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I was pretty blown away by how vast and aggressive the terrain is in the Japanese Alps. You're looking up at peaks, and it's like Alaska seeing all kinds of amazing stuff that looks ridable, but it's 70 percent death defying; only a small percentage really goes.
While I will always have the utmost respect for the superhuman out-of-bounds freestyle and extreme stunts that seem to continually progress beyond our imaginable limits, my highest appreciation goes out to the simple rider who's out there just for the experience.
Sometimes storms come through with wind and blow the features off or sometimes they come in heavy and grow the features to the point where we have to shovel them off again. Leading up to the window for our event we try to get everything lined up and safe for the riders.
I don't look to my situation to determine what choices I make. I've developed a good sense of values and beliefs. That's my reality. No matter where I am, God is still good. No matter where I am, nothing is impossible. It's those sort of principles that really anchor me.
It's definitely got to be a daily thing. There's no formula to walking with God. There's no formula to having success as an athlete. It's about relationships and it's a daily thing. You've got to revisit things and you've got to be willing to work on things all the time.
What most people don't realize is that in snowboarding, there are two different aspects: the filming side and the competition side. The filming side is when snowboarders spend the entire winter season trying to document the best, most progressive and innovative riding of the year.
I remember being glued to the TV as I watched the Olympics as a kid. There was something so magical, almost otherworldly, about the Olympics. My favorite part was that moment right before it all started. The moment where the athlete would stand up ready to face whatever lay ahead.
Being at the top means never being satisfied with what you're comfortable with - comfortable means you've stopped pushing, and you're either going to get passed, or you already have been. But if you're constantly pushing yourself, then you're exposing yourself to falls and injuries.
Building up expectations, creating unrealistic time frames, feeling like our end goal is the end all, be all can all lead to frustration or anxiety. We end up feeling as though we have to power through what we want rather than enjoy the process and just let the result come as it may.
A wedding is earth and water and a species of irreducible light and the flat belly of a harbor and a mango about to ripen and fall into gravity's caress and the waves subsiding and resuming their concerto in a minor key and the rush hour canceled by the stun of auspicious beginnings.
Over the course of my 13-year career, I've had a lot of concussions, and yet, because I'm no longer competing or suffering from concussion symptoms, I felt like I was in the clear. The reality, though, is that I get concussions far more easily, and my symptoms last far longer than ever before.
The first few years I was competing, I'd ride so well in practice, then choke and fall in competition. Now I take a deep breath and say, 'Look at me. I'm outside. I'm doing what I love.' Still, nothing's matched the pressure I felt standing at the top of the halfpipe for the first time at the Olympics.
People ask a lot about how I can be a believer in a culture that perhaps is counter cultural to what you believe in. I've come to the conclusion that I'm able to be in this culture and in this industry and fruitful because I don't look to my circumstances to determine what I believe to be true about God.
Shin [Biyajima] rides down with this big ol' Japanese grin and giggle and I'm like what? Two years later, when I started planning the trip, I knew Shin was from the Hakuba area, and I didn't want to come film in Japan without a Japanese rider. Shin had the time and availability, and it worked out perfect.
Production of identity is a resistance element, an aggressive element. Both a refusal and an affirmation and an assertion, and certainly, we in Jamaica were talking about black art. And the idea that there is a role for art in the civil rights revolution and in the successor to the civil rights revolution.
I didn't know how I was going to get to the Olympics, and in the beginning, I didn't really care. And that was the best part, because my desire exposed me to so many different sports, and in all of them, I always dedicated my best effort because I knew that's what it was going to take to become an Olympian.
I never planned to be at the height of my career when I was 30 years old and going to my fourth Olympics. I watched the 1998 Olympics when I was 14 years old. That's what I wanted to do with my life. I thought I might have a shot at three Olympics max. This is way beyond the parameters of what I set out to do.
We started out making a film [ The Fourth Phase] about the incredible snow we get at home in Wyoming, the journey soon macroed out into this epic 16,000 mile trip around the North Pacific, taking us to locations in Japan, Alaska, the Kamchatka Peninsula in far-eastern Russia, and back to Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
It takes a village to earn a spot representing your country, and I know that every single person who helped me get to the Olympics was also touched by the dream. The web of inspiration is incredible. Because of this, I know that the core principles and spirit of what the Olympics stand for are worth protecting.
For me, vision is just about the most important thing. So goggles play a huge role in my sport. I come to the competition with a bunch of different goggles and tons of different lenses in multiple tints. The weather can always be changing, and you have to have the right thing to make sure you can see perfectly.
I've seen definitive change in the mountains. I have concerns for the future generation. We inherit the earth from the people in front of us, and then we pass it on to the next generation. I don't think we've done a great job with our responsibility to leave the earth a better place than what we were born into.
The rhythm of the water, the sunset over the horizon, and the freedom of the ocean reminds me of how simply beautiful life can be. When you move too fast you can miss the things that mean the most. My love for th ocean reminds me of my love for the snow, and my love for life. So enjoy all that life has to offer.
Being out on the ocean seems like a different world to being in the mountains and the backcountry, but there is also a lot of symmetry. They each have their own biorhythms from a motherly embrace to tempestuous wrath. What I love about being out in nature is that you are at the mercy of your own decision making.
Right before they named the (2014) team, I stepped back and I allowed myself to realize what I had accomplished. I got overwhelmed and the tears came pretty quickly. It's an honor to represent my country again and to represent my sport to the world and to hold it down for all those 30-year old athletes out there.
I learned a few years ago that balance is the key to a happy and successful life, and a huge part of achieving that balance is to instill rituals into your everyday life - a nutritious balanced diet, daily exercise, time for yourself through meditation, reading, journaling, yoga, daily reflection, and setting goals.
What snowboarding has always had and the Olympics has not touched is that spirit, that original spirit of creativity and athletes standing up and having a voice and being innovative. But I guess what the Olympics has done is provided a platform for that spirit, and that's what I see as being a really positive thing.
I am very good at finding snow when there's very little snow. From a day in, day out perspective, I'm fine. I see resorts that are closed because they no longer have snow. It's not my home resort. There are signs all over the place. I'm very passionate about climate change, which is why I created Protect Our Winters.
I get to experience so much in my life as I travel around, and it's just such a great way to get to share that with people. All these sites, like Twitter and Make It Pro, give me such a very strong way to interact with people. It's easy to let people be part of your life and to keep all of your friends and fans together.
So after those Games, I continued to compete that season and the year after that. I really had the goal of being intentional. I didn't want to do big tricks because it was an X Games final or an Olympics final. I wanted to call my own shots. I started to do that and I started to have more fun than I ever knew I could have.
I mean, I get letters in the mail because I had a heart defect when I was one, I had surgeries and stuff. And so you get these letters in the mail that just, they are crazy, they are just like, yes, well our son is dealing with the same thing and we saw you on TV and I mean it is such a cool thing to inspire and kind of give hope.
From day one, snowboarding led me down a totally different path, and it's that path that's kept me laughing and continually intrigued. I love the satisfaction at the end of the day of overcoming my fears, of spending all day outside working hard, and there's nothing better than the feeling of landing a new trick for the first time.
I've always lived a life where what you see if what you get. I've never wanted to live two different lifestyles. The initial transition for me was perhaps the most difficult. It wasn't easy communicating what I believed and what my values were. Establishing that as a young adult was interesting. I was 20 years old when I got saved.
Instead of thinking about building up my image or building up my brand or building up my career, I've turned it and taken the approach of focusing on what I can give instead of what I can get. It's been a very enjoyable process for me. That's more of a heart position that I've taken. It's been one of the greatest things I've ever done.
I knew Shin [Biyajima] a little bit early on, but it's funny because where I really met Shin, and where he made a strong impression on me, was in Jackson Hole. I sledded back to a secret zone way deep in the Jackson backcountry to some freeriding. I got out there and followed some snowmobile tracks figuring it's just some snowmobilers.
If there ever is a need or if anyone's hurting, I'm the person they come to because they know what they're going to get. They know I'll pray for them. They know I'll encourage them. It's amazing that I get to be there for people. I'm sure I'll hear later on how God was working in it all, but for me, it's really about loving people well.
You’ve got to fight for that connection with God all the time no matter what you're going through in life. I'm growing up. I'm maturing. But I definitely think that the backbone of this is the freedom and creativity I have without the fear of failing. If I fail, what's going to happen? Nothing. I'm not looking for my self-worth in the sport.
Inevitably it's always a set-up; you go somewhere, bring your own expectations, you think you have an idea of what you want to do but then the minute you get there everything changes, so trying to work with people who are able to ride in a lot of different conditions, sub-par conditions, people who are able to make the most of any situation.
We were looking at weather and our relationships with weather. It goes to a few other places, and I don't want to spoil anything, so I won't go into it, but it's about a willingness to expose oneself a little bit more and share something openly and honestly. It's more than just landing tricks. Moving forward, this is just another stepping stone.
We're not meant to do it on our own. We're meant to do life with God and with each other. I've been fortunate to have friends that are willing to invest in me even on the days when I'm not able to invest back into them. I'm thankful for people that have that selfless attitude and have helped me become a successful person and a successful athlete.
It took me a full year of black eyes and a bruised and battered tailbone to learn how to do a crippler in the half-pipe. It was a trick that no one else was really doing, and it was scary! But I stuck with it, and one day, it finally clicked. The crippler has been my signature trick ever since, and it's what helped me be so successful in competition.
All third world literature is about nation, that identity is the fundamental literary problem in the third world. The writer's identity is insecure because the nation's identity is not secure. The nation doesn't provide the third world writer with a secure identity, because the nation is colonized, it's oppressed, it's part of somebody else's empire.
I was having a conversation with one of my teammates and she asked me, "Aren't you so glad it's over? We don't have to compete anymore." I thought that was a strange comment but in that moment I realized that I was doing it for the right reasons. I wasn't looking at the Olympics to define me. I wasn't to arrive somewhere by performing well in a contest.
By the time I was 18 years old, I had achieved everything that was in my heart to do and at the same time I wasn't finding the fulfillment I was expecting to get from it. All of the experiences were incredible and I wouldn't trade them for the world, but it wasn't fulfilling me. I went through the motions for a few more years, but I was looking for something more.
First and foremost, I've realized that I've been snowboarding for many years, and the biggest high that I get is when I really cut myself off from society, to really know the mountain. The high that I get from hiking up these mountains is a much bigger challenge than taking a helicopter to the top. I have to put more into it, but I get a lot more excitement out of it.
The nation as the horizon of an identity that you want to come into being as a fundamental absence of something that is compromised, something that needs to be rescued or made - these matters preoccupy the third world writer. It is seductive for a Marxist understanding of literary practice and production in the sense that it says that material culture determines literary output.
I'm willing to explore what that's supposed to look like. I want to be intentional. I want it to show up in my life every day. I really try to live out my values and be consistent. Another things that has helped has been staying connected to a community of believers. It's important to be around others that share your beliefs and share your values and people that can encourage you.
Ultimately it's a snowboarding film [Fourth Phase], of course, so the main thing that we wanted to celebrate was how awesome snowboarding is! Secondly, we wanted to celebrate the environment that we all shape our lives around. So the film documents myself and other like-minded individuals attempting to follow the hydrological cycles that shape the worlds we've committed our lives to.
When I was 20, I was contemplating quitting. I was at the first event of the season and I overhead a conversation between two girls. One told the other, "God still loves you," and that caught my attention. Later that day, I caught up with the girl and asked her what she meant. Before then, I'd never really thought about God. But there was an undeniable stirring in me and I couldn't ignore it.
What draws me to the type of snowboarding that I'm doing now is, I go through every emotion in life when I'm climbing these mountains. The fear. The anticipation before that. Getting to the top and the joy of standing on top, and then the adrenaline on going down, and then the kind of overwhelming emotions that I get at the bottom. That whole process is really addicting, and makes me feel alive.
2006 Games -by then, my identity had started to shift. Before that, my identity was in snowboarding. That's how people knew me and that's how I knew myself. That's where I got a lot of my self worth. That began to shift and I started to understand that I didn't get my worth from people or from the things that I did. It was from Christ. If I hadn't had that shift in my life, I think my world would have come crumbling down.