Portland's Jam Skaters Dance On Wheels | Oregon Art Beat

Thanks for sharing but when we skate backwards you on your own and I mean on point

Man im experiencing bittersweet happiness right now. Seeing my mentor jamming again im still impressed how smooth he was. I'm gonna miss him. Now i am pretty much the last true jam skater to come out of Gresham Oregon. And if you wanna know some skating history of Oregon the man i'm referring to was a man named Nick Roberts. He's the one dancing in the red and blue jam Skates in this video he was also referred to as Nick Dawg or Jam king he competed in and won quite a few jam skating competitions. Sadly he passed away few months ago him and i came from Gresham Skate World. He worked there until it closed. Him and i were quite close so i skated there almost 7 days a week so i knew all the other employees and what not. So if your want to know why skate world closed here's why. I will try to keep it short. Basically it was a family-owned business and while it's profits and overall business was doing great. Actually it did so good it made more money that year than it did since 1979 it's previous highest profit year. The woman who owned it was the daughter of the man that originally owned it decided she didn't want to run it anymore when she took over operations of skate world as she didn't care about it like the rest of the family did. So she sold the plot of land to a russian church. And so a week before closing the rink told the employees that they were closing their doors despite extremely good performance. The reason why this hurt everyone who knew even more than the general public was that we all would have bought it in a heart beat. But no one even got so much as a chance to negotiate. So it closed.

Now oaks park is the closest rink. But to be clear with you they don't really like anyone who came from skate world or other rinks in general especially anyone who focuses on types of dance skating primarily jam skating. Now if your not a jam skater or not from skate world they shouldn't bother you. Just beware that the staff may or may not treat you well if you come from a different rink also they can and will change rules randomly. Otherwise it's a pretty good rink. And if your curious as to why they don't like jam skaters it's because while we do it the middle of the floor away from people we do lot of hip hop and break dancing. Which they don't like because despite us trying to avoid problems there are idiots who cut through the middle at the worst time's possible with not alot of skating skill. Which in turn means they are prone to falling getting tripped due to lack of balance and experience. And getting to close to people like jam skaters who do a lot of sweeping motions cuz they think it looks cool and wanna get a closer look and etc. While im not saying they can't be in the middle as the rink floor is no one persons. They often don't understand why people like me go into the middle. Which can lead to accidents. Oaks park thinks people should only go backwards in the inner part of the rink. Which means people trying to learn are at risk of going in the middle even if not on purpose. While this would not be bad if nothing crazy was going on in the middle. The problem lies in the fact oaks park has a lot of artistic skaters and Rhythm skaters. So alot of jumps that end in a leg out while turning and stuff like that is pretty common. Things like that can lead to accidents when less experienced people are in close proximity. And unfortunately if your a jam skater oaks hates you even more cause apparently it's my job to watch every peron like im their parent. I don't mind taking responsibility if it's my fault. But to treat it like it's always my fault and only mine is ridiculous. And remember how i said they will change rules randomly here's a example. In just on session i was to told i can't JUMP AT ALL despite over half the people there were jumping and continued to throughout the night. Then i was told i can't have my feet over my head regardless of why. Then no going low to the ground. Then the most retarded one no skating on the toes of your boots. This wouldn't be as aggravating if everyone had to abide by it but were only targeting me. But to make it even better the last time i went there i asked a skate guard the rules. And the girl was nice and said as long as im in the middle i could do whatever. I don't know if it's just staff being rude because of my style or their being trained improperly.

Mad cool 65-year-old…just smooth with it!

I love this!! This makes me want to go skating

I remember the Rex skates at skate palace in Salem from the age of 9 back in the 80s/90s. I spent every weekend there – huge part of my childhood.