Tags: barcelona, dominic swagemakers, kiku comino, marnix haak, martin van drunen, philip freriks, vojd vredevoogd
Although Martin van Drunen has a very busy life, Philip Freriks found some time to interview him about his time in Barcelona, new projects and how much rollerblading means to him. Expect to see more of this guy online and in DVD's soon.
Questions by Philip Freriks
Answers by Martin van Drunen
Tell me briefly who you are, where you are from and who you skate with.
My name is Martin van Drunen. I’m 21 years old and living in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. I study Industrial Design in Delft, which consumes a lot of my time but it's fun to do. I've been skating for 10 years now, with my local Rollerdam boys like Giorgio Oehlers and Max van Hooren. They have been there since the beginning and will stay to the bitter end haha.
Martin preparing for another trick (Amsterdam)
Do you have other interests besides skating?
I did Teakwondo for 12 years and Thaiboxing for like 1.5 years. I quit these, but I’m still killing the boxing sack in my room once in a while though! I’ve done quite a few sports. When I was six I played tennis for like seven years, and was quite a young talent. But I couldn’t stand it when I was lost a match, so that is where tennis went wrong. I went for some team sports and played baseball for almost four years. But it took up all my time, training like 3 times a week, and playing games all weekend. It was good fun, if I didn’t skate I would still be trying right now to get that damn ball over the net! But I chose to hang out with my friends from skating and skate more, since that was just what gave me real satisfaction. And that’s what I’m still doing today, I think quite often of playing baseball, but it just doesn’t fit my schedule with school, work and of course skating.
Skating and martial arts, is that a good combination?
Not really. You use your muscles in a complete different way. Skating is more explosive. The efforts when you move are irregular. You feel it in your body when you fight and skated the day before. That’s one of the reasons I quit last year.
What were the other reasons?
I wanted more time to focus on school and skating. For my study I lived in Barcelona fir 6 months, s I didn't have the opportunity to keep up with taekwondo and muay-thai since in
Unity to alleyoop negative mistrial (Amsterdam)
Moving to Barcelona must have been a big change for you, living all your life in one city, skating with the same dudes all day long.
Yeah it was a great experience! I spent two vacations in Barcelona with my Rotterdam crew, so I knew how lovely Barcelona was. That’s why it wasn’t a hard decision to go studying in Barcelona. I lived there half a year to study, skate, chill and discover life. When I skated I almost always skated with the Guerrero Boys, mr. Anzola, Marbin and Kevinem. Thanks to them I had a wonderful time. It was very chill to skate with these guys.
Did your time in Barcelona influence your street skating? Before this period you skated more transition.
Yeah in Rotterdam we have great skate parks where we always hang around. There wasn’t much juice to go street skating, because it’s so easy to keep hanging in the skate park. But in Barcelona we almost only skated street. The perfect skate spots compared to the oh so crappy skate parks made it always easy to decide where to skate. That’s why I have more feeling and confidence in my street skating right now.
First try backside on this steep kinkrail (Girona)
Do you prefer street or transition?
I like both, it’s a complete different thing. At a skate park I master my tricks to take them to the streets. Street skating is harder, when you pull a trick on the street it gives you more satisfaction than when you do it in a park. But I mean, flowing around through some transitions without doing hard tricks is also a very good feeling. I also really need to skate one of those concrete skate parks in the US one day. An overload of transitions and everything, a skater’s dream right??
Before Barcelona, did you skate with other guys than your local crew?
There was only one time I skated alone with other guys, and that was a skate/film tour with Marnix Haak for his new DVD. Skating with these other guys was a good experience. It keeps you on point and you learn other things.
Bank to truespin miszou (Girona)
Can you tell us something about his new film?
Marnix is busy with a new film called ‘Aorta’ with profiles on Adil Farhouni, Eric van Boven, Joery van der Pol and me. I didn’t know him personally until he emailed me if I wanted a profile in his new film because he likes my skating. That was awesome. Marnix gives me recognition for my skating, and that makes me want to go a step further than normal. He immediately told me about the concept en showed me a prototype, it looks cool and I’m really excited about this project.
Is this the only project going on?
With my homeboy Giorgio we are busy for a Rotterdam film. We had the first online edition: Rollerdam Vol. 1 on vimeo and there were some quite cool reactions. A lot of people liked it and that made us want to do it again but better! So we got a new video camera via YOURworld, a project in Rotterdam city. This next issue will be a lot better, so be prepared!
Soul to rocket 180 (Den Haag)
How is it to skate for a camera?
It’s a good feeling. If you skate on your own and try a trick 30 times, you give up at a certain point. Skating with a camera gives you extra motivation to get back up and try it again, and of course it is cool to see footage of yourself. It’s also not the camera itself, because behind the camera is always a person who can push you a lot. Sometimes I need a lot of time to clear a difficult trick. Marnix is pushing me f*cking hard and doesn’t care about how long it takes for me to land a trick. That is cool.
Did you had any video exposure before?
Not really. Everybody in my hometown had high tech cameras, but there was no one who had the energy to do something special with it. Giorgio Oehlers recently collected all these old and lost tapes, and made ‘Rollerdam Volume
Fishbrain (Amsterdam)
Do you think you are at your best skate level right now?
I’m always trying to get better. That’s the fun of skating, the possibilities are endless. It’s important to always look from other viewpoints to skating. There is always something new to try out. And I’m definitely not at my best level I think, I hope to learn a lot more in the future!
Who are your skate influences?
Louie Zamora, Dominic Sagona and Demetrious George. The first skate video I saw, was F.O.R. 2, so I always have a special feeling when I see those guys still killing it. Abdiel Colberg, Rachard Johnson, Gonzo.. .It actually are just those two videos; FOR 2 and FOR3 which I can see over and over again and always get the feeling like damn I want to go skating.
When I really just started it was of course Sven Boekhorst, the Dutch ‘superstar’ winning all competitions, who I looked up to.
Tell me about your sponsors.
Sven Boekhorst hooked me up with Rollerblades and wanted me on the Dutch Rollerblade team. So I skated Rollerblade for a while but I didn’t like the skates. I am a USD Throne man, from the first day I skated. Why skate something else when you already found the skate you like most 10 years ago!? That’s why I stopped skating the Rollerblades and then Daniel urged me to email Oli Benet and ask for some thrones. I didn’t feel it, like just asking for skates, but I just put my shame aside and went for it. Three days later I had some fresh USD Allstar thrones in my mailbox. So I’m not on USD, Oli is giving me a chance and we’ll see what comes from it.
Soul to alleyoop pornstar (Girona)
Do you ever want to skate pro for USD?
That would be great. If somebody sees the potential in me to ride pro, why not? If not, then it doesn’t really matter. Sponsoring is giving me extra motivation to go for something extra with skating, but the most important thing is to have fun. I think this question is quite out of order, since I just got my first pair of free USD’s like a month ago. But I mean you can see it as a dream ;).
Where do we see you in the future?
I’m going to focus on the two video profiles. Marnix wants to release his DVD Christmas 2010, Giorgio's video is releasing at the end of this year. Next to this I’m going to do some competitions, next one is in
Whatsup with your tattoo by the way?
Ha cool of you to ask this question! It just what skating is to me. Some part of life, it’s just in my heart. I mean, there is not one day that I don’t think of skating. Skating gave me the best friends, cool parties and other really nice stuff, which I wouldn’t want to have missed!
And I think life is just about chasing your dream, instead of doing what the society kind of plans for you. And skating is just part of the dream how I see my life!
Having fun (Amsterdam)
Thanks Martin. Any shoutouts?
Nah I just want to shout out to my Rollerdam homies, they know who they are. Especially Max, Kai and Giorgio for the good moments! Thanks to the Guerreros for their super nice moments in Barcelona! Thanks to Oli Benet for being so nice with me on the USD’s. Thanks to Marnix for his farting concerts in the mornings. And of course my parents who supported me always with skating, even if they didn’t really take it seriously for quite a few years!
Photos by: Kiku Comino, Bojd Vredevoogd & Dominic Swagemakers
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Mart Smeets baby.