Photos and Text By Gunther Estrada
It has has been 6 months since my latest injury but finally with the help of my robotic knee brace I was able to push down the streets once again. It was a sunny Sunday morning and Hali had organized a street session in Downtown LA with some of the Choncordia crew; Am’s Luie Isais and Leon “Schwarzenegger” and a couple of well know veterans in this game Giancarlo Zavalaga and Sebastian Arrieta.
I knew this was going to be a killer session and overall a good time with the homies, after packing all the required gear we hit the road to the city of homeless… I mean Angels.
Diving north the 405 on our way to Downtown we got a call from our JSLV friend Andre “Bobo” who met with us later at the Staple Center buttery ledges, this amazing spot has ledges all over the place and we got to skate and film there for a good hour as a warm up spot for the soon to come downtown session. On our way to the next spot Louie got told about this big eight set around the corner, he had no other reaction than pushing his way over to check it out and after a smooth 180 frontside first try we found ourselves surrounded by security people.
Continuing with the cruising we skated down on 7th street onto this crowded intersection and got the chance to take a few photos and to film Marissa, Luie, Giancarlo and Hali at this 3 stair corner spot. The busy street claim the soul of Luie’s board and we had few other “almost” wood fatalities but casualties aside I knew everyone felt good about this session.
A perfect Sunday was about to end; Skating, getting kicked out and chilling with friends made me feel alive again, from spot to spot and a few casual encounters with some crazy people got me thinking…We should be doing this more often.
Giancarlo, Leon, Luie, Hali and Sebastian before going DT.
Luie setting up a new board
Leon Ollie
Hali and the big Coke.