Not many people can pursue one thing all their life and become successful. Those that can, make a history and contribute to the future. Their energy is only focused on one thing at a time, so that it will be quicker to achieve it. Though it is hard to do so for some people. According to astrology, Aries and Capricorn seem to be good at sticking with what they decide to accomplish. On the other hand, some people can naturally develop interests in different areas. You don’t have to look for one thing you can be good at, because you might not be born for it. It’s okay to wok on multiple things at a time too because that could create a new thing or thought. Not only respecting difference in colors of skin or sex, but more importantly accepting different types of personalities is also about diversity. Knowing who you are as a person will help you make decisions easier.
Hiromu is a skater who runs his hair salon & store in Harajuku. For this article, he talked about how he manages work and skateboarding, and how skateboarding has affected his life.
“PRETTY SHRED 2021 SPECIAL -[Peace n Love3] VIDEO PREMIERE- & -Sara Hirayama ∞ FIRST EXHIBITION-“
DJ: SINGOLD, SEXY SUGI, Minnesotah (KANDYTOWN), New J, JUSTY, Miss VentiKeiko, TAKISEED, Sara
COFFEE SHOP: QUINTET
FOOD Catering: K4S KITCHEN
“Peace n Love3” Skater: Haruki Watanabe, Issei Morinaka, Yuto Kojima, Roy Takahashi, Sora Negishi, Nagoya Kato, Motohiko Iida, Ryusei Sakurai, etc… Video by Kenta Okamoto
OPEN. 22:00 LADIES ¥2,000/1D MEN ¥3,000/1D with SKATEBOARD ALL TIME ¥1,000/1D
There are various ways that people express themselves. Communicating with “words” would probably be the first thing everyone can think of, but that’s not the only one; singing, writing, dancing, painting, and of course skating are also great ways. Some of you might be wondering what expressing yourself means. It is to let the world know who you are so that you can engage your energy with others. In modern society, “words” are seen as the best tool to communicate with, in order to meet new people, or to have a successful business. But, the world should be where not everybody needs to speak well because that is not the only way to communicate with others.
For this article, this skater that is great at showing his thoughts by designing and skating talked about how he became who he is, and his own way to communicate with people.
Convenience store food is easy, cheap and decently good. But the worst part about it is that it’s not as healthy as most of you think. Those bento boxes, pastries and fried food are full of food additives; they are substances that are useful to preserve flavor, enhance taste. Not all of the kinds are promised to be safe because some may increase cancer risk, and have DNA damage. Consuming small amounts of food additives may not be a problem, but you should still avoid them because it is hard to detox out of your body in the long run.
Junk food is another unhealthy food that is high in calories with lesser nutritional value. But there is a skater who makes healthy burgers with no food additives. His name is Tsuyoshi, who runs a burger restaurant in Kobe with his wife, Meiko. For this article, he talked about the beginning of his skate life, and the homemade burgers he makes.
Skateboarding is a big trend in Japan since it has become a new Olympic sport. You’ll see skaters everywhere in the streets and at skate parks too. But it seems like the popularity of skating doesn’t have a huge effect on the street sport, BMX. It’s famous for more powerful performances with bigger sections, compared to skating. Buying a BMX isn’t so cheap, and most of the riders are men. For those reasons, it’s not an easy sport to get started. What do BMX riders think about the growth of the skate community in Japan?
Japan is slowly becoming environment friendly: there are no more free plastic bags at stores, and more clean up volunteer groups. But People in other developed countries have a much better understanding of it. Littering trash and cigarette buts is often seen in skate scenes, and moreover many skaters seem to think they’re cool doing that. How can we get more people to care about the environment casually?
There’s a saying that skaters don’t work a lot and they always struggle not having enough money. Although people usually tend to know how to get away from sleeping in the streets. You could ask your parents or friends if you’re about to get kicked out of your own place.. Skating is a street culture: But is truly loving the culture different from being homeless? There’s someone who does kick flips naked in the street where he used to call home.
The head of Chuulip Skateboards, Shota was known as a homeless skater for quite a while. He made his first deck as a brand with no home and no money. How did he become homeless and make a deck brand?
You drink coffee. But how do you drink it? Some may buy a cup to work at a cafe, others might pay a little extra to enjoy the experience: there’s this kind of coffee called “Speciality Coffee”, it uses light roasted coffee beans and tastes sour like wine and tea. The deep roasted coffee beans used to be common since the world wars, but now since farming environment has improved, there is no need to over roast the coffee beans for good keeping. It is required for specialty coffee to be in great condition and consistency in all the process from the farm to serving. They see sustainability and traceability as important qualities that makes good and safe coffee to drink.
Those skilled roasters and baristas can attract unique customers who are looking for special coffee. It’s very interesting that the taste of coffee can change depending on who roasts or who makes it. From that perspective, it is similar to skating because the same tricks look different for each skater.
It’s a stereotype of what a happy family looks like from decades ago, and about half of the Japanese still believe in that. On the other hand, cool mothers are often seen by themselves or with their families at skateparks. You can imagine that it would be very hard to make time for skating after a child is born. How do skater families manage to do their housework and take care of their children in order for their fathers and mothers to be able to skate?
Introducing Riyoko, who skates as a mother of a son and has a skater husband. She was kind enough to talk about the differences on how she looks at skateboarding before and after giving birth.