In skateboarding you decide for yourself what kind of style you want to learn and how far you want to progress your skills. Likewise in Falun Gong practitioners also decide for themselves to what extent they would like to participate and how far they want to walk on their own path of cultivation.

Skateboarders enjoy riding their boards, knowing out of their own experience the stoke and good feelings it will bring them; helping them to stay fit and young in their hearts. Falun Gong-practitioners likewise enjoy performing the exercises because they can feel their positive effect and know that they can help them to stay healthy and rejuvenate their bodies.

Another similarity is, that skateboarders as well as practitioners of Falun Gong sometimes face the difficulty of not being fully understood by other people in society. Qigong only started to surface widely in China in the 1970ˋs and skateboarding experienced a wide spread boom in the USA around the same time due to the invention of wheels made out of urethane. Given their relatively short period of public presence, people usually don’t know much about their real potential and tend to wonder why one would invest that much time in rolling around on boards (especially if you are an adult) or to perform strange looking movements in parks, as the benefits of these activities can only be felt by the ones performing them.

Being aware of all these similarities, let's now imagine that skaters would have to face the same difficulties practitioners of Falun Gong have encountered in China:

Imagine that you were suddenly no longer able to skate in the skatepark or at your favorite spot, because the government would prohibit you to skate from now on; no matter where. Imagine you were prohibited from reading your loved skateboard magazines and having no access to skateboarding content on the internet. Imagine the government would propagate everywhere how skateboarding is an evil cult, that is only causing damage to yourself and is threatening society. Imagine hearing all kinds of lies made up by this slanderous propaganda every day through your television or on the radio or constantly reading this in the newspapers. Imagine your friends or relatives looking at you reproachfully, while you are just being a part of something you have found to be good. Imagine state authorities forcing you to renounce skateboarding in a public declaration, sending you to so called re-education camps or sentencing you to prison, if you wouldn’t cooperate.

With the heart of a true skater, wouldn’t you want to keep on skating and trying to clarify the truth you know about skateboarding to the government and to all people around you in hope of ending this madness? If the government would then catch you during a peaceful appeal or truth clarification effort, sentencing you to prison or a labor camp, where you would be severely tortured; wouldn’t you want other people to speak out for skateboarding in an effort to end the persecution?

That’s exactly what Falun Gong-practitioners have been facing all these years and how they counteracted in a non-violent and peaceful way. A lot of people have already shown their support in an effort to help Falun Gong. And this persecution will definitely end one day. But until then every voice and righteous action is needed to help raising awareness of what is happening in China and to shorten the time this suppression will last.

Looking at it from this perspective, we as skaters should be able to feel and comprehend very well how this persecution affects people that are practicing Falun Gong. "Skateboarding with Truth Kindness Endurance" is meant to encourage the community of skaters to show their solidarity and to take a stance against the persecution of people who are representing these principles.

If you would like to learn more about the persecution and how you can help, you can find up to date information here:

Falun Dafa Info Center

Falun Dafa Info Center Europe

Friends of Falun Gong