Yuta, 34, is still skating despite early onset arthritis in his hip. He knows several people his age with similar issues.
After months of training, he recently completed the final part in his friend's video. He felt a lot of pressure to deliver a standout closing scene, at this time in his career.
The DC sponsored skater still needs an operation, but can’t seem to find the time.
Brad, 54, is skating to keep up with his eight-year-old son.
“I’m a bit of a kook,” he conspiratorially informs me.
When Brad was growing up, skateboarding was more of a niche activity. Boards had chalk wheels that left marks on the road. Decades later, Brad is learning to drop in on a ramp.
“I thought I could sit and watch, or I could go ahead and get in there.”
"I've found the other half of myself. Like what was I doing before this? I feel like I was doing almost nothing with my time." - Lee, 22.
Matt broke his collarbone trying to grind a rail nearly two years ago. He thought the sound of the bone break was his ear popping.
It took just four months to get back on the board. In cold weather, Matt sometimes feels the injury in his bones. Ouch.
Skateboarding is therapy for Minho, a psychology student inspired by his internal journey to help others.
"During lockdown, just going through mental struggles - anxiety, even just over-thinking or thinking about Covid, when you get on the board, you just forget about everything because you’re just focusing on trying not to fall," he says.
"I would distract myself from feelings of depression or feelings of anxiety. It’s just doing something else rather than sitting in my room, sitting in those feelings."
Minho treats skateboarding as "me time" and prefers skating alone.
"My roommate would sometimes say to me - 'every time you come back from skateboarding, it seems like your mood has lifted a lot.'
That’s probably something I didn’t even realise until he said it, like, 'oh this can really help me.'"
Surprisingly, an interview with actor Jonah Hill triggered Minho’s plywood prescription.
“He was talking about how he loves surfing because it forces you to be present in the moment. When I heard that I was like 'oh yeah?'
It was kind of like an “aha moment” that made me think of skateboarding."
Minho spoke to a therapist during the pandemic. The experience was so cathartic, he felt urged to pay the revelation forward. Minho had finally found his personal calling. He began volunteering on help-lines and left his corporate job to study psychology.
"I think the pandemic made me a lot more emotionally aware, which brought a lot of curiosity for me in that space. If you had asked me a few years ago, mental health wasn’t something I would have gone out and actively tried to learn about," he reflects.
While skating and mental health aren't as obvious a pairing as Biggie and Pac or Nyjah and Nike, Minho might just be on to something.
"Some days you do need to talk to someone and figure out what’s going on. But some days when you don’t know what’s wrong, and it’s just a bad day, you just need to do something about it. There might be a moment when I’m feeling pretty down, and I could continue to sit here and feel like this, or I could have a temporary distraction. Just going out and pushing myself to leave the house. Once I get on the board, it’s easy to forget how I was feeling, like... 'that was really nice.
Former Vert World Champion, Renton Millar relishes every time his wheels hit the halfpipe. When not speaking to me under Prahan's monolithic ramp, the 46 year old's often silhouetted in the sky above. He barely pauses for breath while vividly eulogizing the sport that has taken him from Rome to Rio.
"All of the circumstances and opportunity that I've had, I've been so fortunate. Other than my family, skateboarding has basically given me everything in life. Skateboarding is my job, it's my hobby, it's my lifestyle. It's the reason why I've partied, it's the reason why I've been sober. It's everything in my life. I'm just super fortunate for it to have happened and hopefully, now I can give back," he says.
"I was pro for like 10 or 15 years. At that time, there were great opportunities for vert skaters. I made some good money and had amazing experiences. I travelled the world non-stop for 12 years. I did about 40 back to back summers from 1998 to 2012. I got to witness potentially one of the best times in skating when I started. I got to see all the great skaters like Chris Miller, Tony Hawk, Natas, Gonz. I got to see all of that happening as it happened."
After his professional retirement, Millar’s second career began. He founded 'Shredability,' an outfit dedicated to growing national skate culture. He splits his time training the next generation and running acclaimed contests like the King Of Concrete series. Renton also campaigned to build St Kilda's beachside skatepark.
Rubbing my compressed vertebrae as an adult, it's hard to fully comprehend his longevity. I tell him about a magazine I bought at age 12 with him on the cover.
Millar extolls the virtues of eating well and keeping healthy. His passion leaves no room for complacency. Last year, he filmed 45 tricks to celebrate four decades on the earth. He helped judge this year's Olympics and rode the cemented contours every morning at 6.30 am.
"That's the other thing with the time I've had in skating. When I first started, we didn't know how long you could go. All the pros were like 18, we thought they were going to be done at 24. So every year from 22, we thought it was going to be our last. I'm just gonna keep going. Now I've been doing it long enough, I'm just gonna keep going, he reflects.
"I treat my body so well now because I want to be good to skate. Other people, my age, might have let themselves go. But for me, I want to take care of myself because I want to be skating great the next day. I don't want to just be cruising, I want to go off!"
"Every day I skate, I want to learn a trick. If you do that every time you skate, you're never afraid to try and learn something. You're never set in your ways. You're never too scared and as a result, it means you just learn more.”
Renton continues his sermon before struggling to summarize the depth of skateboarding's impact on him.
"I don't know man, like... skating rules."
Fox writes his full name on my notepad as: ‘Fox Lakita Dragonblood Divinorum Jones.’
“My parents were a bit hippy. I’m not sure how it’s spelt because they can’t decide between themselves which they prefer, and I can’t find the paperwork.”
Fox has been suspended from school several times this year. He says he misses hanging out with friends, but found it too strict.
“I don't like being normal, who wants to be normal? If you can stand out in a sense, then do you.
Skateboarding is all imaginative. All it is is a bit of wood and four wheels, but the things you can do on it are just endless. That's where it's really cool, it takes in everyone's individual personality.” - Kain.
Areeya and Mint, friends learning to skate together.
As part of South African naming tradition, Tom's full name is Tom Kofi-Vi. He says Kofi means born on Sunday, and the Vi part means "born second."
Tom loves skateboarding, while his twin brother, who was born first, enjoys bodybuilding. Tom is close with his brother but is living seperately to trial life on his own terms.
Asgard is seventeen. Yes, Asgard is his real name. His mum read Norse mythology while pregnant. He gets this question a lot.
ABOUT THe PROJECT
“Skateboarding is a potpourri of personality; a vibrant mosaic of flavour and style. The wild, weird and wonderful.
These stories are based on conversations with strangers. Their individuality and self-expression fuels this project.
Hit me up at jimmyness.au@gmail.com for any queries.”