Skateboarding is fun. Having a stranger tell you how to skate better every time you go out does not sounds fun, at all. For this month’s Rules Of Skateboarding, Ian Browning talks with Briana King on the do’s and don’ts of giving advice to a skater.

What is the worst well intentioned advice somebody has given you at a spot or a skatepark?

Let’s say I'm learning how to do a trick switch—this is something that happened recently. So I'm learning how to switch flip right now and they're trying to tell me how to kickflip. I’m like “Yo, it’s switch.” Even when I'm pushing, I'm just like, bro. Nobody pushes mad normal all the time. Sometimes you just look crazy and have a wide push. I'm like, I don't need you to follow me to tell me how to push correctly.

Is it usually unsolicited?

100%. Every single time.

Why do you think you get so much uninvited advice from other skaters?

Because I'm a girl and they probably want to talk to me. And they don't understand how to like speak to me otherwise. I know, you just want to talk to me. You can just say hello. You don’t need to give me tips, bro.

Briana is actually good on your kickflip tips, thanks.

Yeah, it’s a weird icebreaker. So I guess on the flip side of that: What do you think is the best way for skaters to be welcoming to someone that they don't know who shows up to skate? Instead of coming up and trying to give unsolicited tips?

Oh, I feel like sometimes I feel uncomfortable to say hello to someone because not everybody wants to talk, but it’s not intimidating to say “Hi, how are you doing?” I feel like when I see that someone is working on a trick, because I know that a lot of people that are beginners do want help, I’ll just be like, “Hey, are you working on anything at the moment?” Like, do you need help? Or do you want help with anything at the moment? And almost every single time, someone wants help. Even if someone's a crazy skater, better than me, I'm like, “Hey, what are you learning right now?” If you don’t know how to say hello, you can just be like, “Are you trying to learn any tricks right now?” It’s pretty similar.

So what about cool-guying people? Do you think that essentially being ignored is also something that intimidates beginners or people that are just getting out into parks or spots for the first time?

I think the cool guy thing is weird. I haven't experienced that. I saw that people will say that about me: I can go on chats online or search my name, and they're like, I saw Briana King at the skatepark and she didn't say hi to me, or she was really short with me. I feel like a lot of the time people that have a pretty good following or are just really good skaters, you get overwhelmed by everyone talking to you the whole entire time. And you just want to go to the park and skate. Just because you're in a public area doesn’t mean you want to be doing public person things. It's just overwhelming. It took me a long time to know that it's okay not to have a full long conversation with everyone. I feel like people misunderstand that. It's just like, no, I'm just tired of talking all the time. I just wanted to go outside and skate. I think that happens to a lot of people.

Sometimes you don’t wanna talk, you wanna slappy 5050 front shove.

I always wonder what percentage of cool-guying comes from not wanting to talk to people, as opposed to people that only hang out with the same social circle and aren't great at socializing with new people.

It's hard for a lot of people to socialize outside their circle. And it's not necessarily that they don't want to, it's just difficult when they're very comfortable within their own circle.

Yeah, exactly. So you've said in the past that you're an introvert. Was it tough for you to then switch over to being the ringleader when meetups started to get really big?

No. At that point the only thing I had to speak about was skateboarding, and I knew enough about skateboarding where I felt comfortable speaking. I feel like I ended up being an introvert because I was so insecure. Spanish is my first language, it's kind of hard for me to speak English. I'm basically like the only child—I have a sister that’s 11 years older that suffered with depression and wouldn’t let me in her room, and a mama that was never home—and it was just always just really uncomfortable. So I feel like I was accidentally an introvert. And [skating] really showed me how to socialize a lot better. Skateboarding was just the topic that introduced me to being comfortable speaking.

Hopefully the world mellows out and the meetups can resume.

How have the meetups been going in the past year since this pandemic has gone down?

They're pretty non-existent. I'll reach out to a few super duper beginners and meet up here and there with our masks and stuff. But I feel like I've just created a new space on TikTok, where I just uploaded hundreds of trick tips for beginners, like, how to get on your skateboard, how to push, how to do everything.

It does suck that we can't do it in person. But I've reached a new audience online, where I can still teach and do everything that I wanted to do. Honestly, I was super self-conscious again when it came to creating content, or how-to videos. And since I was no longer able to have meetups in person, I felt like, not forced, but I really still wanted to teach and I was like, okay, now I really have to do this online. And now I don't care. I'm not insecure about uploading these videos. I'm like, okay, I'm good at this. Everyone understands what I have to say. And it's not that hard.

You've been doing these meetups for a few years now. I'm curious if you have an end game. Are you trying to work in the industry? Is this all for fun? What's the goal? Or is there a goal?

What is the goal? I guess throughout my meetups, I had traveled around the world. And after I leave, I continue to help other people continue the meetups, help them with flyers, teach them how to run their own meetups. The only reason why I was doing this was just to get more people skateboarding. And I have no other intentions for my meetups. I have plenty of other work that I do outside of skateboarding, like producing and directing on shoots and smiling. So that’s what's always been on my mind, and this has always been just a hobby of mine, and accidentally turned into a job.

To keep up with Briana’s meetups or for trick tips, you can follow her on TikTok or on Instagram

Interview by Ian Browning

Artwork by Charlotte Tegan

Editing by Max Harrison-Caldwell

THE RULES OF SKATEBOARDING #16: BRIANA KING