Looking Sideways Action Sports Podcast

Noah Lane bonus episode! In October 2018 I found myself in Strandhill and arranged to meet my friend Noah Lane for a quick catch up. Noah was in the middle of an injury-enforced lay-off so headed on down from his home in Bundoran to sit down and fill me in on his life and career. We chatted about how he’s coping with a summer of rehab, his life as an Aussie surfer on the west coast of Ireland, his...

Full episode info and Show Notes: www.wearelookingsideways.com It was back to Ireland for episode 056, as I visited Strandhill in Sligo for a few days and grabbed legendary local bodyboarder Seamus ‘Shambles’ McGoldrick for a chat while I was at it. Although he’s too modest to admit it, Shambles first made his name as part of the local crew of surfers and bodyboarders who pioneered the mean array...

Full episode info and Show Notes: www.wearelookingsideways.com Episode 055, and I invited one of my oldest and dearest friends onto the show - Sian Leigh. Sian is a health coach, a yoga instructor, a mum, a wife and a snowboarder. You may be familiar with her from work as one of the coaches on Jenny Jones’ camps, for example. But what makes Sian unique is her unapologetically positive and joyful t...

Full episode info and Show Notes: www.wearelookingsideways.com I was lucky enough to welcome surfer, father, rancher, director and Patagonia ambassador Keith Malloy onto the show for episode 054, recorded during my recent trip to Newquay. Keith’s is a surfing life in three parts. He spent his twenties on the WCT tour, following the contest circuit and enjoying a huge profile as one third of the Ma...

Full episode info and Show Notes: www.wearelookingsideways.com I’m back after a couple of weeks podcast downtime - and my guest this week is the legendary Don Brown. You might not be too familiar with the name, but Don, a Brighton local, has had one of the most quietly influential careers in skateboarding. How? From world champion freestyler to the man who came up with Go Skateboarding Day, Don ha...

Full episode info and Show Notes: www.wearelookingsideways.com I was lucky enough to speak to the great Pete Cabrinha for episode 052 - founder and owner of Cabrinha Kites, legit Hawaiian waterman and complete force of nature. Pete has been at the cutting edge of waterborne action sports since the last 70s, and since then achieved mastery at no less than three different disciplines - windsurfing,...

Full episode info and Show Notes: www.wearelookingsideways.com I finally bagged a guest I’d been after for months when I welcomed Hanli Prinsloo onto the show for episode 051. Hanli is an ocean advocate, conservationist, writer and speaker who is the founder and executive director of I Am Water, an ocean conservation trust. She is also a freediver who enjoyed a decade long career at the top of the...

Read and Destroy bonus episode with Dan Adams! Dan is the man behind the hugely popular Read and Destroy archive project, on Instagram, and now the new Kickstarter project which is running this July. Dan, a supremely talented designer, cut his teeth on RaD magazine back in the day. And for the last half decade or so has been working with the original RaD ensemble - Tim Leighton Boyce and pretty mu...

Full episode info and Show Notes: www.wearelookingsideways.com Well, I had to didn’t I? To mark a whopping 50 episodes of the Looking Sideways podcast, I invited back the very first and still one of the most popular guests I’ve had on the podcast: snowboarder and presenter Ed Leigh. I’ve had a few returning guests over the months, notably Billy Morgan and Sophie Hellyer, but for episode 050 wanted...

Full episode info and Show Notes: www.wearelookingsideways.com I’ve had some pretty progressive guests on this show. But I think this week’s guest, Neftalie Williams, might just be the most visionary of the lot. Just check the list of accomplishments that make up one of the most impressive CVs in skateboarding. He is the first lecturer of skateboarding business, media and culture at USC; a PhD can...

Full episode info and Show Notes: www.wearelookingsideways.com Climber Matt Helliker is widely regarded as one of the UK’s top alpinists. But I have a feeling he’d prefer to be known as an all-round mountain athlete, as comfortable taking on a peak like Citadel in the Alaskan wilderness as he is exploring the sea cliffs of his native south west, or the Scottish winter climbing he considers to be t...

Imagine training your whole life for the biggest event of your life, only to find that on that day the event you’d expected would show the best of your sport is about to become a very public fiasco. Worse, conditions are so bad that for most competitors the day turns into a straight battle for survival - with the entire thing played out front of a global audience. It sounds dramatic, but that’s es...

Full episode info and Show Notes: www.wearelookingsideways.com Like most people, I got my first introduction to Skateistan back in 2010 following the release of To Live And Die in Kabul, Orlando von Eisendel’s documentary about the early years of the charity. So what is Skateistan? Set up by Aussie skater Oliver Percovich, Skateistan is an international non-profit organisation providing programmes...

Andrew Cotton bonus episode! At the end of May 2017 I was in Croyde for a few days so met up with Cotty to find out how he’s been getting on since his life changed back in November 2017 following the accident at Nazare that saw him break his back and get plastered across front pages and social feeds across the world. He gave me the lowdown on how he’s coped with the toughest six months of his life...

One thing I’ve learned since doing this podcast - you never know how these conversations are going to go. But my favourite Looking Sideways chats are the ones that take on a life of their own, following their own conversational ebbs and flows. And episode 45, my conversation with ultra runner Ryan Sandes, is definitely one of those chats, For the uninitiated, Ryan is an ultra runner but you could...

Full episode info and Show Notes: www.wearelookingsideways.com Imagine reaching the very top of one sporting discipline - and then switching codes and repeating the feat in your new discipline. Then imagine sustaining this over two decades, all while representing your sport with erudition, passion and grace. That's basically what UK mountain biker Tracy Moseley achieved during one of the most cele...

Full episode info and Show Notes: www.wearelookingsideways.com How do you recognise when to jump at those key opportunities? How do you handle those defining turning points that can set the tone for the rest of your life - when you can't see them coming? Today's conversation with Patrick 'Brusti' 'Armbruster is full of moments like these. You may not know the name, but over the last twenty years B...

Full episode info and Show Notes: www.wearelookingsideways.com If you were to sit down to try and devise a way of creating the perfect snowboarder, you’d do worse than use Stale’s Sandbech’s upbringing as a template. Take one stoked kid living near an easily accessible local hill. Mix with three equally hyped friends who live and breath snowboarding. Add one older brother photographer who shoots w...

Full episode info and Show Notes: www.wearelookingsideways.com How do you get to the top of your sport? Sure, you need incredible focus, steely ambition and exceptional physical talent. But you also need a particular mindset - an ability to deal with setbacks and injuries; to turn setbacks into positives, and to continually readjust your goals as circumstances dictate. And that’s the main takeaway...

Bonus Fire Food book launch episode! For this one I headed along to London to catch up with my old friend DJ BBQ, aka Christian Stevenson, on the occasion of the book launch for his new book Fire Food. I grabbed Christian for half an hour just before the party kicked off and have a fairly chaotic chinwag about the book and plenty more. It’s rough and ready this one, with interruptions, digressions...

Full episode info and Show Notes: www.wearelookingsideways.com What’s the reality of life for a top action sports athlete? Sure, there’s all the good stuff you might imagine - acclaim, adulation, world travel, free stuff and all that. But what about the rest of the time? What about the injuries? The constant hustling to make projects happen? What does it take to make a career in this most unforgiv...

Bonus episode! For this one, I met up with episode 019 guest Sophie Hellyer to catch up on her year so far, and to speak to her about the media storm she recently found herself at the centre of. We chatted a few times during the week it was going on, and during that time agreed to sit down and spend half an hour discussing the whole farrago for this special bonus episode of the podcast. If you enj...

Full episode info and Show Notes: www.wearelookingsideways.com What kind of city do we want to live in? It’s a fundamental question, particularly today, when urban spaces are becoming ever more homogenised and commodified. And it’s why the Long Live Southbank campaign, created to protect one of London’s most culturally important skate spots, struck such a chord. Skateboarders have been using the U...

Full episode info and Show Notes: www.wearelookingsideways.com For me, there is much more to the action sports world then the globe-straddling superstars we all know about. For every top pro or household name, there’s a lesser-known industry hero who’s passion and drive has contributed just as much to the culture we all love. Today’s episode with UK snowboarding pioneer Jeremy Sladen is about cele...

Full episode info and Show Notes: www.wearelookingsideways.com From urban running to the biggest stage of all - this week’s episode is part 2 of my chat with Billy Morgan, this instalment recorded as he returned in triumph from Korea with a medal round his neck and a new level of fame and recognition. Like part one of my conversation with Billy, during which we examined his approach to life and sn...