For people that don't know,
I always describe Skimboarding
as a combination of skateboarding and surfing.
So basically you have a small wooden board
about one meter long, 50 centimeters wide.
You hold this board,
you throw it on a thin layer of water,
you run behind it and you jump on.
So a little backstory, when we Skimboard,
we usually ride ramps.
So a friend of mine who's a BMXer,
kind of a crazy guy, he said,
"How about we go to the streets and ride a fountain?"
And I was thinking, like, "Why would you ride a fountain?
You know, that's just weird. It's in the middle of the city.
People are going to look at us funny."
And I don't even know if you can Skim that.
It was a lot of fun, not only the Skimming itself,
but also the fact that it was
in a cool environment, a cool setting,
and it was great to film.
And then it was the whole adventure with like,
"Are we allowed to Skimboard here?
Are we going to get kicked out?"
Let's go. There we go.
Another one.
Another spot. Another day, another spot.
This one, I kind of like this one.
-I've been here once. -Coffee at the spot.
This is actually of the first urban spots I hit ever.
-Really? -The first one in Holland yeah.
-Yeah, you can like... -The water level here is good.
-Here is good. -You could hop on to that.
Yeah, this is the perfect depth.
Just about like, above my toes.
Yeah, but it gets deeper here, look.
Does it get deeper?
Ah, that's a little too deep.
How deep is this?
Ooh, this is above ankle.
That's almost the too-deep spot.
-Let's check the rest though. -What do you think?
Yeah, let's keep walking.
That's the thing, you never know with these spots.
Sometimes the water level goes up, it goes down.
So just a couple of centimeters higher,
and then this spot is totally un-Skimmable.
This looks good.
Yeah, you could just run here, jump onto it.
It also just like generally looks good, you know?
It's a cool looking spot as well.
I think that's a big part of it as well.
Just having like,
it changes a bit from just Skimming at the beach, right?
-Just getting spots like this. -True. Absolutely.
I think architects, when they build something,
of course they have,
you know, they want to make it appeal to the masses.
But, you know, I think it might still be
in the back of their heads that maybe someone could use
this piece of architecture for different reasons.
I feel like it must feel very rewarding for the architects
that build these fountains and then for them to know
that firstly, their fountain looks great.
And, you know, 99 percent
of the people love to see it.
But then when they see that someone else
that's actually doing a sport
and they can appreciate your architecture
for different reasons,
I think for them that must be,
it must feel amazing, you know, to know that like they
coincidentally built something
that's perfect for doing a sport.
ZUTPHEN, THE NETHERLANDS
I see many similarities
between urban Skimboarding and skateboarding.
In fact, a lot of it is the same.
I'm actually riding in a lot of spots
that are actually skateboard spots.
Famous street skateboarding spots.
The only difference is that I'm riding on water
and skateboarders are riding on dry land.
And then, you know, the whole aspect of not knowing
whether or not you're allowed to be there.
How are they gonna respond
when they see you doing your sport there.
That is very similar.
And the tricks we do are quite, quite close.
Quite similar.
I mean, falling in an urban environment is much harder.
So of course, if you fall, you're falling on concrete.
You're falling on bricks.
And to me, what is really strange
is that I've been Skimboarding for 15 years.
When I see water, I expect to be falling on sand.
So sometimes I kind of forget.
And then I, you know, I see the water, I start falling.
And as soon as I hit the ground, bam, I'm like,
"Whoa, okay, I'm doing something different now."
I think the biggest problem is that people don't understand
that what I'm doing is an actual sport.
It's that they look at me in these fountains,
and they think I'm just, you know, playing around
and being reckless and damaging property.
That's kind of like the double-edged sword
about being the first person doing a sport,
is that, you know, people don't understand.
People that know about action sports,
they'll immediately recognize that I'm doing something.
You know, they can see the skill it takes,
and you know, that I'm actually performing my sport,
and they might appreciate it.
But I think for the people that have never seen
Skimboarding before, or even skateboarding,
they just wouldn't understand.
They just think I'm in a fountain,
messing around and nothing more.
So when it's winter,
and it rains a lot, then there's puddles.
And we found so many cool spots very randomly,
without even researching.
We just drive around, I'd look to the side
and I'd see a puddle.
Next to the puddle there'd be a bench
or some kind of bank made of cobblestone.
And every time I'd like, I'd be with my filmer
or my driver and I'd be like, "Yo, I need to Skim this."
And they'd be like, "Why would you Skim this?"
I'm like, "No, I'm sure I can do something on this thing."
And usually it works out, yeah.
When I started doing my research for finding
good fountains to Skimboard in the Netherlands,
I stumbled across a website and it's an architecture company,
and they made most of the fountains in the Netherlands.
So they have a list of all their fountains.
And that's how I found all the spots I wanted to go to.
I was checking one in one city,
I think I went to like five to 10 of their fountains,
and then I reached out to them,
and I was like, "Whoa, thank you so much.
Thanks for building these things."
And they, you know, they reached back out to me
and they said, "Well, thank you very much for doing this.
We love what you're doing and please keep going."
So I'm actually in close contact with them now.
Whenever they build something new, they send me,
you know, they send me the spot.
You know, it's nice
to just ride a fountain that's just flat.
But then usually I'm looking for something
a little bit more unique.
So some of the spots we went to there's a flat fountain,
but then there might be a ledge or something like
coming right out of the fountain.
Or there's like, a fountain and then a drop
and then another fountain.
So that's, I see a spot,
and I'm already picturing what tricks could I do.
What is something I could do here
that I could never do at a beach?
I think the thing is,
the beaches probably have all been found.
But there's not so much difference
between this beach and that beach.
You know, the only difference you can have
is that the water level is a little bit higher,
a little bit lower,
or the sand is a bit more coarse or it's a bit softer,
but that makes almost no difference
for the Skimboarding or the sport itself.
It's really about seeing if it's Skimmable
and then seeing if there's something
somewhat unique about the spot
in terms of how it looks, because, of course,
what I do, I'm filming it and I'm trying to create
content around it, and I'm aware
that the nicer the spot looks and the more unique it looks,
the better it's going to get perceived by my audience.
You know, if all the boxes tick,
then I'm gonna go check it out.
You know, I first want to go to all these different spots
and then, you know, try out what I can do at these spots.
And I feel like that's my first move, because to me,
what's special about this is more the urban location,
as opposed to my Skimboarding.
You know, I'd rather let the spot steal the show
and then do something I can do very comfortably,
and I can do well, and I'd rather go
that direction, doing something very well
that I know how to do,
and then doing it at a bigger spot.
Maybe a bigger drop or maybe a bigger rail,
maybe a bigger ledge.
I mean, I don't exactly know,
but I think I might be the only one doing it right now.
I'm sure there's a few other people
that are, you know, checking out spots.
And to be fair, I get Instagram DMs every day
of people sending me spots.
So sometimes like there's a guy in Ukraine
that's like, "Oh check out this spot in Kiev.
You should go there," people are definitely looking.
I don't know if they're riding it themselves,
but people have taken the inspiration
of looking for these spots,
and I'm sure it's just a matter of time
for people to actually go and ride these spots themselves.
But ultimately, I want to inspire people
to, you know, take a board and go ride these spots
because, you know, I think it could really be something.
I really think that this urban Skimboarding can be
more than just a novelty thing, you know what I mean?
You know, it's really worldwide.
And I have a map around the world,
and I'm actually ready to go to all these places now.
You know, literally waiting for all the borders to open,
to go to these places, you know, to travel
10 hours by plane just to go to a water stair site.
So, you know, I'm taking this proper seriously,
and I want to go to all these places
around the world for their urban environments basically.
For their urban environments that include water
where I can Skim it.