If you’re a skateboarder living in Borneo or perhaps anywhere in Malaysia, you should have a fair knowledge about this spot, from being a “who cares?!” for years, to a “oh shit, lets make documentaries about this place!” in just a few months. The progression has been an amazing story of Kuching skateboarders’ independent community and social development. Myth started almost 10 years ago, led by RVM’s own Joseph Romey, Ashly Nandong, myself with the help of skateboarders around King Center’s neighborhoods from Tabuan Dayak, Tabuan Jaya, Bayang Estate, who are now leading the continuos progression of the park- Gary Abraham, Chary, Brandon, Jason Ma to name a few and a strong number of new recruits who are equally eager to build what they’ve always wanted to have.
Kuching has always have skateboarders and we all long for a proper park where we could just skate and hangout, but that, even today is just a fantasy. I personally was involved in pitching in on behalf of fellow skateboarders about the issue of a skatepark in our beloved hometown to the authority, and what did we get? A disaster, a display of waste of taxpayers money and everyone’s time- you know exctly what I mean. As we were doing that, we kept on hearing skateparks were being built in other cities, except for ours. So why sit and wait while you can do it yourself? D.I.Y park is not something new in Kuching, people just didn’t care about it and they were destroyed when they were at their prime time. I remember watching the municipal truck bulldozed a pyramid ledge that I helped built with Joseph Naun at Chermai Jaya campus, our rails and boxes at Kenyalang carpark taken away, MBKS, Pending, Sg Maong, Serian, Batu 12, and even at King Center itself- it was at 2 different spots in King Center before it moved to where it is now. Most of these spots are gone and forgotten except for few of them because of what were left for among the skateboarders, by those who built it. King Center’s Myth park has seen plenty of reconstructions and it was never abandoned, because such a positive vibe at the spot was established and it was too strong to leave and even when it was only left with a rotting platform for a manny pad, it still got beating from rolling wheels on the tiled floors. After I left town in 2005, so did the rest of RVM crew who created Myth park. I was told that the scene was dead, but was pleasantly surprised to see that there were kids skating the park when I went back to visit in 2008- just learning because they couldn’t do it when the park was packed, and now that it’s almost empty they took the opportunity to skate as much as they could. These kids, thinking that they’re only learning how to skate, in my opinion had helped to keep skateboarding alive at Myth. Over the years, they’ve gotten a lot better and the older guys came back to skate the park and were amazed by how good they got. Next thing you know, they started building again, more and much better obstacles than before.
This year, Myth is in the spotlight of many fronts, in the media, it’s an underground social revolution for Kuching’s skate scene. Building of obstacles were done progressively- with only a couple things in April, to all concrete obstacles including spine, quarterpipes, jump ramp, pole jams, ledge and manny pad today. The support was superb from fellow skaterboarders from all over Kuching, the rest of Sarawak, KK, and KL. 2 contests had already been held since the park had a new face, local newspapers, radio, and tv were all hyped in covering the events and in getting to know how did Myth do it! I’m equally stoked about it especially knowing what we started years ago is now getting to where we wanted it to be. I followed the progression of Myth like a fucking stock broker watching the indexes trends, and still am today as much as I can. I’d like to thank the whole Myth community for making it happening, epecially to the person who is responsible in igniting the d.i.y spirits among Myth skaters- Ashly Nandong.
You most likely have read all the coverage and seen the pics and interview about Myth’s success this year. But what interest me more is its future. Myth has set a standard that has never been seen in Kuching’s skateboarding scene. The party has started and it’s now just gonna get better and better? Of course! because they’ve been in it since the beginning, they all brought their own beers, share among themselves, enjoy the same kinda jams, and they welcome everyone. The Myth party is not the kinda party that’ll last forever, it can get busted anytime just like the other parties we had at Chermai, etc, but that does not mean anything! because we brought the spirit of the party we started to wherever we go and start a new one. Job well done and keep going guys!D.I.Y or DIE!
here’s a montage of Myth taken from its facebook page courtesy of Myth’s own Donald Gani:
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