The Art of Living Sideways on Facebook

My book #theartoflivingsideways has now also got a facebook profile. jihaaa come and have a look and give us a like if you dig the page. we will appreciate it, merci

Jahrmarkt on Skis with Rosina Friedel

Jahrmarkt from rosina on Vimeo.

my talented sister rosina friedel just published her new skiing edid. sharing stylish handplants and all sort of other things.  i love it schatzi!

Roll-Laden Zürich just stocked my book

jiiiiihaaaaa the art of living sideways is now also available at switzerland's most epic skate shop: the roll-laden! and i am not saying this because they just stocked my book, although this is for sure another reason for their epicness. for those of you who do not know yet; the shop in the konradstrasse 72 not only supports the skateboard family since ever, roll-laden also donates 1% of their early turnover to a philanthropic project. also not to forget the excellent service as well as the grand collection of decks, wheels, trucks and all the schnick schnack you can dream off. 

drop in. get the book. support your local skate shop and ride out.

GoldenRide interview now online

previously the goldenride magazine interview was only available in the original print version. now it is online as well.  anita fuchs asks me about my latest book: the art of living sideways and we talk about peace work in the 21st century. in particular that peace work should be concerned with unfolding the potential inherent to all of us and how skateboarding plays a part in this.  the interview is in german but google translate might be able to help.

Rastplatz - A mobile kitchen for refugees

rastplatz means literally "a place to rest" in german.  a friend of mine and his crew will be traveling to the balcans in the orange vw bus that is home to a mobile kitchen. their mission is to support the thousands of people who flee conflict areas. they already collected money for 1000 meals. however they still need 2,500EUR to complete their funding goal. please donate on betterplace. 

here is more from rastplatz: 

There is an increase of people fleeing conflict areas over the Balkans towards EU countries. Some places are having to accommodate hundreds or up to thousands of people because they cannot continue the journey or because they need to take a rest. They have left many challenges behind but new ones are ahead of them. Despite strong efforts of humanitarian and development aid organizations, they are not able to be present everywhere. The situation is both depressing and shameful. We want to contribute to supporting these people in their struggle. 

The Art of Living Sideways in GoldenRide

jucheee summer time is beach reading time and i finally got hold of a copy from the latest goldenride issue. while hiding away high up in the mountains the awesome goldenride magazine was published. in it a two double spread interview where anita fuchs askes me some deep going questions about my latest book: the art of living sideways. get your copy here and check it out.

Skateboard Workshops

bavarian summer holiday are on and we are READY! Come and join us for skateboard workshops on long and short decks or sign up your kid under skateboardworkshop.de

Conflict Transformaton, Acton Sports & Therapy

next week i will be presenting a 20minute PeaceTalk at the 1st innsbruck academic festival of many peaces. during this presentation i will be sharing my latest research on the fusion of elicitive conflict transformation, action sports and psychotherapy. 

after the PeaceTalk there will be a 10minute Q&A session and i am looking forward to seeing many of you for a fruitful discussion. start is 9.30am at the grillhofweg 100 in vill by innsbruck. for more visit here.

White Powder

 

i have been spending the month of july working on a mountain hut 2175m above sea level and we hat the first snow this morning. pretty view and clean air. i am loving it up here. 

Book Review on Twin Sisters

the fantastic ladies at twinsisters published a grand review of my latest book: “the art of living sideways” on their page. thank you for spreading the word sisters! check it out here. 

Book Presentation

photo: daniela ingruber

thank you to everybody who made it to my book presentation in innsbruck last friday. it was an honour to see so many lovely faces there.

Follow Us

photo: www.johempel.com

skateboarding, longboarding, frisbee, footbag, freestyle football or break dance in the morning and nutrition ateliers in the afternoon with yummy breakfast buffet and lunch menus in-between. on a GORILLA Workshop day kids can pick and choose from a selection of different freestyle sports that enrich happines neurotransmitters and suport a fit lifestyle. check our blog with great pictures from joe hempel and follow the german gorilla tour on facebook.

photo: www.johempel.com

Tourstart - We Are On!

for the coming three weeks we, that is GORILLA are going to visit different german schools with the mission to bring more uga-uga power into the everyday school routine. packed with a big trailer full of skateboards, longboards, ramps, music and more good stuff we are about to inspire kids with freestyle sports and healthy eating workshops.

Wise Words from a Grand Man

When I Started Loving Myself
I Understood That I’m Always And At Any Given Opportunity
In The Right Place At The Right Time.
And I Understood That All That Happens Is Right –
From Then On I Could Be Calm.
Today I Know: It’s Called TRUST.

   

Gorilla goes Deutschland!

only for more night sleeps and gorilla will be rocking german schools! we are coming to teaching freestyle sports and healthy eating habits by bringing more uga-uga into young peoples live. oh yeah the summer will be gooooooooood!

Shuvit Crew likes The Art of Living Sideways

christian from the austrian shuvit crew invited me to talk about the art of living sideways a couple of weeks back. we had a great chat and the invterview is out now. thanks for the sweet article! 

the shuvit crew supports the austrian (but not only) skate scene with the annual shuvit cup, with skate trips and by generally being super rad. 

The Art of Living Sideways

wohooooooooo! my book is out as of today. In the art of living sideways i explore the action of skateboarding as a way to escape cycles of despair and one way to experience peace. inspired by my involvement with the wonderful ngo skateistan in kabul i write within the context of youth empowerment and explore how skateboarding can be understood as an elicitive approach to peace work. I am very grateful to my fantastic supervisor norbert koppensteiner for making this happen and for iain borden for writing me the best forward i could have wished for. thank you for all you other folks for helping me with this project, especially rich & marije from floda31 for offering your home for me to contemplate, and for alexandra stewart as well as shawn bryan for the proofreading. 

the book is availabel as soft copy or e-book stright from springer publishing or via amazon.  

Skateboarding in the Middle East

down published a great article about skateboarding in war torn jordan and afghanistan. "It’s the place that gets everyone together and the skateboarding scene in Jordan is like a family — we’re all brothers and sisters and 7Hills will be a home for that family". pretty pictures and a good read see for yourself.

UN. KNOWN SPACES exhibition

the other day i meet maurice at work as he was just about to finish the set up of the latest exhibition: united nations extented in the museums quartier in vienna. 

inspired by the essay “of other spaces“ by french philosopher michel foucault and the phenomenon „worlds inside the world”, maurice de martin and janina jenke chose to focus on the united nations headquarters in vienna, new york, and nairobi as three different “heterotopies“ positioned in three different urban environments. 

un.known spaces artistically unfolds the complex UN-universe through a series of 70 self-interpresentations by involved individuals that are recoreded and can be seen until the 9th of may.

Innsbruck Academic Festival of Many Peaces

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today i can happily announce the 1stinnsbruck academic festival of many peaces. this is going to be an awesome one week academic conference - festival where practitioners and theorist are going to meet to discuss topics of elicitive conflict transformation and transrationalpeace philosophy. we have our webhome running and are looking forward to host an enriching event. visit us on our website and apply to participate from today onwards.

Call for Equality

timely with the start of the ISPO the WIB ladies posted an open letter to the action sports industry, calling for a change in the currently often objectified presentation of the female body. with this fitting image above, the ladies twist the crap advertising trend into other directions. not to do the same, just the other way round -but to make a point and to gain attention. love it! 

"we call on the action sports industry to change its female marketing from the trivializing and objectifying representation that dominate the industry toward a more dignified, empowering, and inspirational representation of women that value our diversity, capacity, creativity and courage. we want others to relate to our reality through the media and advertising, in order to share how amazing it feels, how empowering and feeing it is to live our passion" the ladies write. 

i share the open letter below, with the wish, that the unifying values initiative inspires board-, action and lifestyle brands to focus their advertising campaigns on the power of such activities rather then objectifying the female body to sell their products. especially after last summers official trailer for the biarritz roxy pro women surf event - that had near no surfing but lots of sexual seduction- i find the below letter timely necessary.   

OPEN

OPEN - lgc skates Israel - short video from Longboard Girls Crew on Vimeo.

this wonderful edit is a short snapshot of the full-length OPEN move, showing a group of young female longboarders from 11 different countries skateboarding israel. the ladies from the LGC teamed up with longboarding for peace to share the stoke of peace and longbaording by bringing kids from different socio-political backgrounds to skate together. here are some stunning images of this journey.

Black Beauties

Autumn lines from nico nuehrig on Vimeo.

my viennese skate sister gloria and her team buddy nico rockign austria. this is a super sexy little video edit and i love it.

Tom Daman

Rolling Hills from auswegerdaniel.at on Vimeo.

beautiful clip of skate buddy tom daman riding like an eagle.