Lily Joiner (left) gets some skateboarding tips from Sophee Hills ahead of the proper lessons which start this week at Skatezone, Napier. Photo / Warren Buckland
Lily Joiner (left) gets some skateboarding tips from Sophee Hills ahead of the proper lessons which start this week at Skatezone, Napier. Photo / Warren Buckland
A trail-blazing skateboarder is making waves at the Napier's world-class roller sports park on Marine Parade.
Sophee Hills is turning heads and is aiming to change attitudes by teaching girls how to skate.
She gives free lessons every week at Napier's Bay Skate for girls aged 12 - 18.
Hillshas been skateboarding since 2019 and is helping other girls build the confidence to skateboard at a public skate park.
The 23-year-old said she had started skating with her sister and friends in Gisborne.
"We had no one to teach us, and we were just so scared to go to the skatepark alone," Hills said.
While in Gisborne, Hills and her friends were inspired by Amber Clyde, founder of Girls Skate NZ, who lives in Auckland and teaches girls to skate. They started a girl's group to encourage more girls to get down to the skate park, and so they could provide a safe space for them.
"They could skate with us and not have to be alone," she said.
Hills didn't think teaching girls skateboarding would become a job, but she hoped it would.
As a qualified hairdresser, she always had that to fall back on if coaching girls skateboarding didn't work out.
Sport Hawke's Bay and the Tū Manawa Fund have helped develop Shred Sessions, a 10-week learn-to skate programme focusing on 12 - 18-year-old girls and non-binary young people.
The lessons could be a way to introduce more girls to what has predominantly been a male world.
"Girls are scared to come out and skate because they get judged by boys who comment, 'Oh you can't skate, like can you even kickflip, can you even olly?'
"A boy asked me a week ago (after seeing her girls' Shred Sessions skateboarding lessons poster on the wall at Bay Skate) 'When's boys' night?' and I said, 'are there any girls [skating] outside?' He said 'no', I said 'exactly - every day is boys' day, we need a girl's day and girls' night.'"
Hills is frustrated by attitudes towards girls skating.
"So many times, I get asked if I can do tricks, and I have to prove myself even though I shouldn't have to; this is the annoying thing," she said.
Hills says skating is something she can do anywhere, alone or with friends.
"It helps to clear my mind and makes me feel free and happy".
A girls-only skating competition would go a long way towards changing attitudes, she said.
Bay Skate says its goal is to promote skateboarding as a fun and accessible activity that provides a lifelong enjoyment of physical activities.
If Hills' lessons become popular, her dream is to go to the Olympics, not as a skater but as a coach.
One day Hills hopes to be as good as some of the skaters in Hawke's Bay.
"I think I will be; we'll see," she said.
Girls-only Shred Sessions are free on Thursdays 5pm-7pm, Saturdays 10am-noon, and Sundays noon-2pm, and will run for 10 weeks. If you would like to join in, just turn up at one of the sessions.
