This story aired in the August 7, 2025 episode of Crosscurrents.
When you picture skateboarding in San Francisco, you may imagine people bombing down incredibly steep streets… or doing tricks at one of the city’s many skate parks.
But one local skateboarder is trying to give skateboarding a different reputation. The goal of his company, Skateable Cities, is to highlight the practical ways it can help you get around, as well as the mental health benefits.
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Story Transcript:
AARON BREETWOR: So we'll go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 *thunk* 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 *thunk* And we'll just do them in a straight line…
REPORTER: Aaron Breetwor is setting up several large orange traffic cones across the flat smooth ground of San Francisco’s Fulton Plaza. He’s making a course of sorts for beginning skaters. And he hopes passersby will take him up on his offer for a free lesson.
BREETWOR AND JASPER OHLSON: Do you guys wanna learn how to skate? Alright…Free lessons…! Five minute lessons…
REPORTER: Every 15 minutes or so, someone takes Aaron up on his offer. Like 5-year-old Olivia Bornheimer – with her dad proudly looking over from a few feet back.
BREETWOR: Now we're gonna go around these cones, okay? So we're gonna go – keep your eyes on the next cone ahead. Go into the toes…
REPORTER ALAA MOSTAFA: Do you have like a favorite way to skateboard, or not yet?
OLIVIA BORNHEIMER: I really like the knee-boarding…
REPORTER: Today, Olivia is practicing on a board with these oversized, bright red soft wheels. She’s wearing a purple helmet, and bending her knees, while Aaron slowly guides her in and out of the cones.
BREETWOR: Relax the arms. There we go… Into the toes… Okay, I'm gonna bring you around.
REPORTER: Olivia holds onto Aaron’s forearms for support while she practices turning her shoulders and looking in the direction she’s heading.
BREETWOR: Check this out. You can push me. If I go like this, can you push my hands for me? Push, push, push, push, push.
REPORTER: Olivia is the only student taking a lesson right now so the whole course is pretty much hers. A bunch of instructors and other skaters hang around too – skating, and catching up near a free water bottle and snacks table.
This is all part of the weekly free clinic that Aaron and his organization, called Skateable Cities, offer. It happens here at the plaza every Tuesday evening.
BREETWOR: We're right in the heart of everything. There's people wandering over to the Civic Center BART stop to head home from work…people who are just getting out of court…Um, people with nowhere to stay, people on their way to violin or guitar lessons…
REPORTER: The clinic is free to anyone who walks by. They do basic things like practicing rolling around on a board, turning, pushing, stopping – everything you need to know to use a skateboard to travel some distance.
BREETWOR: …The first lesson I teach in skateboarding is look where you want to go. Just using your eyes and your head, and your shoulders and your hips to express your intentions is how you steer on a skateboard…And bending your knees is all about being able to absorb turbulence. And operating with flexibility and clear intention can do a lot for you."
REPORTER: Aaron’s goal with the clinic is to make skateboarding approachable and useful for as many people as possible. That’s whether they’re a kiddo like Olivia, or an adult – like Katie, who came across the clinic on her way home from work.
KATIE: I've skated a little bit in college, but it was mostly on a penny board that I found on campus. And so I have a skateboard that was gifted to me from my boyfriend. And I've been trying to get back into it and learn how to approach it in a city like San Francisco that's so hilly and dense.
BREETWOR: We don't typically tell people to learn how to ride a bike by just getting on and going and riding a kilometer and then moving on to more advanced maneuvers. We spend a lot of time just getting the riding down. And that's just missed in skateboarding altogether.
REPORTER: All of this is to emphasize an even bigger mission – to convince folks and the city that skateboarding can be a reliable and accessible way to simply get around under the right conditions.
BREETWOR: You don't have to lock up a skateboard. You don't have to fix any flat tires on a skateboard. You can't hold a bike between your back and your backpack. And there’re people who just need a useful way to get around, and last mile solution that doesn't require fancy tools or pneumatic tires or a battery, or anything like that.
REPORTER: Aaron didn’t always think of skateboarding this way. He got into it like a lot of kids did in the late 90s…by playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater on PS1.
ARCHIVAL AUDIO OF TONY HAWK’S PRO SKATER TRAILER: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater… Now, everyone thinks they can skate like Tony…
REPORTER: He started with a regular board and tried to teach himself, but quickly hung it up. Then, when a family friend gave him his first board with softer wheels, he started skateboarding to school, and the rest was history.
BREETWOR: I still can't kickflip, and I don't particularly care. I don't care at all, actually.
REPORTER: On top of that, when he stopped focusing on tricks, he started noticing something else. Skateboarding was sort of a proxy for somatic therapy.
BREETWOR: Some people just come in with all kinds of tension. And so, getting them to figure out how to release it is sort of the goal.
REPORTER: Some examples of somatic movement are yoga, pilates, or some breathing exercises – anything that focuses on how the body feels when you're moving. Pushing around on a skateboard can be one of those things, too.
BREETWOR: A lot of somatic practices involve a guide at the front of a room, and a quiet space to operate in. And I think one thing that we're offering that is different from all other somatic therapies is that once you learn how to do this, you can do it on your way to anything else that you're doing. You can't do archery on your way to the bus stop, or on your way to the grocery store. And, you can't play golf on the way to go pick up your meds, or anything like that.
REPORTER: Long-time skateboarders I spoke with at Aaron’s clinic talked about skateboarding like it was a life-long spiritual practice. But of course, there’s the question of safety.
BREETWOR: People may have had only one experience with a skateboard that looks something like going to the top of their biggest hill in their town and trying to ride down and getting wobbles and falling, breaking their wrist, hitting their head…
REPORTER: Aaron tries to teach people how to reduce their risk of getting hurt while skating. He encourages helmets and wrist guards, and teaches people how to move with confidence. But skateboarding outside of a skate park is still fairly risky because of cars. So, Aaron’s also using Skateable Cities to push for skateboard-friendly city planning. That includes advocating for wider sidewalks, and for city laws that allow people to skateboard any time and anywhere.
In the meantime, they’re focusing on the Fulton Plaza skateboarding space, and students like Olivia, practicing on her own set of big red squishy wheels.
BREETWOR: …push. Push hard - as hard as you can. As hard as you can! Ah, I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going anywhere! *laugh*
But watch, as soon as I step in…Now, push as hard as you can...
I fall over like a leaf, like a twig! And so, same thing happens with you.
REPORTER: In San Francisco, I’m Alaa Mostafa, for Crosscurrents.
You can find more information about Skateable Cities by visiting @skateablecities, or www.skateablecities.com.
Special thanks to Ted Barrow, curator of the San Francisco Public Library's "Skateboarding San Francisco: Concrete, Community, Continuity."
