Ryan Kennedy loves to skateboard. The 11-year-old, who was born blind, came to the sport with zero know-how, but during lessons, he’s fearless. And when he nails a trick, “I get a big smile,” he says.
“Faster!” Ryan Kennedy asks his skateboarding instructor, Evan Dittig. The two are in the middle of their weekly one-hour lesson and Dittig, at Ryan's instance, pushes the boy, who is seated on the skateboard.
“I really like going really, really fast,” the 11-year-old tells Inside Edition Digital.
The need for speed isn't the only thing driving Ryan. Most of the time, Ryan can be found standing on the skateboard, trying hard to land tricks on ramps.
He has no idea what any of what he’s been practicing looks like, as Ryan has been blind since birth after having been born with his twin prematurely. "He unfortunately took the brunt of that," his mom Carly Kennedy tells Inside Edition Digital.
But that hasn't slowed Ryan down at all.
“A lot of kids come into skateboarding and they know tricks, they watch videos and stuff. Ryan is learning completely on his own, completely from scratch,” says Dittig, the owner of Shred.Co in Fairfield, New Jersey.
Ryan first tried skateboarding at the recommendation of a mobility specialist.
“That sounded a bit terrifying to me, but I was able to find a few blind skaters on Instagram and I saw that they were thriving and doing well, so I decided to give it a try,” Ryan says.
Ryan loves the sport. Practicing has becomes his favorite part of the week. During lessons, he’s fearless and when he nails a trick, “I get a big smile,” he says.
Dittig assist for much of the time by holding onto Ryan’s hands. “He does a lot of skating just by hearing the way the wheels roll,” Dittig says. “Hearing the sound of the different boards really gets him excited about skating and gets him hyped.”
Ryan is doing pretty advance tricks, Dittig says. “He's dropping in, he's doing kick turns, he's doing grinds. To see him doing tricks that kids with perfect vision could barely do…I think that's very, very impressive, and most people couldn't even step on a skateboard and do the stuff that he's doing.”
More recently, Ryan’s been practicing skating with a cane so that he can work up to doing it all on his own.
“It's a lot harder to skate with the cane,” Ryan says. “I feel really proud when I land a trick with my cane.”
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