PATHWAYS INTERVIEW
Sharing the Stoke: The Spiritual Side of Skateboarding Interview with Jonathan “Shreddie Mercury” Marino
in my neighborhood skating. He was doing an “ollie”, which means you make the board jump, and he landed on top of a sidewalk. He went over the curb, onto the sidewalk, and then just kept going. It looked so magical and amazing. And so that was my first inspiration, how it hit home, because it wasn’t on TV, it was in my neighborhood, and he just made it look so easy. And I thought, “If anything, I just want to learn that, and I’ll be happy.” I begged my mom for a skateboard, and I got one from Toys ‘R’ Us. It was a super cheapy style, but that was my beginning. I learned how to ollie, which is part of what’s called “street skating”, because you’re just in the street, free flowing, using whatever is in your neigh - borhood, or in the city, as obstacles, going onto the sidewalk, off the sidewalk, grinding a bench, that kind of thing. So that’s super relatable and something anyone can do if they don’t have a skatepark nearby. It makes sense that you should start learning with a style that’s immediately accessible. What other skating styles have you learned over the years?
INTERVIEW BY MICHELLE ALONSO
Skateboarding has been around for decades, born in California in the 1950s by the surfing community who needed something new to surf when the waves were flat. It has stereotypically been associat - ed with a thrill-seeking, reckless, extreme, or rebellious community of young, mostly men. Thankfully, the perception has changed over the years as skate culture has evolved into many different styles, and gained greater legitimacy — for better or worse — with its introduc- tion into professional sports and the Olympics, and the infusion of corporate sponsorships. And the skate community itself has become much more inclusive and diverse across genders, ethnicities, and age range, due in large part to the virality of social media and the ability to share skateboarding videos from all around the world. More recently, the pandemic has given skateboarding a reason for resurgence as a fun, solo, socially-distanced activity that could be done outdoors. It was during the pandemic when Jonathan “Shreddie Mercury” Marino, a proud Marylander, and an even prouder skateboarder, opened his School of Shred ( www.ShreddieMercury.com ), a local business dedicated to skateboard instruction. He has been nurturing his passion for skateboarding since he was twelve, when he was first exposed to street-style skating in his Gaithersburg neighborhood. He felt an immediate connection that has only grown during the last twenty years, including several of those spent within the SoCal skate scene, to what is now a thriving livelihood teaching skateboarding. Shreddie gets his moniker in part to his resemblance to the late, great Freddie Mercury, frontman of the iconic rock band, Queen, and to his amazing ability to “shred”, the slang term for skilled skating. For over two decades he has been honing his skills by learning the many different skating styles in the community, adapting his mind - set to embrace continuous personal growth, and in turn, “sharing the stoke”, or excitement for all things skateboarding with his students. He is passionate about the many benefits — physical, mental, social and spiritual — skateboarding offers. As it turns out, Shreddie is also stoked about Pathways! He first picked up a copy as a teenager trying to understand and relate to in- terests held by his father, who was “very into the mind-body-spirt world.” He credits reading those issues early on as what got him inter- ested in spirituality, mindfulness, and meditation. And he recognizes the similarity in values and practices found in skateboarding. Shreddie introduced himself to us when he attended a recent Nat- ural Living Expo. This interview is a continuation of that first conver - sation about his love of skateboarding and how he feels about being part of both communities. Here, we delve deeper into where his inter- ests got started, when he made the transition to teaching and how he approaches the discipline, where he finds the intersection of spiritual - ity and skateboarding, and what he has learned along the way. There’s the saying, “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach”, but as a long-time skateboarder who now also teaches skateboard- ing for a living, this doesn’t apply to you at all! How did you first get introduced to skateboarding? I think the first time I saw skating was on TV, maybe an X-Games on ESPN, or some kind of TV program about skating that caught my attention, and I thought it was really cool. But the main thing that really sparked my attention was when I was 12 years old and saw a kid
I did street skating throughout high school, and then a few years af- ter high school, I moved from Gaithersburg, Maryland, to California. I worked at 411 Video Magazine , which is a skateboarding video series, as a web publisher, and I also had a camera. I would go to different skateboarding contests and events, document them, and make edits as a kind of a freelance video guy, along with making pieces for the website. I became less compelled to flip my board or jump down stairs anymore, but that allowed me to stay in the scene. Around 2014, I got really into transition skating, which is using bowls, ramps and backyard pools for doing tricks and maneuvers. Then, I was invited to be part of a contest called the OG Jam, which was for skaters over 30, thanks to Heidi Lemmon, one of the event or - ganizers. I had no desire to do contests, but the environment was very welcoming, and it helped me progress and learn to skate under pres- sure. That was super fun, and introduced me to a whole new commu-
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PATHWAYS—Summer 23—9
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