Then you got hurt. I was in Whistler, in Brandywine. It was late March and I barely had any shots. The thing we tried that day wasn’t really working out and we went to wallride the glacier, but the run-in wasn’t working. So, I was like, “I’m just gonna air from the top I guess, and land on this blue ice and ride out.” Nobody seemed to really like the idea, but I was feeling pressured. [Filmer] Paul [Watt] even said, “You’re gonna go really small right? Really slow?” There was a cornice hanging over the takeoff, so I didn’t look from the top. In my head before I dropped I was like, “I always go too fucking small; don’t be a pussy for once.” I got in the air and knew right away I was going too fast. I landed on my feet, whiplashed back and broke my C2, which is called a hangman’s fracture. I was lucky—it was stable. If it had moved, I would have been paralyzed. What do you think about having pressure to perform versus shooting snowboarding as you see it? This all happened for a reason and I knew it. I wanted to quit. I felt so much guilt to be getting paid to snowboard while I wasn’t fully loving it. I felt guilty to lead this life of luxury, in a way, promot-ing consumption through marketing of products. But I also felt so lucky—I was torn. I believe that everything’s meant to happen, it’s like I planned it all without knowing it. I remember telling my team man-ager one time, “Sometimes I wish I was hurt so I could take a break.” So, you got hurt and you took a break? They said it would be a yearlong recovery, but, luckily, I was surfing four months after. Did it change your outlook on life? A lot of people thought I would be done [after the injury], so all these expectations were gone. I took that time to just chill at home on the island. I had just bought my house and I was never there. I wanted to connect more with a feeling of home. I did a week-long course on sus-tainable building on Salt Spring Island. Then my brother helped me learn a lot that summer and during my own building [process] I was playing in the mud, spending a lot of time alone surfing and thinking about what I really want, and what makes me happy. That’s when the idea of making The Little Things came to me. It wasn’t easy [to make a movie], but it was really fun. I wanted to do something more meaningful than just snowboarding because I felt torn—I felt guilty, but at the same time, am I supposed to live in the woods with nothing in order to feel credible? I was like, “No; snow-boarding is actually awesome, and I love snowboarding, it’s just some parts of it that are bumming me out right now. And, if anything, I can make snowboarding into something I want to express.” 084 THE SNOWBOARDER’S JOURNAL
The Snowboarder's Journal frequency 15.4: Page 84
