Image via Palace Gap

Have you seen the new PALACE GAP ads and video featuring our team rider Anna Shea? Shot in and around iconic spots in San Francisco, these visuals are not just stunning; they're a testament to the growing influence of skateboarding culture. The video, filled with vibrant adventures, makes you feel like you're on an epic skate trip with these young skaters, including Anna, who plays a significant role in this campaign.

Image via Palace Gap

 Anna makes her first appearance in this super cool video, which features many of your favorite legendary skaters: Elissa Steamer, Karl Watson, and Tommy Guerrero, and Palace skaters Kanin Garner, Jamal Smith, Heitor Da Silva, and Jahmir Brown.

We were honored when Gap came to us to help find the skater girl for this shoot. After quite a few remote auditions, Anna ended up getting the part, and we could not be happier for her. At just nine years old, she absolutely held her own throughout the two days of filming.

Girl is NOT a 4 Letter Word team riders Maya and Anna celebrating the PALACE GAP launch

When the PALACE GAP collection was unveiled, it was a moment of celebration and unity. Anna, along with her PALACE GAP mates, rolled out to the original Gap store on Market Street in San Francisco. The surprise arrival of her Girl is NOT a 4 Letter Word teammate, Maya Kenny, added to the joy and camaraderie of the event, showcasing the strong bonds within the skateboarding community.

Image via Palace Gap

Now we have some other great news!

Moving forward this year, Gap has provided a financial grant to Girl is NOT a 4 Letter Word to help us do what we love: support girls and women in skateboarding!

Look out for more of our support for indie projects and special events that give back to the skate community. 

First up is the annual Chica de Mayo all-girls skate event on May 18th in New Jersey; this event is put on by team rider sixteen-year-old Zoe Herishen, who has, for the past eight years, thrown a fantastic East Coast skate event to help teach and encourage girls to get out and skate together. We have sent some special Girl is NOT a 4 Letter Word give-a-ways that will only be at this event, so you don't want to miss it!

Thanks to Gap for this fantastic opportunity and your belief in what we do! Stay tuned to see what we have planned next with Gap’s support!!

Filmed in 2023 this is Francesca Shuda with her first full part dedicated to Street Skating in Philadelphia and the surrounding areas.

This part also welcomes Francesca Shuda to the Kinetic Skateboarding Team.

From Kinetic Skateboarding: "We had the opportunity to have Francesca become a part of Kinetic's shop team, even though it feels like she had always been a part of the crew! This girl has put in time, work and effort since showing up a couple of years ago at a Wilmington Skate Birds meetup. Since then she's gone on to be sponsored by Meow Skateboards and 187 Killer Pads. Aside from her just ripping it up whether in the park, streets or comps, she also is just a very kind and sweet person, and is always a friendly face at the park from Philly to Delaware and everywhere in between. As much as she wants to succeed, she wants others to succeed right alongside with her. Congratulations Francesca!! You deserve it."

Filmed & Edited by Jimmy Shuda. Animation by Calista Tussey. Thumbnail photo by Justin Mondschein.

We are BIG fans of TOGETHXR and they have just released a rad video on one of our favorite street skaters, Chloe Covell.

Chloe Covell just gets better with age. The 13 year old made X Games history as the youngest women’s street gold medalist earlier this year. Prior to that, she became the youngest skater with two podium finishes in competition history. Now she looks ahead to represent her country of Australia at the Paris Olympics and continue her impressive run. Already with sponsors from Nike SB and Oakley, TOGETHXR caught up with one of the hottest street skater in the world.

Make sure you grab the February 2024 Issue of THRASHER Magazine, because Girl is NOT a 4 Letter Word team rider, nine-year-old Anna Shea, has a quarter page photo in it. Anna is blasting a backside air in Newark, CA. The rad image was taken by Busenhart.

Congrats Anna!!

We love seeing mainstream luxury brands like Golden Goose support female skateboarders. Take a trip to China in the latest episode and meet skater Zhang Xin who shares her incredible story of discovery, transformation, and resilience.

Zhang Xin is a Chinese skateboarder. She has competed in women's park events at several World Skateboarding Championships, finishing 19th in 2018 and 25th in 2019. Zhang placed fifteenth in the preliminary round of the women's park event at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.

Watch to see what she is up to next!

Atita Verghese is India’s foremost female skater. She discovered skateboard culture through the country’s Holystoked crew who built India’s first DIY skatepark in Bangalore. As soon as she set foot on a board, her life changed forever- and she has never looked back.

In 2014, Atita founded Girl Skate India, an NGO which encourages young women to follow her path into the great big world of skateboarding for themselves.

Atita is an inspiration to women worldwide- but especially in India, a nation of a billion souls where skating is still in its infancy. Having learned how to mix concrete and shape transitions with the Holystoked collective, she has worked on the majority of skatepark builds throughout her home country to this day.

Along the way, skateboarding has seen her feature in many adverts, a TED talk, landed her roles in movies and even a cameo appearance in the Netflix show Skater Girl.

In a society where opportunities for girls to be free of social constraints and have fun are thin on the ground, Atita does more than just provide boards, pads or lessons- she has created a one-woman movement.

That has to be something worth checking out.

Nora Vasconcellos has paved the way for women In skate to do more than just the contest circuit. Nora has created a path where women, like the male skaters before them, can shoot video parts, have lucrative brand deals and skate for the fun of it. The days of thinking the Olympics are the only big dream for female skaters is being changed - thanks to Nora.

Skateboarder and YETI athlete Nora Vasconcellos joins The Lineup. She talks about her barrier-breaking career, from becoming the first woman signed to the Adidas Skate Team and putting out her film “Nora” to designing her signature shoe and landing the cover of Thrasher Magazine. She discusses her love of surfing and the crossovers between it and skateboarding, her favorite surfers today, and being inspired by Stephanie Gilmore and Carissa Moore as a kid. Nora also touches on gender equality in sports, advice to girl groms, skateboarding’s rawness and playfulness, the toughest trick she learned, and working with YETI.

Nike asked girls and all-star athletes like Jordan Chiles, Rayssa Leal, and Bebe Vio how they tackled obstacles that made them want to quit sport. Listen in as they share stories, inspire one another, and tell each other, “You Got This.”

We love seeing our team riders Quinne Daniels and Briel Weingartner featured in these NIKE spots along with South Bay surfer/skater Teagan Meza and pro skaters Rayssa Leal, Leticia Bufoni as well as Venice local, skater/influencer Brooklinn Khoury.

Watch this next video to hear what Quinne has to say aboutow skateboarding has helped her with fitting in - powerful stuff!

The next generation of Aussie athletes are defining victory on their own terms - playing free and celebrating fearlessly. Because they know that victory isn’t only found in the final. It’s found in the little moments that feel monumental. ️ The next generation of Aussie athletes are defining victory on their own terms - playing free and celebrating fearlessly. Because they know that victory isn’t only found in the final. It’s found in the little moments that feel monumental.

The film celebrates young women and girls redefining sport on their terms. The film showcases the Matildas’ celebration song as the soundtrack and an invitation to all young Australians to re-imagine what it means to be victorious and to celebrate their victories fearlessly.The short film features the next generation of female Aussie athletes, including skateboarding phenom, Chloe Covell.

If you did not catch Chloe at the X Games in Ventura, CA you need to watch the recap of her runs - she is amazing and should definitely be on your radar!

Make sure you watch closely to see surfing (and golf) prodigy Sierra Kerr featured!

This new book  “Skateboarding, Power and Change”  is a must-read for any skateboarder, especially “non-traditional” skaters. Written by Indigo Willing and Anthony Pappalardo (both skaters themselves), it includes interviews with change-makers and industry insiders to help shed light on how social, cultural, and political change is happening in skateboarding today.

The book starts from the beginning, documenting skateboarding’s infancy, and continues showcasing a timeline that is an in-depth look at skateboarding’s long history. No topic is off limits, and the authors interview the non-traditional skateboarders who helped create change and who were and are, at the forefront of making skateboarding more inclusive as we move forward.

Interviews with female skaters such as; Amelia Brodka, Cindy Whitehead, Peggy Oki, Lynn Kramer, Alex White, and more are insightful and honest in their assessment of skateboarding through the years.

If you are interested in skateboarding history, knowing its deep roots, and learning about the skaters and companies who pushed for change, you need to order this book.

Available now at:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Walmart

You may have caught Arisa Trew’s HERstory making 720 in our recap video of Tony Hawk’s Vert Alert, but if you didn’t, or just want to watch herstory being made again, you can catch it here. We decided that when INSIDE EDITION decides to talk about a female skateboarder , that is the one we want to run with - pretty big deal as Arisa is everywhere these days getting the praise she deserves for her remarkable feat!

Arisa has inspired and shown skater girls everywhere that this is possible. We bet we will see many more girls in the coming year push to add this trick to their Olympic Qualifying runs.

Congrats Arisa!!

Yumeka Oda and Momiji Nishiya at Sanrio headquarters (C) 2023 SANRIO CO., LTD.

Press Release: TOKYO, April 25, 2023 -- Sanrio Company, Ltd. headquartered in Tokyo, is pleased to announce that it has signed sponsorship agreements with Japanese female skateboarders Momiji Nishiya and Yumeka Oda, effective April 21, 2023. Through these agreements, Sanrio hopes to support young athletes in their challenges and strengthen its corporate brand in North America and other global markets.

As part of the agreements, both athletes will use decks with Hello Kitty and Sanrio logo stickers to compete in various tournaments and competitions, starting with one of the world's most prestigious, premier action sporting events, "X Games Chiba 2023" (May 12-14 in Chiba, Japan).

Momiji Nishiya - photo via Sanrio

Momiji Nishiya - Born on August 30, 2007, in Osaka, Japan. She is the first gold medalist in the TOKYO 2020 Skateboard Women's Street event. At the same time, she became the youngest Japanese skater ever to win a gold medal at the age of 13 years and 10 months. She started skateboarding at the age of 6, influenced by her older brother, and within 7 years of starting to compete, she joined the ranks of the world's top-class skaters. With the motto of "smile and have fun until the end," she has won the world's most prestigious contests such as X Games and Dew Tour, and is also eager to create video parts on street skating.

Yumeka Oda

Yumeka Oda - Born on October 30, 2006, in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, she started skateboarding at the age of 7. In 2022, she represented Japan at the Pro Tour organized by World Skate. She also won in Street League Skateboarding, the most prestigious competition in the world, and scored 9.4, that is the highest score for a single trick in women's history and the first time in women's skating history to score in the 9-point range. The disappointment of missing out on TOKYO 2020 has propelled her to be one of the leading candidates of the next generation who are expected to achieve great things at the next Games.

Poster via N-Men The Movie

Get ready for a great documentary film featuring the men and women who paved the way!

“In 1975 the Z-Boys came to life in Dogtown. That same year in Northern California, the N-Men were formed. The Z-Boys only lasted 3 years. The N-Men and women have never stopped and have had a global impact on the world of skateboarding. Their story has never been told. Until now.”

We love that three of our Girl is NOT a 4 Letter Word sponsored skaters over the years are featured in this film - congrats to Beverly Flood, Kat Folsom and Judi Oyama!

This film by James Sweigert was eleven years in the making and just won the LAFA film award here in Los Angeles - so you don’t want to miss this!

See the film and meet some of the N-Men (and women) in Sacramento when the film shows at The Crest Theater on June 2nd and 3rd!

In 2021 our team rider, Minna Stess, made history when she became the youngest female national skateboarding champion, but what you may not know is, her driving force to compete came from a deal she made with her father to get the gaming PC of her dreams.

Relive this historic moment retold by Minna Stess, ANIMATED!

Maybe you’ve heard? The US Post Office has issued skateboard stamps!

The “Art of the Skateboard” collection features four different stamps created by indigenous artists (and skaters) Di’Orr Greenwood, Crystal Worl, James Taylor Jr., and Federico “MasPaz” Frum,

Crystal Worl, an Alaskan artist used a blue and indigo salmon formline design to express her Tlingit/Athabascan heritage.

William James Taylor Jr, a self-taught Virginia artist created an energetic red and orange graphic abstraction.

Federico “MasPaz” Frum, a Colombian-born, Washington, D.C.-raised muralist painted a stylized jaguar.

Di’Orr Greenwood, of Arizona represented her Navajo culture with a turquoise-inlaid skateboard that features eagle feathers and colors of the rising or setting sun.

Art director Antonio Alcalá designed the stamp issuance, using photographs of skateboards created for these stamps.

The stamps, which will have a printing of 18 million, are now available at your local post offices and also on the USPS website - so it’s easy to get these collectors items! We can only hope we gets some mail with one of these rad stamps on it!

In honor of International Women's Day The Berrics presents an inside look into one of the most skilled and influential female skaters of our generation, Mariah Duran. An olympian, a photographer, a traveler, and most of all, a skateboarder. Mariah has one of the most established careers in the game, so come along with us as we spend a day with her to find out WHO IS Mariah Duran? Mariah Duran, the Albuquerque, NM local, is what you'd call a professional. Multiple major contest wins, stellar video parts, and one of the best trick selections in the game,

Mariah has been blowing up since her first @XGames appearance in 2015. Mariah has podiumed at multiple @SLS contests, skated in the 2020 @Olympics has 2 X Games gold medal, and back-to-back @USASkateboarding National Championships. She's supported by some of the industries biggest sponsors including @meowskateboards , @adidasSkateboarding , @thundertrucks @BonesBearings and @MountainDew.

We are happy that on International Women’s Day this video of our BFF, Judi Oyama, has dropped!

Meet Judi Oyama, a 63-year-old skateboarder who has been ripping the streets and skateparks for decades. As a pioneer of the sport, Judi was there for the inception of Independent Trucks and helped recruit many notable names to the Santa Cruz Skateboards team.

But Judi's love for skateboarding doesn't stop there. To this day, she still competes in slalom competitions, and is even a member of the US Slalom Skateboarding team.

In addition, Judi holds onto a treasure trove of skateboarding memorabilia, including rare boards, vintage magazines, and more.

Join us as we dive into the inspiring story of this skateboarding legend and learn how she continues to push the limits and break barriers in the world of skateboarding, while preserving its rich history for future generations to enjoy.

Pro Tip: keep your eyes out for a guest appearance by our Girl is NOT a 4 Letter Word team rider, Minna Stess

Join SkatePal for a month or two between April and September 2023 and help with the running of skateboarding classes!

Based either in Asira Ash-Shamaliya or Ramallah, you’ll be helping local skaters with the running of skateboarding classes for the local community. Some skateboarding experience is required, but you don’t have to be an expert - as long as you’re comfortable teaching others!

We especially encourage applications from female skaters to support the growing scene in Palestine - our participants' gender split is around 41% female : 59% male and we’re hoping to keep bringing it closer to 50:50 or beyond.

Volunteers who speak Arabic will be prioritized, but we’re open to anyone willing to learn as they go!

To find out more go to SKATEPAL

A really nice video piece from SLS on street skaters, Rayssa Leal, Keet Oldenbeuving, Aori Nishimura, Poe Pinson, and Chloe Covell. They speak about who has inspired them, the growth of women's skateboarding and where it will go from here! Prepare to be inspired by these incredible skaters!!