Skimboarding Makes Me Happy

Throughout my nearly 20 years of skimboarding I have certainly immersed myself very deep into the industry. Being good friends with the owner of Zed Skimboards, riding for Zed for almost 7 years now, which is crazy to think about, and previously riding for Kayotics Skimboards I certainly have seen a lot. I have done lots of travelling with my skimboard , competed in tons of competitions, hosted about ten competitions myself (and with the help of others of course), and met lots of people involved in skimboarding that are just as immersed in the sport as I am. This level of involvement in skimboarding, which I would simply consider as actively supporting the industry by forming teams of riders, producing skimboarding products, hosting events, or conveying news online are the indispensible people who will ultimately progress our sport to something more. The one common thread that I have noticed after talking with a lot of these people are that they like to be involved with the sport simply because they enjoy skimboarding themselves… I’m not sure you could easily find a skimboard manufacturer/promoter that isn’t actually a skimboarder themselves, I could certainly not say that this is the case in surfing/skateboarding/snowboarding/etc. Obviously there are tons of leaders in those action sports that participate in their respective sport, but the level that those sports have progressed to has sparked the interests of businessmen/businesswomen looking to turn a profit, which is great! Without big business none of these sports would have reached the level they are at currently. I’m proud of where our sport is at right now, it’s so exciting to be involved in a sport that is so intimate between the industry leaders and the riders themselves. Surely one day one of these large companies will come along and jump on board to push skimboarding to the next level! Anyways, I’m not done talking yet…

Over the past decade there have been tons of new skimboard manufacturers appear, and to be honest it brings a smile to my face! Not many of the new manufacturers actually fail, especially if they go into the industry with the intent of producing quality boards and participating in events and working with all of the publications. I feel that this success is because the leaders of these companies are in the sport for the right reason, to help promote the industry and so that they can produce boards that they can ride themselves! People complain about certain companies, but I’m not sure why? None of the big skim companies have done anything to damage our sport, maybe they pissed off a few riders in our sport, but as a whole I think our sport is doing quite well at its level of progression. I have read so many articles over the past few years that explain what an awful state skimboarding is in, typically the authors want a light switch flicked ‘on’ and suddenly every company should become exceedingly wealthy and that there would be an X-Games event dedicated to skimboarding…  Ironically though, these individuals are not actually leaders of skimboard companies, the guys who would actually benefit the most from the sport exploding. I think if we consistently compare ourselves to sports like surfing we would notice that we’re quite possibly on a path to success… We have to realize that those sports have been pursued as businesses and by businesses much earlier in the 20^th century than skimboarding ever was. Think about documentaries on surfing like ‘The Endless Summer”, it was a low budget film produced in the 60’s/70’s (note that is 40-50 years ago) that follows surfers that are travelling around the world doing something that they love… To Surf! We have those types of films appearing for skimboarding in the 2000’s. The surfing industry was still growing in the 60’s/70’s, which is equivalent to skimboarding at our current time. There were lots of independent surf companies out there back then, and it took several decades before surfing companies managed to turn their beloved sport into a multi-million dollar industry. If we continue to push skimboarding as a fun loving extreme and leisure sport we will expand our culture and progressively move closer towards what surfing has become.

Skimboarding has seen many publications, several have faded away but many new publications appear shortly after. Every publication becomes popular in our skimboarding community, I honestly can’t think of a publication that hasn’t generated a huge amount of hype in our industry. For example, a good friend and photographer Bryce Casselman has announced an online skimboarding publication called “Flatland Magazine” two weeks ago. My understanding is that he had a little leprechaun awake him one night three weeks ago and say “aye Lad, it’s your duty to get a flatland skimboarding magazine going… Har-tee-tar-tar”… Or something like that! A week later he left me a message on my phone, while I was ironically out skimboarding, that said “dude, give me a call I need to talk business with you!” When I got back to him after my skim session he had already unleashed his Flatland Mag teaser to the world. I was stoked! Over the past two weeks, TONS of hype has been generated through social media and in skimboarding forums about his mag! Isn’t that great!!! All within two weeks! Isn’t this just another example of another passionate individual hoping to promote our beloved sport? He is not going to get rich off of this magazine in the very near future, he is going to spend copious amounts of time working on this labour of love (which I can VERY much relate with) and watch a few people jump up and down saying how sad of a state skimboarding is in… I think this is actually the most exciting time to be a part of the industry. Forty or fifty years from now the new generation of skimboarders (most likely our kids) could quite possibly be competing for $50,000 purses and acquiring millions of dollars in endorsements for simply being professional skimboarders! Guaranteed these individuals will look back fondly at the sport of skimboarding in 2010 and wish that they could also have been involved… I hope that one day when I have a son (haha), he will be as fortunate as me to be able to hop in his Jeep and drive down to the beach with his skimboards and his bombshell girlfriend and enjoy the sport of skimboarding the same way I do today, but with the greater possibility of making a great deal of money directly from the sport. But at this point, I don’t need the extra dough to be happy.

In the mean time, I’m going to continue to enjoy skimboarding for what it is. A large group of friends working together to promote an amazing sport that brings us all joy! I will also continue to pour my own dollar into the sport and keep SkimBC.com alive so that I can host skimboarding events all over the place, not in vein but in pure joy and with the biggest smile on my face…

Good times friends,

Brandon

• Social Networks

• 
• 
• 
•