... skate it like Jürgen Horrwarth

Special counselling from Jürgen Horrwarth: the skate pro offers tips for tricks, reveals some rules of skater etiquette and knows how to grind his way through life with style also outside the halfpipe.

While most of your contemporaries suffer in boring office jobs, you – approaching 30 – are enjoying life as a skate pro. How can one avoid giving up one’s dreams and the things one enjoys too easily while growing up?

Too easily ...? Wait a minute: I have no right to judge others, just because I’m lucky enough to earn money with my passion. I have huge respect for people, who give up everything for their dream. But I also understand those for whom safety and security are more important, who accept that a regulated life is more important than the idea of being a skater, musician, or whatever.

What can one learn from skating for everyday life – or is it just running away from “reality”?

Yes, but not exclusively, as skating definitely teaches a few valuable lessons: above all doggedness and staying power, because every new trick fails many times before one finally gets it.

Skating isn’t just a sport, but an attitude to life. What do I have to do in order to develop from a guy on a skateboard to a “real” skater?

The first serious injury separates the wheat from the chaff: the latter give up the sport, the others keep going with even more bite.

Let’s stop philosophizing and move on to practical stuff: what advice would you give a 14-year-old from the skatepark, who still can’t manage an Ollie even at his fiftieth attempt?

Visualize every tenth of a second, the smallest movement your body must make to do the Ollie, in the tiniest detail – when you’re sitting at a table, traveling in a bus, before going to sleep. Sooner or later it will “click” and the Ollie will work in real life too – that’s exactly what I do with my own tricks.

And what would you suggest to a talented newcomer on the lookout for a cool-looking trick with high fun and a low difficulty factor?

The Frontside Air. It’s not only fun, but one can do it just about anywhere – most of all in the halfpipe.

Which clothing gaffe is a sure pointer to being a hopeless skatepark poser?

Personally I can’t stand the HipHop shit any more, all those idiots with the same XXXL shirts. I think it’s cooler to stick with one’s own style and wear things nobody else has.

Last but not least: what’s the best way to hold one’s ground against grumbling grandmothers or humorless custodians of the law intent on driving one off the best street spots in town?

With nice manners: instead of grumbling back, one should explain politely that one isn’t breaking anything and just wants to do a bit of skateboarding in peace. Sometimes even that doesn’t help: last week two of my friends ran over a woman in Rome. When they tried to apologize and pick up the cell phone she’s dropped, she cried out: “Help, I’m being mugged!”. My friends spent two days in jail on remand, until the misunderstanding could be cleared up ...