The Warriors & Colour Group in Japan / Galerie

 

The impulse? Julien, a friend from the little Swiss city of Bienne (thats where Chany Jeanguenin comes from) was studying Japanology and therefore spent some time in Tokyo. When his friend Kenji took the big leap and made an individual trip through Europe Julien told him to get in contact with me. Some weeks later this Japanese guy showed us how to nollie out of a wallie or lay down his foot on wallrides. He could even ollie right after an ollie.. or ollie into an ollie - whatever you want to call it, it certainly was a way of skating nobody in Zurich had seen before. That was 2007 or 2008, about the time Heroin got the Osaka Daggers out on the field and just after Takahiro Morita's Far East Skate Network had just reached Europe. Maybe some of you remember that incredibly cut Billiard section? Well, that Kenji Nakahira was one of those Billiard Balls skating downtown Shibuya in a way that would trigger a movement with an impact on the way skateboarding is approached and filmed In the world right now. The rare Overground Broadcasting DVD that Kenji gave us left a huge impression and I can assume that people like Yoan Taillandiee and Colin Read, current stylemasters of fast VX super-close-ups, found their inspiration there.

It may or may not be coincidence that one of the guys who had a main feature in Read's Tengu: God Of Mischief was Connor Kammerer, A NY skater few have ever heard of. Powerslide off a curb over the street and pop up the other side, anyone?.. But years before Tengu, in 2011 Connor followed Kenji's recommendation to visit Zurich, and again somebody showed up who would teach us something. Zurich was kind of used to the clean spot approach; only the perfect spots were skated and moving from one to another was just transportation. Connor on the other hand, visiting from the streets of Brooklyn, couldn't believe how many spots could be found just pushing around that we had never even looked at... By that time Igor Fardin was already a regular guest in Zurich and this suited exactly the way he skated. Connor left us with a great sense for night sessions around construction sites and he had one or two tricks in his pocket that we still like to remember today

 

So, when Igor and I were randomly checking flights around the world and we discovered that prices to Tokyo just plummeted we just had to book. No matter what. We reached out to people we knew and after a lot of positive feedback but only A few people determined enough to book several months in advance we found ourselves with Henrique Goncalves and Mikey Brunner, two of the most gifted Swiss street skaters, and Shqipron Bobaj, the filmwe. If you follow the Swiss scene a bit you'll know that it's mainly this guy covering all of the craze going on around the greater Zurich area.

Some months later we found ourselves in front of a public bath we just got kicked out of because of our tattoos. Two in the morning, drinking cheap plum wine and squid jerky, sharing our memories with Kenji and Connor, ten years after that step-down wallride MADE our jaws drop.

Translation: Aymeric Nocus