Skateboarding legend Rodney Mullen says it’s all about attitude
Influential and exuberant inventor of gravity-defying street skating tricks visits Hong Kong
It’s in the way he greets people, the way he talks and the way he gestures with his hands. Skateboarding runs through Rodney Mullen from head to toe. It is integral to his lifestyle, his mindset, and his way of being.
As the inventor of numerous street skating tricks, Mullen is considered a legend in the skater community. His professional skateboarding career spans almost four decades, yet he has never lost his passion for the sport – despite sustaining a severe leg injury that almost compromised his skating career.
The skateboarder recently flew to Hong Kong with Globe International for the opening of its Sheung Wan store. We sat down with him to talk about the skateboarder style and attitude.
What attracted you to skateboarding?
To me, it registered as an artistic [expression], but it also has a raw athletic [quality. It’s not like you have a crowd of people in bleachers behind you or a coach or anything. And I like that. I like the fact that it seems to draw in people who are outcasts because I always felt like that. [Through skateboarding], I felt like I had a place to belong. The more I did it, the more I felt a sense of belonging.
A post shared by Rodney Mullen (@rodneymullen) on Jul 11, 2016 at 7:46am PDT
How has skateboarding translated into your personal style?
You can always tell a skateboarder from a long way away by how he dresses and how he moves. Another thing I love about the community [is that] everyone is so real and ... you can generally count on them [to have] a high level of humility. You recognise that no one’s that good, and fortunately [people] see the better side of me, and I’ll hide the rest. I definitely move in a certain way [andI’m] proud to be a skater – there is a humility.