interview by Carolina Rey
Welcome Kasci. Thanks for coming over today. What have you been up to lately?
Skating a lot. Shooting pictures with Dave [Gutierrez]. Working at Metro Camp. I recently learned tre flips on flat. That has been monumental.
Fuck yeah.
I feel like that trick is a rite of passage in skating; tre flips on flat. Like not even up to the bump or the pyramid, but yeah, it took me probably four months of trying it and I finally landed it. It was sick.
Congratulations. What made you decide that you were going to spend the last four months working on them? Why now?
I think I'm more attracted to skating flat than I was before. I was really infatuated with skating ramps for a really long time, so I honestly didn't really care. I don't know if "care" is the right word because I wanted the basic flatground tricks like ollies, shuvs, kickflip and front/back 180’s but tre flips take a lot of time and I don't think I was patient enough for flat ground.
Did you have to psych yourself up?
Not really. I just had to be more disciplined like, "I'm gonna spend an hour or two just doing that." It wasn't getting psyched to do it because I was already psyched to do it; you know what I mean?
So what helps you to stay motivated and disciplined with your skateboarding?
That's a good question. I think watching skate videos. Just absorbing skate media too, with magazines. I don't really like Instagram that much. Skating with friends is very motivating.
We've been training together for a minute now. It's actually been over two years. I was thinking about that, which is fucking crazy.
I know.
You were 19 when we started working out together.
Holy shit. Yeah, I’m 21 now.
I know. Anyway, we've been working out together now for a couple of years. Obviously, you like it because you're still doing it, right?
Yeah, I like it a lot.
What is it about strength training that you like?
I like the routine of it. It makes my body feel good. I like how it makes me aware of the things I eat now because I wanted to gain weight. I'm very protein, fiber and vegetable-oriented. I like going to the gym because we do it with our friends, that’s a plus. And I feel the benefits in my skating.
Tell me more about how it's impacted your life.
For one, it gave me more confidence in my own body. I felt more control of my own body; like I’m owning it more. It's given me a sense of accomplishment and it's fulfilling.
I feel like you took to it really fast. As soon as we started, you were into it. There was just something about the way that you were in the gym.
I think I was at a point in my life where I wanted to exercise my body in a way other than skating, because I always played sports when I was younger and skating is a whole other thing.
Has training affected your skating in any ways that you’ve notice?
Yeah! Like I said, I just landed my first tre flip pretty recently and I feel like before that I really didn't have the leg muscle to do the whole tre flip on one foot because that's what I learned. The tre flip is all in the back foot. You really have to scoop it out, it’s crazy. There are so many little things and minor adjustments to perform the trick exactly how it should be. I feel like training made me more aware of my body and using it and where my body is. Applying that to a tre flip, there's very small things that you have to be aware of to make it work, like where your shoulders are and putting your weight on your front foot first before you put all of the weight in the back foot, and then scooping it out in front of you while jumping up. But not in front, you have to jump in the air very high for a certain amount of time and then land on it and roll away.
So like you said, some of the things that we've done together in the gym have helped you to have more awareness over your body, your ability to control the body and also enough strength to produce the effort necessary to make all of this sync up.
That's exactly it. And you know what, I just had this epiphany right now. It made me correlate the two together because I didn't really think about that before now. But asking those questions, they really do. Also having that experience of landing the tre flip recently too.
You've been getting after it in the gym lately. Most people don't gravitate towards weight lifting. There are definitely a lot of people who do, but most people don’t. Do you think that there are elements that training and skateboarding share that would make sense of why you're attracted to both?
They're both physically and mentally challenging. Also, there are signs of progression: being able to add more weight, noticing muscles on your body, getting better and learning new tricks on a board.
We’ve done one-on-one sessions and we’ve done stuff with other people, like our team training sessions. What do you get out of being in a group setting thatis different from when you're one on one? And what's something that you get one on one that you don't get in a group setting?
With a group setting, it's almost like a collective energy with everyone working out together in the same room. It makes you more motivated to do it. It also makes it funner. More fun? Funner. When you're solo, it’s less distracting. I can focus more.
When we met, you wanted to gain weight. I remember about a year into training we looked at a couple videos that we had of you in the gym at the start and we were like, "dude…"
Yeah, I’m putting on some muscle. And what's funny is that we haven't been consistently working out for two years or whatever it's been. There have been gaps and sometimes I wouldn't do the program you’d give me but I still have seen results, which is really cool.
You're still reaping the benefits without having to put in a shit ton of time. And I think that's something that a lot of people are afraid of.
Or it’s what holds them back a little bit because they have the idea of, "oh, if I want to work out and get healthy and fit and feel good about myself, I have to spend a lot of time doing that." In theory, yes, that's true. But you don't have to put that much time into it to reap the rewards.
Is there anything that when we started was hard for you and now it's not? Or maybe it's less hard?
Push ups are a lot easier than they used to be. And what's interesting is if I take a break from doing push ups, let's say for five or ten days, and then I go back to doing push ups, they would be harder. Just like when you don't skate for a week and then you go back on your board and you don't feel as good as you did before. I think that's interesting.
You’re drawing a correlation between skating being a skill, as is strength training. That shit's all skill and we have to practice the skill to maintain it. It’s not about doing a ton of it at once, it’s moreso that you have to do it often. If you just did three push ups a day, your push ups would stay clean. Just like with skating.
Yes and that ties into how you don't have to spend that much time to be good or feel good about yourself.
Agreed.
Now I'm gonna pivot a little bit, your skating is really fucking fun to watch. Where do you pull your creative energy from?
Oh, my brain.
Yes, the master of all.
My innermost being. I have been obsessed with ramp skating ever since I was very young. I'm at a point now where my trick selection is very technical. It comes from thinking, “what if I can add a shove-in or shove-out, or a flip-in, flip-out or fucking go to smith or some shit, you know?
When you think about skating, what is it that makes it exciting for you? Is it the trick? Is it the spot? Maybe the people?
I think uniqueness of a spot is really cool. Like if it's something I've never seen before or something that I've seen in videos and stuff. I really like the idea of progression. I've been doing it for so long and I'm at a certain point but skateboarding is infinite. You can get infinitely better at it, so that's really fun to think about. There's infinite tricks to be done and thinking about them and putting it into real life. Taking ideas and creating them in reality.
What is successful skateboarding to you?
Having fun. That's successful. If you skate down to the store and buy some papers and skate back. That was successful. Or if you have a sick session with the homies, that was successful. If you do a fucking flip trick down a 20-stair that is also successful.
Good answer Kasci.
Now I have some random fun questions…
Please.
You meet a stranger on the bus. They ask for one piece of advice. What do you tell them?
Don’t be so hard on yourself. A lot of people are hard on themselves for no good reason sometimes. I don't think there’s a good reason to have to be hard on yourself. We're all having the same fucking experience. There's a lot of pressure in this world right now to perform and be somebody or do good in the eyes of society. But that's not the purpose of why we're here. It's to follow your heart and be present and love yourself and others. I feel like people are hard on themselves about even doing that, you know?
Great advice. I really like that.
I never really see you with your phone in your hand, but I do see you with a book all the time. What are you currently reading?
Oh my god. Alright, I am reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Oof! I'm forgetting the author's name. That sucks. This book is like an inquiry into values, but it's also about a father and a son on a motorcycle trip. It's a very broad book that covers everything from philosophy and within that, systematic thinking...
Why'd you pick up that book?
At 510 Skateshop, across the street there's this guy named Chris who's really cool and sells books on the corner of the street. He’ll place tarps down with a bunch of books and we barter sometimes, which is really fun. You don't get to do that a lot in this day and age. And I think it's really cool that he does it outside of the bookstore. I just went to say what's up to him and he recommended it to me.
Do you think we should read it?
Absolutely, if you have the patience for a 400-page book. Yes, it is very much worth your time. If you're going to spend time doing something, like be on your phone fucking six hours a day, you should read a book. You know what I mean? It's so much better for you. I've learned so much from this book. They're so underrated.
Everyone is so busy consuming instant media and it's making people stupid. I'm just going on a rant now, but it’s true.
Last but not least, what's in your pocket right now?
In my pocket. Mind you, this is the side vertical pocket of carpenter pants.
Thank you for describing it for us.
A pocket brush, lighter, organic blueberry fruitstrip, $5, a hair tie and I got this from work today. [Kasci pulls out a somewhat bean-shaped object] It's for chopsticks, like a chopstick rest. Handmade from one of the customers.
Is that modeling clay?
Exactly. One more thing and it's kind of bumming me out that it’s not coming out because I need this for later… a joint! We can smoke this right now if you want.
And with that, thank you so much for being a part of this and letting me interview you.Photos: David Gutierrez
Originally published in Issue 8 - October 2026