Yoshio Kinoshita is living proof that you can teach an old dog new tricks.
The 81-year-old rides the ramps at his local skate park in Osaka almost every morning, picking up tips from skateboarders decades younger than him.
“They are all my teachers,” said Kinoshita, who worked as a technician in the construction industry before retiring.
Photo: Reuters
He still works part time as an attendant in a bicycle parking lot.
“At first I was holding on to the railing,” he said, before he progressed to mastering a 180-degree turn and other tricks.
Kinoshita picked up skateboarding just two years ago, when he bought a board he saw at a market selling unclaimed goods left on the railway.
LIFE-CHANGING BUY
The ￥800 (US$7.13) skateboard was a spur of the moment purchase that changed the Japanese octogenarian’s life.
In a country that has the most aged society in the world, with more than 35 percent of its population expected to be 65 and older by 2050, Kinoshita recommended skateboarding as a way to prevent dementia.
“It’s a sport with a sense of tension,” he said. “Rather than zoning out, I think skateboarding improves the ability to think even just by a little bit.”
“For [old] people like me who try to learn new things, if we don’t practice it little by little every day we will forget how to do it immediately,” he said. “That’s why I think I have to [come here] and practice every day.”
Kinoshita, who has two children and two grandchildren, said he watched skateboarders at the Tokyo Olympics this summer in awe. All three medalists in the women’s street skateboarding competition at the Games were in their teens, including the country’s own gold medalist, 13-year-old Momiji Nishiya.
“They are really incredible,” Kinoshita said. “To be honest, I can’t beat those five-year-old, four-year-old or three-year-old kids. That’s for sure.”
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