The crew at Kyda share two days of laughs at Buntzen Lake dodging kids and geese to get some skim in.

For those who don’t follow flatland skim, Kayotics Skimboards has been pushing the sport since 2001. Their highly anticipated video ” Skimatics” was suppose to drop in the 2008 season but for a variety of reasons never was. People in the flatland industry heard through the grapevine about Yuri Choufour’s unbelievable part; destroying a variety of ride ons and John Minns’ innovated setups and tricks. Now flash forward to the end of 2010, and the final release of “Skimatics” and the skim is still stoking but you can only imagine if these guys got together a more current full feature. I bet it would turn some heads. Anyway, here are the three parts that have been released so far. take a peep.

Sam Price has been one of the driving forces in New Zealand’s flatland skim scene since its inception. In fact he is so dedicated to flatland skim that he is manufacturing highend boards with his brand OXS and organizing events throughout the summer. I thought since its their summer, there would be no better time to talk some skim with Mr.Price.

And now as a tourist? Nelson is full of tourists through Summer as the weather’s just so good! There’s quite alot of tourism where I’m located but isn’t many places to stay. The Coromandel peninsula attracts a heap of people as well through Summer and is home to the best wave skim spots in the country.

and now as a local? As a local I love the area I’m in. I grew up in and around the water and alot of people here are the same. New Zealand as a whole is great, alot of outdoorsy stuff. Everyone drinks too much though hahaha.

What is it about flatland skim that caught your attention or captured your heart or amused you or whatever? I think the 1st flatland skim video I saw was from Mike Louie and from the second I saw it I wanted to do it. And here we are!

At one point you decided to build boards, what triggered this move? Nice and simple the lack of boards here. I’ve never really done things by halves so just ripped into it. The feedback has been great and I’m continuing to develope them as much as possible.

Did you find it easier having other existing companies to model your brand after? or was it more difficult trying to find a niche? I had a fair bit of advice from Eric Roush at Roush creations when I started and well it just grew from there. The image of it here is still struggling though as like everywhere else in the world we’re saturated with cheap, mass produced, shitty “potato chips” haha.

Anyway, Enough about You (haaha) Flatland skim seems to be gaining a lot of followers these days, how are things in New Zealand? The scene here is growing. I’m far more positive coming into this season than what I was last year and there seems to be alot of younger really stoked kids getting into it. We’re having our first official competitions this year as I think the numbers and abilities are getting towards where they should be now!

I have always believed that a scene can really take off anywhere as long as you have a few guys pushing things, who are those guys other then yourself of course? Well they guys who I skim with are Ryan Mcleod, Josh Hubbard, Mark Atkinson, Noah Hankinson, Sam Wanless, Jamie Whitehouse and our newest regular Jared James. The Nelskim guys down in Nelson are a huge boost for it down there and of course all the others I skim with from time to time.

I can’t help but notice not only do you guys have a ton of riders in your videos but that you guys are progressing very quickly, what do you think the catalyst is for all this progress? The best boards obviously hahaha. Well could be but we seem to have alot of rail set ups which helps and I don’t think anyone’s thought too much about how wrecked their bodies will be later in life. Being behind the rest of the world definitly helps me personally as we want to be on the same level or better shortly!!

As one of the few or only flatland manufacturs in New Zealand, what are some of your goals for the future? OXS is the only and I hope it stays that way. I’m only part time with it which gives you an idea of how small it is here still. My biggest goal is getting it to the stage where I’m doing it fulltime and breaking into other markets with it, Australia being the big 1. I’m expanding with the clothing side of it and also bringing in Banshee bungees and making my own wakeskates. Also I’d like to try have a big part of beachside entertainment around the country but that may be a big ask at this stage.

I can’t help but be jealous of your artifical skim pond you created at a golf course. Its got to be nice not to have to wait for low tides. What or who inspired this creation and how did you go about creating it? I work there and just asked the boss 1 day if we could do it. He was obviously cool with it so we got a digger in with a laser level and had all the astro turf in the yard. We spent a day laying the plastic and turf out and a year later it’s still so much fun to skim. It’s a little restricting and cuts you to pieces when you fall on the stuff but who cares, we have an artificial skim pit haha.

Do you guys stay in close contact with any of the austrialian riders? Ryan and myself were over there the April just gone. Skimmed with the Frankston and Adelaide guys and had a blast. A few of us are heading to Frankston in January for their comp so that’ll no doubt lead to some antics. I’m intending to pick up a few riders over there this season so if all goes well I could be making the trip (3-4 hours on a plane) more often!

thanks Sam. word.

Check out more on new zealand flatland at www.oxsskimboards.com

So for the past 2 months, I have been in Europe with my wife backpacking from place to place.  Something I highly recommend for all young people, but what made this trip different from a lot of my previous trips was that I was carrying a flatland skimboard everywhere I went, through major cities, on trains, on buses, etc.hence the everywhere. Skimboarding wasn’t the focus instead it would take a back seat to museums, ancient monuments, and dirty hostels. With that said you can’t keep a skimboarder down, and I had done a little homework before leaving and had convinced my wife to travel with me to a few choice spots in Britain, Ireland, and Greece so that I could skim.

I must say that carrying around a skimboard, wearing baggy pants, a tye dye t-shirt, floppy beanie and having a giant backpack on was too much for a lot of the stylish Europeans. It was not uncommon to get stared at, and over hear people asking, “What is that guy carrying?” After a few weeks of travelling to big cities and getting this same welcome, I was stoked to get to a beach. The first stop was in southern England, in a little surf town called Newquay. A great little place with its own surf culture mixed with the old time British beach resorts of arcades and buskers. This was my first taste of skim in Europe and it was dope. The sun was out and the water took on a crazy aqua blue, which was fitting with the small palm trees everywhere. Finally I was in my comfort zone, and carrying the skim everywhere was instantly worth it. After a few throws I was back in form, and popping tricks to the delights of the few toddlers and dog walkers that choose to take a interest.  After a few days of traveling around the Cornwall area, it was time to leave but not before getting to skim in front of a castle and of course bailing on the less then comfy gravel that I decided to skim, don’t ask me why… probably desperation.

My second skim stop was in the land of my forefathers, Ireland.  Although my original goal was to skim in Galway where my family traces their roots, that quickly fell through.  I was able to hit the beach in Northern Ireland, in a small town called Portrush near the Giant’s Causeway that gave me two rather unrewarding sessions. Remember that it was now mid October in the north of Europe on a rather ugly to days. I made the best of the conditions but those flatlanders who are core enough to try something of this nature know the feeling of numbed feet and the board being controlled more by the wind then anything else.  I had to admit defeat at a certain point, because the weather was iffy the whole time in Ireland and the few times it was sunny I was nowhere near a beach, though if you are heading to Dublin there are some sick beaches just outside the city I saw them from the window of the train … that’s not tortuous.

It was coming to the last few weeks of our trip and after lugging the skim through several land locked countries, we were on the airplane to Greece my last hope for skim without a wetsuit for a couple of months. After a few stops at the more touristy islands we arrived at Paros, a laid back Cyclades Island. First thing we did was rent a car and headed to the beach. Like must flatland skim spots, it was flat and the sand was slimy. I spent most of the day fooling around popping tricks in the beautiful Mediterranean sun with an old Greek acropolis above me. It really doesn’t get much better then that.

No doubt, Europe is beautiful but what surprised me the most is how many flatland skim spots are just sitting vacant just waiting for a skimmer. Who knows where my travels will take me but with any luck if I bring my skim I will get a few tosses in.

WALANG PERA: A Flatland Skim Odyssey from Kyda Creations on Vimeo.

Alright, My true believers I thought about doing a review on this video because its the first of its kind in flatland skim, a free, online, travel video. The problem that I faced is that it is the work of my newly formed company, Kyda Creations and I filmed the majority of it so my opinion is as basis as can be: I love it. So I thought the best thing to do is just give you the description and let you judge the video for yourself.

In the winter of 2010, Dane Clark and Kyle Lynch took off to the philippines leaving Canada behind in search of sun and sand. Three months of skim, 7 tapes of footage, a couple months of editing and you have Kyda Creations’ 34 minute ode to skimboarding in an exotic land.

Riders: Ron Supetran, Joel Ogan, Beboy Tupas, Dane Clark, and Kyle Lynch

Filming: Kyle Lynch, Dane Clark, Rachel Lynch

Editing: Dane Clark

Music: Bon Iver, Eeek a mouse, Beatles, Devandra barnhart, Grizzly bear, Dane Clark, Jeza, Jethro tull.

Special thanks: The Munro Clan, Boracay island locals, and anyone who takes time to watch or share this video.

Lets examine this phrase, what is progression? According to the dictionary it is: the development of an individual or society in a direction considered more beneficial than and superior to the previous level. So lets just say we except this definition as a valid statement, and apply it to some of the major attributes that make up flatland skim.

Riders: It’s easy to see that Flatland Skimboarders are getting better and better every year. All one has to do is look up old footage of anyone and you can bet that it would look horrible against his or her recent footage. Even the average skimboarding is at a much higher-level then even 5 years ago. It is this progression at the individual level that pushes the sport forward and also pulse money into the industry at large.

Skimboards: Since the first woodies, it is obvious that a lot of improvements have taken place in the manufacturing of wooden skims, especially for flatland skimboarding. With the creations of flatland focused brands like J-Gordon (usa), Kayotics (canada), Zed (canada), DB (usa), trickoff (sweden) and several other European manufactures we have seen the transition of directional boards of the traditional tear drop being almost completely eliminated by the skateboard influenced twin tip or symmetrical designs. Not only have shapes been altered but also rockers have changed, grip has gone from wax to traction but probably the biggest innovation is the use of Formica as a base. Formica was truly a game changer it allowed skimboarders a better slide on rails/sand and created a longer wearing, performance driven board. Although if we take a look at the last few years, we have seen little progression from board manufactures in terms of new technologies, building materials. Maybe this is because of price point, or maybe flatland decks have gone the way of the skateboard, I don’t know but I hope that eventually we will see another big breakthrough that will change the game once more.

Media: I think this is probably the one part of the sport that has progressed the most in the past few years. We are now seeing high quality videos being released online like the quik fix series from the Kayotics on youtube and the full length DVDs from the guys at DB. We are seeing beautiful photographs from the likes of Bryce Casselman, Yuri Choufour and many more appear all over the Internet including skimboarding’s number one mag foreverskim. It’s the continual exposure of high quality photo and videos that not only entice people to join the sport but also illuminate the talent surrounding it. Everyday we are seeing new stylish videos and photos, and as high end equipment becomes cheaper by the day we can pretty much just assume things are just going to get better.

Contests: Well this one is kind of weird. I would have to say yes overall things are progressing in the right direction. There were more contest this year in North America and Europe then ever before but one of the biggest problems or maybe it isn’t… is there is no governing body for contests in flatland skim. My problem with this is it makes it hard to legitimize the sport in the eyes of larger sponsors, and there fore it is strictly up to the event organizers to raise funds and this hurts the overall quality of events because no one is getting paid to host them. I think there is no other part of flatland skimboarding that shows off the sports growing pains better then its contests. They can be great, progressive, tons of fun, give boatloads of positive exposure for the sport but without a governing body with standardized judging, organization, entry fees, etc I feel like the progression is sort of two steps forward, one step back. With that said it seems like NorthWestSkimTour has brought together a lot of competitions and skim jams under its umbrella in 2010, so maybe it will just take time for a governing body to be created.

So by the looks of flatland skim, we are headed in the right direction in terms of progression. I am sure there are lots of people who would argue the complete opposite but I think its so cool that such a grassroots activity like flatland skimboarding has been embraced by people in Japan, Philippines, Holland, Sweden, Germany, Poland, and countless other places. It is hard to ignore that flatland can be done almost anywhere on the planet, and is a ton of fun.

So here is to progression, not like it could be stopped if we wanted it to be.

Lynch

When the Formica base was introduced to flatland skimboarding, it almost instantly became the new standard in board construction with practically ever brand seeing the advantages of using it. It allowed for better board performance and made board construction easier for the manufactures by limiting the use of varnish or other sealants previously used. It wasn’t just a step forward it was a leap, leaving pure woodies struggling to keep up on the sales racks and on the beach.

When foam traction was introduced in to flatland skimboarding it initially didn’t have the same effect as Formica. The sport was dominated with the use of surf wax for grip and many felt that arch bars and kickpads were encumber some and awkward with a sport based mostly on shuv tricks. It basically came down to the fact that traction just wasn’t specifically designed for flatland skimboarding. Although many riders found ways around this by slicing up traction pads more to there liking: the traction movement sort of stayed localized in the warmer climates like Sacramento and Utah.

Then came along DB Skimboards who took the idea to the next level with their full traction top sheets, which have basically became the brands trademark. Even with DB along with other brands doing the same, traction was still not the norm in the sport. The benefits to traction where almost as obvious as the advancements of the Formica base, providing not only the same grip as a freshly waxed board but also only had to be applied once and provided much needed cushion for heels during lands. Regardless to all these benefits, traction was expensive and still is. The transition from wax to foam in the capital deprived industry called Flatland Skim only happened in the last few years with the increased use and praise of traction by big name riders. Almost within in a blink of an eye traction had become not only the standard form of grip but had become the “it” thing with creative rider’s customizing their boards and going bigger then ever.

Now, after 10 years in the sport it seems like traction is here to stay with almost every flatland brand offering it as an option in the summer of 2010 including Freak Traction, DB Skimboards, Kayotics Skimboards, J-Gordon, and Zed Skimboards.