Skaters Who Shaped Us – Darren Blocksidge

This time on Skaters Who Shaped Us, Darren Blocksidge returns to the blog to talk about the skater who influenced him early on. Darren is an artist from Worcester who dominates street spots. There are any number of parallels I could draw to describe his skating: Erik Ellington, Jaws and Jamie Foy all probably sum up the school of skating I associate with him, but the skater who influenced him is none of these. Once I knew who inspired Daz, it was incredibly obvious and I kicked myself for not figuring it out sooner. – Ade

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The skater who shaped me has to be Heath Kirchart. The style he carries is mental and the tricks he does are just the best. First time I saw him was in Emerica’s This Is Skateboarding: seeing a clip of his kickflip BS 5050 down the Blue rail blew my mind. I learnt that trick because of that part. 

It wasn’t really down to the way he dressed or anything, it was more like this is how I want to skate: Gnarly as fuck all the time! Always time to get buck, and always staying hesh. He’s always been rad, especially with his joint part with Jeremy Klein in The End. My god!! What a part!! Best Heath trick in that part is when they use a van to drive through a gate, and Heath rolls up and then does that FS Lipslide down a 22/23 stair handrail. It was fucking mental!