Passion For Skateboarding
Is passion the most important part of skateboarding?
If you're not passionate, there's no way that you can be a pro skateboarder. You have to have that passion for skateboarding in order to be a professional.
Is pro skateboarding a 'go big or go home' type of attitude?
How are pro skaters different from amateurs in terms of passion?
Amateurs are just kind of novice and they're just having fun with it. Some of them are aspiring to be pro skate boarders. Pro skate boarders are serious, it's like a serious thing. Not only as far as making a living, but also just the attitude that you have to have to be a pro skate boarder. It's two completely different things.
Can you tell when someone is passionate about skateboarding?
Usually, yeah, because they usually won't give up easy so that's having passion for it. The other thing is that they're having fun, they're smiling, and they're not taking things too seriously. So there's two different kinds of approaches. I think the best is to be serious, but not so serious that anger is your motivation behind skateboarding. Because anger is like poison, it can be very destructive instead of constructive. And the way to be constructive, I think, is to have a little bit of serenity. Have courage, and have serenity, and have wisdom. That works way better than anger.
What's your advice to up and comers?
Up and comers need to just learn the basics. Just don't try and go out and learn the hardest trick right off the bat. Learn to control your board, learn to have control over your board. Learn how to do the basic things, like just carving, going fast, grinding, just balancing on the nose and till of your board, and maybe just doing a basic move like a board slide or some kind of lip trick. And then eventually learn to do all the aerial stuff and all the technical stuff.
