My Erasmus Adventure at Start Skate School - Leslie from the Netherlands
My name is Leslie and I’m a sport student from the Netherlands. This article is about my Erasmus adventure with StartSkate, how I came across with StartSkate and my experience in Valencia as a skateboarder and student.
Why Valencia?
After a period of being abroad in 2020 I always had the urge to go abroad again and this year I got the opportunity to do it. As a sport student I had to enroll for a minor, which is a specialization within my study. I choose the minor Sport Business Innovation and together with my girlfriend we chose to go to Valencia, Spain. We knew Valencia had a great atmosphere and sport infrastructure. As a sport
student that’s an interesting place to be in.
Meeting Start Skate
After I did some research I came across StartSkate and I contacted them. I knew I wanted to do something with skateboarding because it’s been my passion for over 15 years. After a couple months of filling out paperwork and being in contact with Wojtek, the owner of StartSkate, I flew to Valencia.
After a week of getting used to my ‘new home’, neighborhood and new city, I had the first meeting with Wojtek and the team. It felt natural. And with all being skateboarders, it clicked immediately. I felt integrated within the StartSkate team really quickly and I got involved with a
lot of skateboarding classes. I learned a lot of tips & tricks during the classes, in the sense of safety and diversity in exercises and games. Which can be very useful for the skateboarding classes that I teach in the Netherlands.
My assignment within Sport Business Innovation is to come up with something new and innovative for a company. In conversations with Wojtek we spoke about my project and what could be helpful and innovative for StartSkate. We came up with a plan to work on a teacher
manual and evaluation program to give every instructor of StartSkate the same basic level and vision.
By teaching classes and being outside, I got to experience the atmosphere of the city. Not just the atmosphere, but also the entire energy within sports and my personal preference in skateboarding.
The skateboarding scene in Valencia
The skateboarding atmosphere and the many skate spots are amazing and gets you to use and improve your creativity, technique and overall level of skateboarding. I improved my skills every week and felt like I needed to be in a different environment, different compared to my local
skatepark in the Netherlands. I had a couple of skate spots where I skated most frequently in my spare time. These can be seen in the pictures below.
Final words
I enjoyed being a part of the StartSkate team and I learned a lot which I’m taking with me back to the Netherlands. I learned how to be creative during classes with adapting in certain situations, working with instructors and what it takes to be an instructor. I also experienced what it’s like to work on marketing during my participation in the marketing team for Escuala de Verano (summer camp).
The fact that I got to learn inside an international environment as part of my Erasmus adventure helped me a lot professional wise and gave me a lot of intel on what it’s like to run a skateboard school. I hope we’ll keep working together in the future and have many more amazing projects.
If you'd like to be part of our team and have your own Erasmus experience with us, read this post and send us an email. Looking forward to hearing from you!
Read about Yasmin's Erasmus experience here.
