship part of it. You could get free boards, gear, clothes, and get paid just because you can skate good. I thought that was so awesome at the time.

Then my friend Eric started skating and whenever we hung out, I’d bring my lame Target board with me just to tag along. Later after I turned thirteen, Eric made me get the game called Skate 3, and I literally fell in love with skateboarding after that. I got down ollies a little while after I started and then my mom got me my first real skateboard on my fourteenth birthday. It was a Girl board and I still have it in my garage. I also got a pair of REAL skate shoes too haha; they were a pair of Pro Era Vans. I started slowly progressing and started to get down all the beginner tricks. Later on, an old friend of my dad Emanuel, or as we nicknamed him E, followed me on instagram and was amazed at how good I was getting. When I was a little kid, I would watch E skate and be so amazed at all the tricks he could do, so growing up he was part of my skating inspiration. During the summer,  I started to get down tricks week after week. I got down kickflips, then varial flips, fakie big spins, inward heelflips, 50-50 grinds, I started to get down stairs and so much more. Even right now I’m still progressing; I just learned 360 flips and switch 180s!

My biggest inspiration to get better is my favorite pro skater, Luan Oliveira. He is the most amazing skateboarder I’ve ever seen in my life. Everytime I go to skate, I watch his 2015 street part before I go because when I watch him skate, it makes me want to do better and step a little out of my boundaries to get better.

Skateboarding has helped me make a lot of new friends. At the end of the day, skating is about having fun and having an awesome time with the homies. I’m planning on becoming a pro skater sometime after I graduate and make a career out of the one thing I love the most. I love skateboarding.