Am focus
Daniel Trujillo
When Rodney Mullen started riding
street boards in the early 1990’s, the future
of freestyle skating was in doubt. After a long career
in freestyle, which included inventing many street
standards such as the kickflip, heelflip, 360 flip
and the ollie impossible, (among some 200+ other tricks)
Mr. Mullen became a street skater. It was in the World
Industries video Rubbish Heap that Ron Chapman focused
Mullen’s tiny freestyle board, replaced it with
a tank sized street board, and changed the face of
street skating forever. Outside of a patchwork of
post-Mullen diehard freestylers, this style of skateboarding
appeared to be on its way to becoming a lost art.
But that may not be the case anymore.
SM:
How long have you been skating?
DT: Freestyle, like a year and a half. I skated street
for a year, like four years before that, but it just
got old to me.
SM: What got you into freestyle skating?
DT: Truthfully, I STOLE a video with Rodney Mullen
in it just because it had Matt Mumford in it. And
I saw Mullen’s part and that was it.
SM: Did you know about how freestyle was big in the
1980’s.
DT: I didn’t then but I do now. I know the guy
who made up the Primo slide, Primo Desiderio, out
in California.
SM: What do you get out of Freestyle that you didn’t
get out of street skating?
DT: It’s not just ollie this, kickflip that,
slide this rail. There are so many different variations
of different moves. There are still tricks to do that
haven’t been done before.
SM: Would you describe your skating habits?
DT: I skate every day. In the morning in front of
my house, then I go to the basketball courts at the
park by my house. And whenever people want to go to
the skatepark I tag along and freestyle there. I tried
to skate on the ramps but that aint happening yet.
SM: A lot of skaters see rollerblading as kind of
fruity, and from the Daniel Gezmer legacy of freestyle-skating-ballet,
they see freestyle skating as gay too. Does that make
you closer to the roller bladers?
DT: No. I’m not into that.
SM: Do you think you use different skills on a freestyle
board than on a regular board?
DT: I lost all my skills from when I was street skating.
I mean, I still knew how to ride, but you have to
gain a lot of upper body strength and endurance because
you are moving constantly. You have to use every part
of your body, your hands, your arms, everything.
SM: Would you say you get hurt more or less freestyle
skating?
DT: Probably less, but you smack your shins a lot.
And some people, when they try hand stand tricks,
they fall on their heads.
SM: So what kind of response do you get from people
when you’re out freestyling?
DT: So far, I’ve only got one negative response.
This dude shouted like, “learn to skate faggot,”
driving by in a car. But usually people are like “Wow,
Rodney Mullen stuff.” Everyone calls it old
school, but what a lot of people really don’t
know, is that almost every trick is from the old school.
SM: Have you got any body else to start freestyle
skating?
DT: Yes, this one kid Nick that I skate with sometimes.
I gave him my Primo Slide board, and then he got his
own.
SM: Is it easier to find a spot to skate because you
don’t need anything but smooth flat ground?
DT: Yeah but it’s kind of hard to find a place
that’s really flat and smooth. It also makes
it easier if you learn your tricks on slanted pavement
and then take it to the flat at a skate park. I’ve
even seen some dude freestyle on top of a soda machine.
SM: Have you ever smashed your testicles hopping around
on your trucks, with the board between your legs like
that?
DT: Actually no. Everyone says that I will or that
I have before, but no, I have never racked myself
doing a pogo. I have run over my own fingers though.
SM: I noticed toward the end of Mullen’s freestyle
days, he was doing really high ollie grabs off the
ground. Are you into high ollies?
DT: I practiced ollies on my freestyle board and then
went to a regular board and it made it easier to ollie
high.
SM: Can you do a finger flip ollie air walk?
DT: No. I can do it without the ollie.
SM: No, that doesn’t count.
DT: Oh.
SM: Can you do a beni hana off the ground?
DT: Yes I can!
SM: Any shout outs?
DT: What’s up to Al Garcia, The Skate Kings
and my family.
