As i was a beginner myself, 8) i always insisted that we do the thursday sessions on EASY spots.
i'm always hooking passerbies, those who look happy at seeing us: "- want to try ?", and i suppose i'm not too bad at showing how to push for the first time. Even old people, they say "- Oh no, really, i would hurt myself, i couldn't" but everybody's happy. i invite friends on the sessions.
But the main part is longskaters we drag from the Riderz.net forum, that's good ones, they already know how to ride, all they need to learn is pumping. So lesson N°1 would be not to cut the links with the downhill nation. infiltrate their events is also a good idea, each time we put down cones on a DH event we sell a few decks in the neighborhood in the following monthes, of course we bring much more decks than we need.
Cops, i actually don't remember ever having problems with them [we had them bothering about yhe way our cars were parked on the spot sometimes]. DownHill riders do: if the cop thinks you're about to kill yourself he has to do something...
...Our cops are not your cops...
However a winning tactic is to set up on spots where rollerskaters are already accepted. Which is also good for other reasons: that's generally nice places to meet people and convert them, if it's flat and a narrow set-up, it'll do much better... And it replaces the image of the sport closer to other "normal" practices.
Fear: i have this point of view that fear is useful, when fear tells you you should not do one thing, it's probably right. i say it, and so people feel welcome to tell when they are afraid.
it's like in ski and snowboard: everybody ends up on tracks much too difficult for them, where they develop bad habits and eventually hurt themselves. We're here to have fun in a friendly, respectful and open minded way, not boost our egoes.
look at this :
http://www.debary.nom.fr/book/movies/Ro ... nd.hiQ.mov
Riders you see on this movie : Lau: 3 years ago, he had a skate to go to the baker shop, Allan: 3 Years ago was in hi-school and trying to do the ollie a bit, Fred: would ride only bicycles (but his brother was a skater)