I love to skateboard. It’s the only thing I’ve known since I was 12 years old. And though I know the day will come, I can’t imagine skateboarding not being a part of my everyday life. So anything I can do to keep my body feeling like I can still skate at a high level, I’m going to do. I’m working super hard to stave off not being able to skate at a high level for as long as possible. Working with a trainer, a chiropractor, a serious stretching program, foam rollers, ice baths, all these things are part of my daily routine.
How is your dedication to a wellness routine influenced the guys who work and ride for you?
I think a lot are self-motivated, because it’s a trait skateboarders have in general, especially when you get to the elite level. There’s no coaches, nobody tells you when to practice, what tricks to try, where to go.
Well, with the Olympics inclusion, you’re seeing some coaches creeping in.
Maybe in the next generation it will change. But I come from a generation where that’s kind of silly. It takes the soul out of skateboarding. It takes the creativity and the art out of it. You may get criticism, but there’s no rules to skateboarding.
Does it feel like the skateboarding as a sport is changing fast?
Sure. You definitely have people who are just contest-based: Olympics, accolades, and trophies. That’s fine. You don’t necessarily need creativity for that; you just learn super hard tricks, dial them in, and go out and win. If that’s what you have the most fun doing, who am I to tell not to do it? I’ve done that, to a certain extent.
Most people associate you with contests, in that you had so much success in them.
Yeah, I’ve got my fair share of contest success, but that whole time I was also making sure I came correct in the streets and with video parts and magazines, because that’s really what was important to me. I enjoy the challenge of competition skating under pressure, landing it right here, do or die. But for me, that’s not what I started skating for. I had to learn how to be competitive. I wasn’t competitive from the get-go.
Rumor has it that when you built the Primitive private skatepark, you added a dedicated wellness room. Any truth to it?
I have a cold plunge, tons of foam rollers, Hyperice Hypervolt guns. I even have a cryo-chamber and Normatecs. I like to go in there and warm up before I start skating, and after, I’ll have a stretch, foam roll, get into the cold plunge for 10 minutes. Like I said, whatever I can do so that I can skate again sooner, I want to do.
Are team riders taking advantage of the space?
Yeah, some do. It’s all open and available to them, but I don’t push them. I’m not the type who’s overbearing, but they’ve seen what I’ve done and I hope they take inspiration from that to work out, roll out, and recover.
Drugs have always been part of skate culture, and every generation loses guys to ODs and addiction. How have you balanced that in your own life?
In my prime, I was a pretty heavy weed smoker. But I naturally grew out of that. And I drink still. But for me, skateboarding is just so important. From an early age, I knew I wanted to go down in history as one of the greats. So it wasn’t like I even had to try to avoid the stuff—it just was’t interesting. What was interesting was accomplishing my goals.
As I’ve gotten older, I go through phases. Sometimes I’ll take a couple weeks off and relax, go out more often. But I’ll get on these kicks, where I’m, like, my body feels great, I’m focused, I’ve got so much more to do. So I’m on that back and forth balance right now, because I didn’t go too hard as a kid.
