[engine starting] [man speaking indistinctly
on radio] [siren wailing] [upbeat music playing] [indistinct chatter] [tires screech] [groaning] [soft music playing] ♪ [music intensifies] [whirring] [Paul] It's crazy what we put
ourselves through just
for skateboarding. Why do we do it? Because we have to. It's in our blood. It's in our DNA. Skateboarding
is what drives us. Keeps us moving forward. It's our passion... our family... our life. And it's the common bond
that every skateboar
der shares. These days there are people
skateboarding in nearly
every corner of the planet. But it all started right here. [upbeat music playing] ♪ From Santa Monica to Sunset
Boulevard, to the
Valley, it's all here. Schoolyards, skateparks,
plazas... All these things make this
city a breeding ground
for progression. Los Angeles...
Ground zero for skateboarding. Where it all began. [rock music playing] [men cheering] [men cheering] [men whooping] [men exclaiming] [wheels clatterin
g rapidly] [men cheering] ♪ [men cheering] [men whooping] [men exclaiming] [yelling] That is exactly why
skateboarding is the best. ♪ [Paul] As great as Los Angeles
is, there's something
about the open road. Pushing into the unknown. In order to find something
new, you have to put
yourself out there. Going on a road trip. In an RV. Dude, this trip
is gonna be so sick. Cookie's coming.
He's like my best friend. [Chris] I quit my job
so I could keep skating more, and not be held back
when I
want to travel. [Moose] It's like the dream,
you know? You go around exploring
new places.
Trying to find new spots. It's our mission in life. If you have half as much fun as
I did, you'll get your money's
worth. Take care of it. We'll take good care of it.
Promise. [upbeat music playing] ♪ [Paul] There's a freedom
that comes with being
on a road trip. Time is measured in sunrises
and sunsets, not minutes
on the clock. And, as they say, the journey
is more important than
the destinati
on. You guys local? [whistling] [whoops] [cheering] Vegas. [whooping] ♪ [loud cheering] [Paul] Skateboarders view
the world in a very unique way. And we can't turn it off. While most people see
form, function and progress, all we see is something new
to skate. [Spanish music playing] ♪ Some cities were practically
built for skateboarding. As architects designed
Barcelona's urban landscape, they unknowingly created
a mecca for skateboarding. But there's one spot
that attracts
more s
kateboarders than anywhere else in the city. The legendary MACBA. The entire place is granite. When you have something like
that it's just special. People come from around
the world to skate this ledge. [cheering] [Paul] I don't know what it is
about this city. You can travel all over the
world to so many
different countries and feel out of place.
But for some reason,
when we come here, we feel like we're at home. [slow rock music playing] ♪ Whoa! ♪ ♪ ♪ [cheering] Gracias, Barcelona.
Muchas gracias. [Paul] There's so much more
to skateboarding than just
pushing your own limits. It's about coming together
and discovering something new. On the outskirts of Barcelona,
long forgotten, buried beneath acres of dirt, lay the remains of one of
Europe's first skateparks. -Right now we're on top
of Snake Run?
-Yeah. [Paul] A few years ago, local
skaters began digging it up. It feels great to be
skating in the skatepark,
because it's from the '70s. Everyone's chilling, and
everyone's skating.
It's just a good vibe. Take care. [pop music playing] ♪ [sirens wailing] [car horns honking] [cheering and whistling] We are in New York City
and we're just pulling up
to Dew Tour. It hypes me up to
see all these guys out here. Paul's a great example. I just want to
watch him skate, dude.
It's going to be sick. [announcer]
Paul Rodriguez has become
such a veteran on the Dew Tour. He's been here since day
one. And he's always been
up in the mix. Always a threat to
win. [commentator]
I love watching P-Rod skate. He just makes
everything look so effortless. [Paul] Skateboarding started
out as something so simple. But you look at it now and
it's grown into
something massive. A movement. Today there are tens of
millions of skateboarders
all over the world. It's everywhere you look and
it's only going to get
bigger and more popular. That's just where
skateboarding's going. [chanting]
P-Rod, P-Rod, P-Rod, P-Rod... When I was a little skate-rat,
I like seriously dreamed
so hard about this, what we're doing right now. Like, dreamed,
prayed every day,
so hard. And the fact that it's a reality
is so... I don't know how to
explain the feeling. It's such a surreal feeling. You're being blessed. Yeah, I'm so... I literally was any one of these
kids I'm walking with right now. ♪ [Paul] What do we get from
skateboarding? Well, for each of us,
it's different. For some of us, it's purely
an escape. A way to bond with friends... A way to c
hallenge and
express yourself. For some people,
it's the only thing
they've got. But no matter what happens to
you, once you get hooked... it's hard to ever let it go. [Anthony] I don't usually have
a destination to where
I'm going I still just love skating,
and that's what I do. I never was even expecting
for it to become my career. And now, no career... People still think I'm pro,
though. It's weird. It's like,
when you lose your job, it doesn't matter what it is,
it's not g
oing to be good. That's life.
I've just got to deal with it. I wouldn't let the career part
take away skating from me. That's my sacred thing.
I'm not going to give that
to anything or anyone. I like looking for spots.
I'll just skate around
to a different zone. And it's just a constant
search, man. To me finding a spot is
almost as fun as
landing a trick. ♪ I still love skating,
I still want to be skating. Sponsored, not sponsored,
making money, not making
money... It doesn
't matter. Once that switch is on,
you can't turn it off, I'll
tell you that. I just need to skate. [Chris] We're here in Vermont. Pretty psyched. Sun's out.
Perfect time of the year... This is where I grew up.
It's where I met this guy. When we were kids,
I don't even
think we liked each other. -No.
-He was actually
a poser of the month in our magazine. [Mike] Chris just seemed
possessed by skateboarding. The skateboard was his
instrument. You know,
street skating, it's an absolute art.
It's pretty amazing
what comes out
of a street corner. ♪ Oh! [men laughing] [groans] [cheering loudly] [Jordan] Ever since
I can remember,
I just wanted to turn 18, so I could go to California. But I never expected
to make it in skating. It doesn't matter where
you're from. You can come from the smallest
place. Just keep having fun, and I swear it will
lead you somewhere sick. [man laughing] [wheels clacking] Why do you do that? [upbeat music] [cheering] ♪ [Darren] We right now in
Sav
annah Terrace,
Southeast Washington, DC. This is the hood.
The heart of the hood. Here, you have to be so hard. But through skating,
you can go and just cruise and let the wind
just take you, man. Pulaski Park, Freedom Plaza. This is where I came to get
my fresh air. I'd be in the hood... So much
negativity would be going on. Everybody was here
getting along. There were Black skaters,
Chinese, green dudes,
purple dudes... This wooden plank, man, has
helped me meet people all
over
the world. ♪ [cheering loudly] [Clint] I swear, there's
something different, of being
here in the middle of America. There's really nowhere else I
want to be. There's no buildings over
there. It's just fields
and animals. I gotta love that
about Oklahoma. That's what's so sick about
being in the Midwest and
being in a small town. You can just drive, you know,
and find shit that nobody's
ever thought about skating. ♪ [whooping] [thunder rumbling] I can't close it. -Close it.
-Close
the door. I'm trying. Close the door. [all cheering] Holy... [thunder rumbles] [Johnny] Aside from
the challenges of being deaf, he's had a pretty rough
childhood. He's been uprooted... ...and shipped around
here and there. [Kelly] His birth mom, she had
problems with drugs... ...when I got him, he had
no speech or language at all. And then his dad
hit a rough patch, and he went back to live
with his natural mother. It was really hard on
Brandon, and I think
skating kind of grounded him
. It's kind of a freedom for him. You don't need a language
when you're on the board. I just think that this is so
good for him just to meet other
people, to travel, There's so much more in the
world for him. And my thing is, "Just go.
You can always come home." [Paul] Community... it's what makes
skateboarding unique. Like-minded individuals
brought together by one
simple act. It's what unifies us. And when you take something
like that and share it
with the world, people gravitate
towards it. [upbeat music playing] ♪ [Paul] Man's appetite
for expansion
is unstoppable. And in this part of the
world, they're showing no
sign of slowing down. For skateboarders, that means
one thing... a never-ending supply of
skate spots. Landed from the States,
now we're on the streets I don't think they know
how to quite deal with us yet. [Jordan] It's nuts,
the size of the crowds we get. These people around us
have never seen a skateboard. ♪ It's chaos. There's so many
peo
ple everywhere. Cars, babies... Skateboarding. [crowd cheering] [people whooping] [police siren buzzing] ♪ ♪ [siren blares] ♪ [cheering] [kids laughing] [Jordan] We have the
same grip tape.
Same shoes. You guys have skateboard, so we
have skateboard. Now we're
talking. [pop music playing] ♪ ♪ [man yelling] [man 1] Let's go to the spot
with the small double set. -[man 2] Yeah...
-[man 1] And the big four. [man 1] Guys, one thing
about this spot, This is probably the smartest
security guards in
China. If they don't want you to skate,
they'll spray down the shit with
water. [dramatic music playing] ♪ [shouting] Hose is coming! [Paul] While there's
no shortage
of spots in China, there are still
security guards
and police to deal with. It's the same for skaters
everywhere. No matter where we are,
there's always someone
who wants to stop us. [dispatcher talking
over police radio] It gets old, always getting
kicked out, having to deal with cops. That's why some skaters
just
go off the grid and create their own kind of
fun. We developed something
that we want to live for and this is our little piece of
paradise. Brewce had told me we need to build a place where
we can do what we want when we
want. Where there is no
governing area. These dudes are just here for
living, man. Living to stay, living to
contribute, to build. The reason that Skatopia exists is freedom of expression,
freedom of your mind but at the same time this place
is about hard work and
d
edication. This just didn't happen. We came
out here and built this shit. Skateboarding is
in your heart,
it's in your blood. When you look at another
person that's a skateboarder,
you don't see the gray hair. What you see is a brotherhood. Fucking, I was going
around the corner
a little fast and got scared and hit the
brakes, so, might as well rally
and burn it. Come on, we need some guys down
here, come on! They want freedom. They can experience it,
live it, love it. That's what S
katopia is all
about. Brandon's up here,
battling his own mind, trying to make
this drop in happen. [man 1] Aw, damn! [man 2] I think he's
going to go have to
go to the hospital, man. One thing overall, that
skateboarding teaches people
how to deal with pain. [upbeat music playing] ♪ [screaming] ♪ [yells] [Paul] Once you start
trying to trick,
it's like you can't stop. Because you can see that trick
in your mind and you have to keep at it
until it becomes a reality. I really want to do it
.
That's been one of my
dream tricks, man, to do a... Try and kick it right in. [Paul] But when you
finally do land one,
it's that feeling. That's what keeps us coming
back for more. When you think about it, we're all really just
the product of our environment. How we skate is defined by
where we skate. And that's why some of the
toughest skateboarders in
the world come from the rugged streets
of Brazil. [upbeat music playing] ♪ It's a hard place to grow up,
but at the same time
the
hardness make us stronger. The way skateboarding is make us
be more together, you know. If you go to, like, a poor
community or in the
favelas, you'll see that
the people are really united. The struggle, it's real. The spot in Brazil are
not the easiest one. ♪ ♪ It's like we've been
saying, you know, in the strip, when one of us do a
trick, everybody feels
like we all did it. Mmm. When you see guys
skating, like, Tiago Lemos,
you remember that. You get to the next level,
like na
turally. Tiago Lemos is magic. ♪ ♪ [Paul] Some people
see a skateboard
as a symbol of hope. The feeling of belonging,
of feeling included. It's like a family. [loud cheering] Skateboarding is like
a family of individuals that all have something in
common that's so deep... to the core. It kind of defines
you. It makes you who you are. We're all searching for the
same thing. It's like that feeling that
skateboarding gives you. Jump off. Yeah, Jamie. Jump! -Yeah!
-Holy shit! They told
me that they won't
let me finish my hair cut
until I get a trick. Oh, you look good. Get it, Clive! Hair's gotta go, I guess. Oh, my God! ♪ [yells] So good. Yeah, Jamie! In the south there's always
been, like, abandoned
building foundations. And everybody starts getting
creative in what they can make. We don't have much to skate,
really. You sort of just build
what you want. I don't think we got what we
wanted from our skatepark. We have ledges a five-year-old
can skateboard. We've got so
me gasoline.
We're gonna try to burn off some of the excess water
all around the park. ♪ This one's actually about to
get torn down. You guys skating it
means a lot to us, so... -Yeah.
-Yeah. It'll be one hell
of a way to go. You get a team of people
who truly care about
skateboarding -and build your own DIY.
-Yeah. -Gotta get off your ass
and do it.
-Yeah. Thanks for building all
that shit, boys. -Yeah!
-[all cheering] The time you're in high school
as a young kid, growing up in
Alabama,
I had my heart set on
California. I wanted more than anything
in the world to be a pro
skateboarder. So, I was just here
serving time. -There's the hub.
-There's the hubba. Get a clip
at your school, dude. That'd be so sick. We'll see if it's doable. Skating in the '90s was
totally different, in the
sense that it wasn't popular everywhere
like it is now. All the kids your age
just teased you mercilessly. People would throw bottles at
you, yell stuff at you,
and threaten you. There
's times when as a kid
you feel very hopeless and you feel like
the walls are caving in. Skateboarding, the videos that
were coming out, the things that were happening.
I think it gave me hope that I would fit in somewhere. Having a life in skateboarding
was that hope. Don't know if that's gonna
grind, man. It feels rad coming back
here 23 years later and
skating the hubba. Kinda full circle, I guess. [rock music playing] ♪ [whistling] ♪ I stuck a nollie heel, like,
three years ago and
broke my truck, so
gotta take advantage now
while we're here. I'm so happy right now.
Thank God. The second I saw Jamie, like,
skate I was just, like, this is one of my favorite
skaters, for sure. He's still pushing it. It takes a lot of skill, man,
especially at his age. I wouldn't doubt every person
in this van was
influenced by that man. Mad respect right here, man. Twenty years of good times
and slams. I love it all.
I'll be 40 in two weeks and I'm really thankful to
just be skat
ing still,
much less, grinding rails. You know, I'm just psyched
I got it, man. I don't care
if it's raining or not. [Paul]
In life and in skateboarding,
you get what you put into it. And when you dedicate
your life to something... that's when you reap the
biggest reward. It's pretty incredible how far
a skateboard can take you. It's taken us to places
we never would have imagined. But no matter
where you've been,
or what you've done, you're always gonna be left
wondering. And t
hat's the thing about
skateboarding. You never know
what comes next. [Arabic music playing] ♪ Dubai is the next frontier. It's a blank canvas
just waiting to be skated. I've been told this whole city
has been built in less
than 20 years. We're in, like, a space age
city. The buildings are
just unreal. It looks like there's, you know,
hovercrafts going from one to
the other. As skaters, you know,
there's nothing better
than to skate things that have never
been skated before. [spe
aking Spanish] Opportunities like this come
along once in a lifetime. Right here. Dude, it looks so good. Is that in marble? [exclaiming excitedly] [upbeat music playing] ♪ ♪ [engine revving] [bikes revving] ♪ ♪ Coming off this curve
with that much speed
is gonna be gnarly. Man, I'm so scared
for him right now. Come on, baby! [yelling indistinctly] ♪ [man yelling] I'm so happy to be here right
now. I don't want to go back up
there. I'm so over that. [upbeat music playing] I woke up. Tommy
goes like,
"Yo, we gotta be downstairs. Everybody's skydiving." I'm like, yeah, not me. Keeps talking about
how he can't swim but I don't know what that
has to do with skydiving. I ain't signing a waiver,
'cause we don't got nothing,
no pen or paper. I'm going up for the ride.
Then we'll debate if your boy
gonna jump or not. ♪ I guess if you're going on the
airplane, you gotta jump out. [grunts] [praying in Arabic] We're in Dubai.
It's a small skate scene. [boy]
I hope this skate scene grows.
There's definitely potential for all the kids out here
'cause they have the best
spots ever. Skateboarding does seem like
it's growing here. There are new skaters
every day. [man 1] It's great
seeing people
from a different country, different cultures coming
together. [man 2] You just connect with
people on, like, a same
but different level. Skaters unite. It's cool, you
know, like, I've met 90%
of my friends through a piece of wood
with four wheels
on it. It's pretty special.
[pop music playing] ♪ That was insane, dude. ♪ We are at
the tallest building
in the whole world. AKA Burj Khalifa. Burj Khalifa, baby.
It's mine. ♪ Yeah, skate to party. ♪ ♪ [Paul] We've given
so much of our lives
to skateboarding. But skateboarding has given
us even more in return. It's our life blood. It's what makes us feel whole. It's our connection to the
world. And no matter how far
we travel, whenever we meet
another skater, there's an unspoken bond. [all cheering] Is t
he journey actually more
important than the
destination? Maybe there's more
to it than that. It's those who join us on
that journey and the people we meet along
the way that are most
important. ♪ [Paul] We come from so many
different backgrounds and
cultures. But skateboarding is more
than that. It connects us. It brings us together. We're all searching for that
same indescribable
feeling. And at the end of the day,
we ask ourselves why. Well... why not? ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪
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