They lift your spirits, prompt you to think, make you feel grateful and inspire you to do more. They connect you to our community, shining a spotlight on what's good about our city. They're stories that are Uniquely Milwaukee.
Nicole Olive has owned skates for 20 years but never used them until this summer, when someone who was in a similar position a few years ago gave her a reason.
Every Wednesday, Olive and other community members gather right across from the Milwaukee Public Market to attend lessons at Skate on 8’s, a program Arian Rice started after teaching himself how to skate three years ago. Now, he helps others improve their technique — after making sure they have the basics down.
“I've been coming for about four weeks,” Olive said on a recent Wednesday. “I've seen a lot of improvement. When I first started coming, I couldn't even stand up on the skates. Now I can stand up, I can skate a little bit, working on stopping and working on completing a full eight.”
That immediate connection with skating resonates with Rice, who got an invite from friends to try it and was surprised to find them doing spins and tricks he’d never seen before. That day, he swore he’d be better than his friends — something we’ve all told ourselves at one point or another. But Rice didn’t just speak those words; he acted on them and worked tirelessly to get stronger on four wheels.
“I was in the basement, I was in the garage, I was outside everywhere,” he recalled. “Six months goes by, guess what? I get my props.”
While that was satisfying by itself, Rice gets something even better every Wednesday and plans to keep building Skate on 8’s while spreading a sense of community, one wheel at a time.
“I'm doing this because I love to skate,” he said. “I love seeing people come together. And to build community, you have to build rapport. You have to show people that it's like, ‘Oh, this guy isn't here to gain something from me; he's here to actually teach me.’”
You can hear from Rice and Olive in this episode of Uniquely Milwaukee, which is available via the player at the top of the page or wherever you get your podcasts. To learn more about Skate on 8’s, roll over to their Instagram account for info on classes and to see some of their students in action.
