How skateboarding became my best teacher | Sebastian Linda | TEDxDresden

have you ever thought about who would you be today if you followed your childhood dream let me tell you about my dream how I pursued it followed it and laughed what I love to do most when I was six years old I saw something that completely blew my mind [Applause] [Music] yeah Wow when I was six years old I saw that I saw the first time I live skateboard a kickflipping and I was like amazed I knew at in that moment this is what I want to be I want to be a skateboarder yeah so but how could I learn that it was 1996 I was 11 years old then I said ok now I start but skateboarding was totally at the bottom to that times there were no skateboarders in my little hometown so jahausa 2,500 people nobody there that could skate except 10 inline skaters so that's how I look totally padded up because it was in the book so my mother took me to the skate store and we get some pets for me that was good and we tried to figure out how the skate works with the help of the books but the thing was I was inventing like crazy tricks which probably went with any tricks so I had another idea and every day when it was raining you cannot skate because rain and water totally destroys your board your bearings and I was small I had not a lot of money so once gave out had to last like one year so when it was raining I was sitting in front of the television for like hours and there was a program called a Nickelodeon maybe remember it and it was Nickelodeon Sky TV and was always in the in the in the break between the the things sometime it came like three times a day and I would wait in front of the television until it came and I recorded it and edit it together to my own skate edits from which I could learn yeah that's basically how I learned to skateboard and so I was getting better and actually that is a photo of me keep flipping down the stairs where exactly I saw the skateboarder when I was six years old because there was my school and school is also very important topic for me today because when I was in this primary school you see behind me that's my primary school actually I was having my first like music I had my few music teacher and he gave me two wood blocks because he wanted to give me some mark and he said please clap with the wood blocks to the beat and I tried to clap to the beat but actually I didn't know what a bit was so I did something and he was coming to me and took away this wood blocks and threw them in the corner and said you will never be able to play any music instrument you have no talent and I was like yeah funny now but back at that time I was pretty traumatized and I was like oh I will never try again never never in my whole life in school we are very often worn down we are one try society one try wrong answer again so the good thing was when I went with my skateboard and after one year of trying all alone I went to a bigger city called Tom Scott and I had my first skate experiences there and I met other skateboarders and it was very very shy because I was always like beaten down like in school like you remember but the skateboarders were totally reacting differently to what I did I failed again and again I were and I was not really good to that times but no matter what I did like trying was winning and to illustrate that I will now show you a trick which I tried in the last week's you Ali Ali working together [Music] yeah thank you thank you there was an old slide nollie flip off it took like 30 seconds in here but it took me like three days in reality but you see like the process it's fun is we enjoying it we we embrace failure we love to fall down and we love to support each other in their individuality to be a better self of themselves so to speak I escaped but now like for 21 years and I failed down I don't know how many times 1 million times I have no idea but I always stood up again and I learned so much about me and my individuality and I learned to be tough I let her learn to stand up again and again and again and again because I know like I need it for just to jump to make a little jumper or with some bench I need like one year but I knew that if I would stay on skateboarding and stay on my goals I would go there I would I would I would be successful in what I do and so we escape order we can imagine something and we always say what if so like what if I grind on this pole thing and skate down the volcano no problem in Indonesia or what if we jump over this gap on the beach and and use it as some form of creative expression for ourself what if we slide on this on this curb on the Spanish here and also in front of the volcano in Indonesia or we if we jump down the stairs and again we keep flip the board and do a 360 kickflip catch the boat and roll away in the sunset Wow as I wanted to do oh if we skate with monkeys so that that's actually awesome pictures from my work where we really just did that and said what if and I just rolled down I remember that what if we skate with monkeys and everybody was like laughing it was was like a joke yeah we skated with monkeys but in the end we went there and we skated with monkeys so let me show you how it how then this dream I had of becoming a skateboarder looked [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you thank you so that this was more like my work as a cinematographer I was also a skateboarder on the trip but mostly I was behind the camera to bring out my vision I had when going to Indonesia and skate in Bali and spots where nobody has ever skated before and so actually I am a filmmaker I'm a visual artist and the interesting thing is like how to transfer the things I learned from skateboarding to my art and so I was at the packs of it say in Italy which is like beautiful as you can see and I wanted to do a shot there and I had a dream on new technology whoo-hoo and I already had it planned out but the problem was that it cut the top of the mountain and I was like no okay I'll make it and then I went with my wife she was with me there and we went around the whole leg and I was like how can I do it but through all the experience I had and through my vision and through me also through my skateboarding I came up with a solution [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so the solution a lot of people ask me about that and I didn't tell them so today I will tell you so it was of course a reflection of the sea and what I actually did was I filmed the reflection of the sea and I just flew with the drone like straight over the lake in the morning I came there for like three or four days every day five o'clock in the morning alarm ring baby bit and then go there waiting for the perfect son and then I kicked flipped it basically so it's it's the same thing you saw in the beginning it's a kick flip off the framing I just turned the framing around film the reflection turn it around kick flip the reflection and you have the normal framing and you don't care about not seeing the top of the mountain because you've seen it in the reflection like that so um this is a rock in the Sexson Switzerland and I had the idea for a new film that some breakdancers could make a headstand on top of that and the problem was that we never climbed before but as you know the principle which right so which right went up there also we stood up so many times in the morning again and again until with professional help we could get up there have a look [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so the great thing is we had a vision and the vision was like let's make the best breakdance video ever and we believed in it and we had we had a dream and like breakdance and skateboards pretty similar failing is also a big part of breakdance and so our communication over the way we approach the things were perfectly fitting together and so we did that let's come back to the kids so for me like a lot of teachers and adults say well you skateboard and why don't you do anything like real with your life because skateboarding is not like a job but actually I learned so much from skateboarding as I as I said before we went with our skateboards all around the globe and now just let's see what reactions we got from six years old in countries all over the world and how they are reacted to our skateboarding [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] so I realized that it was not just like an individual thing of me alone being like psyched by skateboarding when I saw it like for the first time everywhere in the world we saw like the same thing happening again and again and the way kids reacted and how their brains like exploded in how they thought wow I can't be that skateboarder one day and how we put them on the skateboard and just say try and you see how how they've felt again and again but they enjoyed failing and that's like the point I want to make today we have to embrace failing we have to embrace trying because it's it's a big big part of it and what shapes us to what we are today and so maybe on will not become a skateboarder if you want to try no problem comes me but at first we can not judge people when they fail but support them and if somebody gives the wrong answer just ask you man why do you give this answer what how do you get to that idea and just be society which values trying failing and embracing our possibilities we have as a society when we help other individuals to get better through failing and yeah embrace the future thank you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 33,896

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Life, Adventure, Beauty, Creativity, Film, Motivation, Passion, Skateboarding

Id: 8QG5jGgtoDo

Length: 14min 3sec (843 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 29 2017