Paul Rodriguez

It toughens you up too.

When I was a little kid before I started skating, I did karate, I did gymnastics, I played baseball, but I was kind of soft.

I remember playing baseball.

After I got out of T-ball into farm, I was afraid when they were pitching because I didn't want to get hit by the ball.

Kids at that age don't have really good control, so you're likely to get hit.

So I would be all afraid.

And, like, when I went to karate, I did a couple karate tournaments.

Did all right.

And then one of them, we did it without protection.

I got kicked right in the gut.

Got my wind knocked out of me for the first time.

I was crying.

I was, like, nine years old.

I was crying.

I was like, I don't want to do this anymore.

But once I started skating and falling all the time and getting up, falling all the time and getting up, I started, like, getting tougher, a little more grit, a little more, like, mental strength, a little more physical, like, durability.

Yeah.

And so I think skateboarding is good for, like,

life lessons because you have to fall and get up you have to fail over and over and over until you succeed yeah and i think you can do that with a lot of things in life no that's facts i didn't even think about the mental side of it but you're right it teaches you to be resilient right yeah because you're going to fail a lot of skateboarding 100 i mean even no matter what level you're on most likely you mess up way more every day than you land which is crazy right yeah and at your level to say that it's probably like hard to fathom for people right

Yeah, I think if you're not meshing up more than you're succeeding, then you're not challenging yourself enough.