Roller skating is a pastime, but it isn’t of a past time. Though the sport is often spoken of wistfully, as if a relic of the late Cold War, soundtracked by a progression of tinkling Depression-era organs through disco through the beginnings of hip-hop, it’s not an ephemeral trend now relegated to fading Polaroids and gossamer memories. Because roller skating never went away. Kids and adults still lace up their wheeled shoes to glide through cul-de-sacs, bike paths, and air-conditioned oases like Dairy Ashford and Conroe’s 70-year-old Rainbow Roller Rinks. There’s no need to sigh over days passed; they can be relived over and over thanks to the number of Houston’s skate clubs, skating classes and workshops, and roller derby teams that keep the sport alive.

Brandi Myasia, owner of the Daisies and Pancakes skate shop in Third Ward, likens roller skating to breaking (breakdancing): a cultural phenomenon that, in the United States, eventually became a niche hobby, only to be brought back into mainstream consciousness thanks to the Olympics. The COVID-19 pandemic similarly led to increased interest in roller skating—a form of exercise that got people out of the house while still allowing for social distancing. Myasia says it was “amazing” to see how fans, new and old, shared their moves with one another on TikTok and Instagram. “[Social media] reignites people like me who always skated…and then it invited a lot of new people in,” she says. “So, I wouldn't say it was a comeback necessarily, but it definitely put the world's eye on roller skating and reinvigorated the whole awareness of roller skating.”

Myasia opened Daisies and Pancakes in 2019 after recovering from heart surgery and a subsequent disability retirement from her job as an HR professional at a local school district; however, the shop’s original concept centered on reselling vintage clothing. When the COVID-19 quarantine shut down operations, Myasia switched to offering custom roller skates. She picked the hobby back up as a gentle, heart-healthy way to get in some post-surgery exercise. Skating had always been a passion. As a teen, a friend taught her the basics of replacing wheels and other technicalities. Her first custom pair of roller skates from Daisies and Pancakes transformed some Air Jordans; other projects have used cowboy boots, Timberlands, Stacy Adams shoes, and Doc Martens.

From there, Myasia expanded her services to include skating lessons, which now attracts up to 100 people at a time. She built partnerships with several community organizations, including the Tribeca event space, Discovery Green, the skate club she founded at her alma mater (Texas Southern University), and various YMCA locations around Houston. Daisies and Pancakes has since made appearances in the city’s MLK Day and Thanksgiving parades.

For inspiration, she turns to the history of the Montrose Skate Shop and Urban Animals—a now-defunct performance art–based skating group consisting of what she refers to as “club head kids, punks, goths…just skating and tearing through [Houston] on roller skates,” and pivotal figures in organizing the Orange Show’s legendary Art Car Parade. But the roller-skating scene here is already “huge, huge, huge,” Myasia says, and she wants to make it bigger. She plans to develop a PE curriculum to introduce roller skating lessons in more high schools and colleges.

“[Roller skating] brings back a childlike joy when you do it,” Myasia says. “…When we move, it has the same benefits of releasing the dopamine, releasing the happy hormones and feelings that just make us feel good… And it's also a very large community builder.”

Even outside of formal relationships, Daisies and Pancakes shares close ties with many skating groups in the Greater Houston Area. Myasia and her team give occasional demos and lessons to Skate Church, a Pearland-based meetup that skates together on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. They head to locations around the Houston suburb to get some fresh air, exercise, and build a community around a shared interest. The group launched three years ago, starting with Sonya Coyle, one of the organizers, and a few of her friends, who skated on Sunday mornings, often covering several miles of trail. When they posted about their exploits on social media, other enthusiasts asked if they could join in.

Now, every first Sunday of the month, Skate Church holds a family skate event at Clearbrook City Park, drawing in crowds in the “double digits,” Coyle says. Their other skates, most of which are a little more intimate, include themed meetups where participants come decked out in costume. They also congregate with other skate groups from across Houston, including roller bladers, roller skate dancers, and roller derby players, which results in a much-appreciated overlap and blending of different skate practices. Coyle says it’s helped expand her athletic skill set. “I hope that it continues to intersect, because I think that there is room for all of us to improve each other,” she says. “… All the different styles of skating make you a better skater when you practice them.”

Roller derby skaters from the Pearland-based South Side Roller Derby, a league and a woman-centric space, teach a variety of skating skills, including roller skate dancing and the rules and techniques of roller derby. Brenda Holley, who founded the organization in 2006, says that post-pandemic, most of the skaters at South Side today are more interested in the community and exercise aspect than the rough-and-tumble nature of roller derby. Interest in the derby side of her business has gone down by about 60 percent, she says. “My clients shifted from wanting to beat the crap out of each other to like, ‘No, dude, I just want to skate. I don't want to compete. My life is stressful enough. I just want to learn how to skate, and I want to love working out,’” Holley says. “…That's what we do. We trick you into loving cardio.”

But she also points out that, despite decreased interest in roller derby, roller skating interest has tripled thanks to COVID-era social media. The trends at Skate Church and Daisies and Pancakes reflect this, too: Houstonians want community and learning experiences along with their exercise. And they’re not the only ones.

Rudy Perez, a local streamer and voice actor who roller blades with the group Space City Skaters, has found friendship and community alongside his hobby. “It brings everybody who wants different things out of skating… You've got people who can teach you things, people you can teach, and it's just a really fun group of people and support system,” he says.

Space City Skaters offers events and lessons for all skill levels and interests, including Sk8 Houston, its annual street-skating weekend. Perez says he spends his Sundays improving his slalom skating skills, which requires a skater to perform tricks around a straight line of evenly spaced cones. He practices distance street skating every Tuesday and Wednesday at a meeting where around 35 intermediate skaters show up looking for a space to celebrate their favorite sport together.

“The only way to keep roller skating alive, the only way to think about roller skating and what cultural sustainability means for roller skating is to create new skaters, to keep creating them. And it's something that all ages can do,” Myasia says.