Looking Sideways Action Sports Podcast

Festive Special! Mince pies. Carols. Mistletoe. The John Lewis ad. Festive tunes on endless repeat. Yep, Christmas is a time of tradition. And in Looking Sideways land, that means it’s time for the annual Tim and Gendle Christmas Special, our very own addition to the Christmas canon. Although…this year, we approached things a little differently. Of course, we sat down and chatted for a couple of h...

This week’s episode is a double header with my friends Lewis Arnold and Chris Nelson, two absolute stalwarts of the UK surf community who for the last three years have been working hard on their investigative film The Big Sea. And it really is an extraordinary piece of work - an investigation into surfing’s ‘dirty little secret’, as they put it: the industry’s relationship with neoprene. Neoprene...

“Death isn't scary to me. Dying isn’t scary to me. I’ve seen it, and I’ve been close to it.” When my friend at Whitelines magazine asked me to chat to snowboarder Kimmy Fasani about her cancer diagnosis for this year’s annual, we decided to join forces on a print/audio double-header. The print version of our conversation was released last week, followed by the full audio version of our conversatio...

Lifer alert! It’s been a while since I had a good, honest lifer chat on the show, and this episode with my pal James Joiner is a rambling comfort blanket of a conversation in the classic Looking Sideways fashion. James is a journalist, photographer, podcaster and all-round creative doer who I first met when I was a guest on his own 1% For The Planet podcast a few years back. We hit it off real wel...

Over the years, I’ve been lucky enough to interview people who’ve had a real influence on my life. But Chris Moran, this week’s guest, has probably had more of an influence on my life than any guest I’ve yet had the pleasure of chatting to. Thanks for checking out this episode! Subscribe for free so you don’t miss an episode or newsletter Let’s get the snowboarding out of the way first. Chris is c...

Twenty four years after snowboarding made its Olympic bow, the often fractious relationship between action sports and the Olympics feels poised to enter a new phase. For an entire generation, surfing, skating and snowboarding being Olympic sports is completely normal. And yet, the dichotomy at the heart of the our relationship to this most performance-based of sporting behemoths remains: just how...

Welcome to the latest in an irregular series of bonus episodes of the Looking Sideways Action Sports podcast. No fuss, no fanfare, just a non-traditional episode banged out every now and again when this opportunity comes up. This episode you’re about to listen to is the full live chat with Olympic gold medal winning snowboarder Sage Kotsenburg, water photographer Christa Funk, surfer Kepa Acero an...

“We are increasingly aware that the construction of the outdoors, as a concept, has historically been the gnarled, wizened white guy in a puffer jacket and a beard, enduring the most inclement of conditions – it’s about conquest. It creates a culture that explicitly and implicitly says if you are a sixty year old woman of Pakistani heritage and don’t have an athletic build, this isn’t for you. Tha...

“I’m very hyper-aware of my privilege and background, so I didn’t feel like I was the right person to be speaking on these subjects. But people kept on asking me. I realised I was doing everyone a disservice by saying ‘No, I’m not going to talk publicly’. It didn’t mean someone else was going to step in to that space, so I needed to find a way that I would be able to support other people’s voices”...

Is Chris Burkard the most influential visual artist at work in the outdoors today? It’s difficult to think of anybody else who has shaped the conversation to the same degree. Whether you realise it or not, any time you open Instagram and clock somebody gallivanting in front of a remote waterfall, or watch the latest series from an outdoor brand featuring twilit campfires on a beach, you’re seeing...

When one of the legends drops the guard to show some vulnerability and openness, it has real impact. This is one reason why my episode with Jamie Thomas is still so popular. And why I think this latest conversation with Olympic gold medalist and modern day snowboarding icon Sage Kotsenburg is likely to have a similar effect. After all, it isn’t that often that one of the most high profile snowboar...

A mere four years after I had Ross Edgeley on the show , I’ve finally managed to book another swimmer! Yes my guest for this episode is the great Bonnie Tsui, journalist, writer, swimmer, surfer and author of one of my favourite books of recent years - Why We Swim . It wouldn’t be possible to produce Looking Sideways without support from readers and listeners. Subscribe below to support the show A...

It wouldn’t be possible to produce Looking Sideways without support from readers and listeners. Subscribe below to support the show. Let’s start with the facts: this week’s guest Stacy Peralta is one of the most influential cultural figures in our corner of the world. If you’ve stood sideways on any craft - hell, even if you’ve listened to my podcast - you’ve been influenced by Stacy, whether you...

“My approach to activism is to not be too ‘shouty’. Instead, it’s how can I bring someone along with me? I try in my writing to be even more gentle than I feel, because I want people to be willing to listen to me.” Type 2 is my podcast in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism. This week’s guest is surfer, swimmer and academic Reb...

It wouldn’t be possible to produce Looking Sideways without support from readers and listeners. Subscribe below to support the show. Kepa Acero is one of modern surfing’s most intriguing and beloved characters. Why? Because there’s just something irresistible about people who are completely comfortable in their own skin and who take life on their own terms. That’s definitely the case with Kepa, an...

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com Episode 2 of my Hossegor omnibus in association with Db! And my guest for this instalment is Christa Funk, a swimmer, surfer, coastguard and photographer who has very quickly established herself as one of the most creative and formidable photographers on the North Shore, capturing that none-more-heavy scene with a beguiling blend of dynami...

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com My guest this week is Tim Myers, an award-winning and renowned cameraman, cinematographer, journalist and storyteller who has carved out an extremely interesting career for himself telling human interest stories as a freelance gun for hire for people like the BBC, CNN and the UN. There’s a chance you might unwittingly be familiar with Tim...

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism. This week’s guest is a surfer and activist Adam Hall. He’s Head of Sustainability for Surfdome, a trustee for POW UK, and is part of the team that just successfully ran the campaign to have the North Devon coastline designated one of only 12 World...

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com This week’s guest is photographer Wig Worland, one of the most respected and influential people in the history of UK skateboarding. I’ve known Wig on and off since the 90s. Looking back, we were all a little bit in awe at his complete understanding of who he was as a person, and how single-mindedly he approached his craft and self-appointe...

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com There are many layers to this week’s conversation with surfer, director, film-maker, producer, creative and all-round legend Mikey Corker. On the one hand, it’s about this latest project Savage Waters, a surf film in the finest classical, questing tradition. It’s about how Mikey and a crew of similarly-driven and passionate people ha...

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com Is there anything better than catching up with an old friend after a long break, and picking up exactly where you left off? I think not - which is why my latest with Ewan Wallace is a paean to the joys of close friendship. Ewan is a snowboarder and musician (he’s guitarist with Bonobo and Karmic) who is also one of my oldest and clos...

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com Let’s get straight to it - I’ve got one of surfing’s all-time great legends on the show this week. Along with peers like Ian Cairns, Rabbit and MR, 1977 World Champion Shaun Thomson helped to redefine surfing over the course of one of THE most influential careers of them all. He changed the game in ways we all continue to benefit fro...

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com When does cultural guardianship become another form of toxic gatekeeping? How can you connect your own personal take on activism with the bigger themes? How can ski touring and splitboarding be a vehicle to increased creativity and self-awareness? And just why is Scotland one of the most unique places to ride a snowboard in the world...

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com Sound the geek klaxon! Yep, this week’s conversation with legit US snowboarding legend Pat ‘the eYe’ bridges goes deep, deep down the snowboarding rabbit hole. I go back a long way with Pat - around twenty years, in fact. I used to write for him back when he was editor of Snowboarder Magazine, which was around when we first met. Over...

Full episodes info and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.com To say that Neil McDonald is interested in skate history is a little like saying Capability Brown liked to dabble in the odd bit of gardening. Neil is a journalist, author, curator and archivist who is obsessed, to an awe-inspiring degree, with the tales and intricacies of skate history. It’s a fascination he explores through his ess...