The Strive Apart Interview

Tags: benjamin buettner, georg rotika, strive apart, x-world

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What are your names and positions in the management of the „Strive Apart Tour “ ? Georg: My name is Georg Rokita and Im doing the main work for the tour...

What are your names and positions in the management of the „Strive Apart Tour “ ?

Georg: My name is Georg Rokita and Im doing the main work for the tour. So you might call me the head of the Strive Apart Tour. Also does Marco Giehm (x-world skateshop owner) help us a lot financially and with some parts of the tour organisation.

Benny: I'm Benjamin Buettner and my work is to help Georg with some stuff in organisation.

So tell us more about this Tour Project.

Georg: The Strive Apart Tour is a tour through the best german indoor skateparks with some of the greatest european rollerbladers during the end of december and the beginning of january presented by the x-world skateshop.

We are planning on having nice skatesessions, where you can meet friends & your favourite skaters, doing innovative skategames, best trick contests and the Freestyle Rolling kicks ass Show. In this show our riders are gonna show their skills and hopefully tear the shit up.

The Tour-Stops are:

* 22. December 2007 Dresden; 2-4-8 Wheels Skatehalle

* 29. December 2007 Würzburg; Fun Park

* 05. January 2008 Wuppertal; Wicked Woods Skatehalle

* 12. January 2008 Hamburg; I-Punkt Skatehalle

Who are the riders for the Freestyle Rolling kicks ass Show?

Georg: First I have to say, there are always different riders at each Tour-Stop , so if you want to know who's gonna be there, check out our myspace site: www.myspace.com/striveapart .

So just to make sure, what you will have to expect at the stops.

For example you can see Dominik Wagner, Alex Rudolf, Gabriel Hyden, Denis Wolf, Sven Hausmann, Dave Benski, Michael Mühlemann, Maik Lojewski, Roland Wander, Alex Deutschmann, Michi Leibner, Jacob Juul, Christian Berg and a lot more riders.

So make sure to check out the myspace page for all details.

Who came up with this name? And whats the meaning of it?

Benny: We just wanted a name, which sounds cool, but also asks the public to think about it. "strive apart" means, that everybody, every person, who relates to rolling, contributes in different ways to our so called "skatescene". So when you think of the known problem, that rolling dies and disappears from the publics eye, it is unpossible to improve this situation on the own. You can't keep the publics view at rolling, if you're gonna organise a skate event, where much people and media will come to, but in the end you don't really note a much better status of our "inline-scene". So we just thought that everyone, who is rolling on his skates today, has to keep this circumstances into his mind to deal with that problem carefully. "strive apart" signifies, that every single rollerblader is "obliged" to strive for a better world for rollerblading, just all together are able to make this dream come true..

So when you think organising a skate event isn't the right way to solve this problem why are you initiating a project like that?

Benny: FUN, just because of fun, we want the people to enjoy their weekend at the tourstops. Meeting new and old friends, having a good time while playing new, exciting and funny skategames or becoming stoked by watching the best trick contest and the freestyle rolling kick ass show... So just forget about what is rollerblading up to, come to the tourstops to fulfil rollerbladings interest of having a great time together!!!

So do we have to expect something new in the tourstop-program of the Strive Apart Tour?

Benny: We created the daily tourstop program so comfortable as much as possible. We decided to renounce that common stress a rollerblader or spectator gets to feel at rollerblade contests.. After 3-4 hours of watching endless skating the mood of the croud mostly turns into boredom and the applause and condolence becomes more and more half-heartedly. So we made the conclusion to skate a funny skatesession with skategames where everybody has the opportunity to skate or just to chill around and to concentrate at the best trick contest and the freestyle rolling kick ass show, which is taking just an hour of a tourstop-day to guarantee a contest with amazing tricks and a good-natured audience.

Do you have any final thoughts left?

Georg: I hope to see every single one who reads this interview at one of the tourstops.

A big thanks to the x-world skateshop who is giving us the chance to make the wintertime a little bit shorter for every one.

Also thanks to Infernal Clothing, Ucon Acrobatics, Okmonek, the whole Conference and Be-Mag itself.

Without the help from that companies, wouldn't exist project like the Strive Apart Tour.

Support the supporters.

Benny: Hell Yeah, we'll see us!!

Interview: Georg Rokita and Benjamin Büttner
Photo: Marc Timo Berg