Slept On David Lougedo
June 08, 2009 @ 12:50 PM
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Any old dog out there will understand if I talk about a special breed of new skateboarders that seem to be born with a natural synchronization for any flick of a board. When you see riders like David Lougedo you realize how skateboarding is evolving: faster, smoother, easier, better looking. In David’s case, you can add an easy and honest sight of skateboarding that makes him improvise his tricks on the way.
Maybe his brother has something to do with David having a special opinion of skateboarding, since he was the instigator who insisted until he saw his little brother David on a board.
“As far as I remember, I’ve always seen my brother on top of a skateboard. I remember he used to insist I should start skating and explain the reasons why, but I didn’t like it. Then, when I was 14 years old, a friend of mine bought one and he would let me try it out. Then I got really interested in it, so I came back to my brother and asked him if he could get me one… At first I skated with my neighbour and my brother, we would go under a bridge close to where I lived. When it rained people would show up, that’s how I started to meet other skaters from my city. Then we started to move around searching for spots…”
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But A Coruña is maybe not the most favourable city to skate in Galicia regarding spots. Except the polished marble jewel called Vigo, the rest of the cities are not that good. Although it is quite easy to predict what’s going to happen when there is a group of riders willing to skate and no spots where to do it.
“We ended up building our own obstacles to skate… I think we made like 20 different ones, most of them grindboxes. The reason to build that many was because we didn’t know how long would they last, it could be months or days, cause the city hall would always take them away.”
David is an easygoing person who likes to keep his feet on the ground. And the ground, in this case, is university and finishing a degree.
“I finished high school and then I decided to go to University. I’ve been studying technical architecture, and it’s going quite good. Sometimes I don’t skate as much as I’d like, but that’s life.”
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When you prioritize such an absorbing thing like that, getting free time to be able to skate can become quite hard. David told me he usually skates once a week when he’s studying. Add a constant rain Galicia is known for, and you can end up skating twice in two months. But he’s managed to make his own space in the national scene (and now international) with his natural and calm talent. Living in a place so out of focus for media lenses as Galicia has always been the fact of getting sponsorship was something weird, only reachable by shining much more than the rest of the lads – not only in the area, but the whole country. David was already doing that without even knowing it.
“I never got obsessed with getting sponsors or something like that. At the beginning I didn’t even know there was something like that. In my city nobody had them, that’s why I wasn’t even conscious you could get that. I only wanted to skate with my friends and enjoy, improvise tricks… I’ve never liked overly thought-out tricks. I think if you’re thrilled about skating and having fun, everything will eventually come. Even if you are in the most hidden corner, like me.”
But sponsors arrived, and he answered them with the best way he could do, winning national contests, national awards of ‘Spanish revelation’ skater, filming fluid and solid tricks and lines and reaching the eyes and mouth of lots of people. The good point about this is he never lost touch with his board, meaning his vision of what he likes to do never changed. Contests are something you just have to do at some point.
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“The best thing about skateboarding for me remains the same as the first day. I also love to see new places, meet new people, and learn new ways of living that differ from my own life, whether it’s related to skateboarding or not. All those new experiences make me want to skate more. I try to travel as much as I can with my brother and my friends, but that’s only possible when I’m not studying. All I want is to get a nice memory of all of this.”
What did you expect? David is a plain and simple person, nothing more. His life is just like anyone else’s. But he is one of those skateboarders with a fresh vision of skateboarding, always simple and natural, only known for his natural talent. None of the photos in this interview were premeditated, it just happened to happen. That’s what I’m talking about. No lists of “tricks-to-do”, neither “tricks must do”, none of that artificial part of skateboarding that sometimes blurs our sight. Well, I know for some it might work, and it’s all good, whatever works for you! I just wish I could do what David does, but I’m afraid I can’t.
David Lougedo is 21 and rides for JART skateboards, ADIDAS and MATRIX.
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