Our breakthrough video! We released Girls Can Ride 10 years ago, a month after creating a Facebook fan page called Longboard Girls Crew https://www.facebook.com/longboardgc/ .
Riders: Ana, Bea, Bego, Carla https://www.instagram.com/carla7th/ , Emma, Hännä, Jacky https://www.instagram.com/jackymadenfrost/ , María, Kati https://www.instagram.com/kati_torrebella/ , Maitane https://www.instagram.com/maitanerascon/ , Maryele https://www.instagram.com/maryelemr/ , Paula https://www.instagram.com/paulacarmonal/ , Sophie and Valeria https://www.instagram.com/valeriakechichian/ .
Director: Juan Rayos http://juanrayos.net
Our co-founder Valeria Kechichian, wrote some words about this video that would change it all. Hope you enjoy!
Is there a moment in our lives that is so crucial that can change the course of it forever? This happened to me and my life one morning in Madrid, after having a “crazy” idea and was trying to make it happen.
Ten years ago, longboarding was a relatively unknown sport for the mainstream population. It was during these past years when it became the worldwide phenomenon that it is today. But before all that, and before Longboard Girls Crew was a thing, we asked the then few girls who skated in Spain to do something that had never been done before: gather to record a female-exclusive longboarding video.
Today the concept seems somehow obvious after so many female videos and the insane exposure we have had through the years, but in August 2010 it was definitely not.
Back then we were 5 or 6 girls skating in Madrid. One day Jacky Madenfrost, one of the “veterans”, created the Facebook fan page and we both started to promote it within our circles. We wanted to find more girls to skate with or encourage them to start. We realized that when we got together the energy was different. Girls-only meant no pressure. We were used to skate exclusively with male-only crews so this was new and extremely nice.
Some weeks after, I think about gathering an all-female crew and shoot a video. I saw the guys were doing it and thought it was an obvious thing to do. We skated with Juan Rayos in the same spots he did so we asked him to shoot the video. We loved his work and were certain he would do something great.
We contacted all the girls and women we knew or heard of and asked them to come to Madrid on a Spring Saturday at 7.30am to cruise down the city.
Upon my arrival, I meet with 13 other women who were also freaking out and in ecstasy on meeting and realizing we were that many. There was something in the air, a sudden euphoria, something we were not expecting. We knew it would be special, but we didn’t know it would be that big.
They had come from everywhere: Cádiz, Cantabria, Barcelona, Basque Country, Zaragoza, Mallorca and even France. This was the first time we saw each other but there was an instant connection.
It’s hard to explain how being the only woman in a male-dominated sport or group feels. Of course it’s different to each person but to many women it comes with certain “pressure” to be up to the expectation, to fit in, to be fearless. Imagine a reverse situation of being the only man in a female-dominated sport… maybe there wouldn’t be as many boys skating. So suddenly feeling that instant support and no pressure was new and nice and perfect.
That feeling grew as we were cruising down Madrid. More euphoria. More screaming, more laughing and jumping while Juan filmed it all. We were teaching each other, holding hands, encouraging to try new things.
When we were done we all went for breakfast still in awe of what had just happened. How was the first time we did this? Why was this never been done before? That ecstasy lasted for weeks.
We released the video -Girls Can Ride- a few weeks later and the most amazing thing happened: it transcended the barriers of a skater audience and reached hundreds of thousands of people around the world. The reactions were unanimous. Women loved it because they felt seen, represented and encouraged. Men loved it because they’ve never seen so many women skating together and people outside the skate scene loved it because it was something they have never seen before.
When you see it you inevitably feel some of the euphoria we felt that day.
Our next videos would become even more viral, but the feeling of that first time is unique. There is something very pure, very authentic about that first meeting.
Without knowing it, we were opening the way for hundreds of thousands of girls and women to start skating.
And that, till date, it’s one of the most relevant things we’ve done.
Following this, Longboard Girls Crew and the female movement began to grow. We shifted into a movement that supports, promotes and empowers girls and women in sports and works on changing the sexualized way women have been portrayed so far. We have more than 20 million views in our videos, we shot two full-length documentaries that made it to several film festivals featuring female riders from all over the world and have done ads for Mercedes Benz, Casio, Starbucks and Bouygues Telecom among others. We’ve created communities in more than 60 countries and were featured in the most relevant media in the world. We created a non-profit and we travelled the world skating the most amazing spots and meeting extraordinary people. We’ve received thousands of messages from girls, women, trans, non-binary and men telling us we’ve inspired them to get a longboard and start skating… but I don’t know if any of these would have happened without that early Spring morning in Madrid where a group of 14 riders got together and connected in ways we never did before.
In Lewis Carrol’s words:
“Alicia asked: How long is it forever?
White Rabbit: Sometimes just a second”
That morning changed the course of my life forever.
Valeria Kechichian https://www.instagram.com/valeriakechichian/
LGC Co-founder and Director
Music: Go Outside – Cults
The Late Great Cassiopia – Essex Green
Tremendous Dynamite – Eels