Students will receive from me not only a fiercely passionate skateboarder who has dedicated thirty years to the craft, but a wholly unique perspective to skateboarding cultivated by a life both on and off the skateboard. I firmly believe that learning how to ride a skateboard teaches an individual valuable other life lessons that can be carried over into other avenues of one’s life, as my own life is a testament to that. 

Skateboarding is ultimately about going out of one’s own comfort zone to accomplish something not previously achieved, and whenever a skateboarder does this, he or she creates a new reality altogether for themselves while having fun along the way…. For me, I have gone outside of my comfort zone in skateboarding into my personal life to make connections with some of the greatest skateboarders in all of skateboarding: hall of famers, X-Games gold medalists, etc… all as an outsider originally from Chicago, IL who through sheer perseverance and interpersonal skills made his way to such notable figures in skateboarding as Jake Brown (X-Games gold medalist and skateboarding hall of famer), Elliott Sloan (X-Games Gold medalist), Don Brown (former freestyle professional and president of Soletech [eS, Emerica, Etnies]), and most notably– Daewon Song: 2006 Thrasher SOTY and arguably the greatest skateboarder ever to ride a skateboard. 

While learning a trick is important, making sure it looks and feels properly is as important to me while also maintaining safety, and the reason why my tricks look and feel a certain way and why I insist when someone lands a trick it should look and feel a certain way is because style in skateboarding is ultimately about biography, and because I have a unique biography, my style will inevitably be unique, and with my coaching, I will ensure that other people that learn to skateboard from me will infuse their skateboarding with their own biography. Please consider me for this position. I will not disappoint you.