“Four-Foot Seven-Inch Skateboard Giant”
Photos and Story by Bill Cleary
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| Whether skateboarding or surfing, Woody shows the influence of one of his idols—top surfer Mike Doyle. Here Woody holds his hands high ala Doyle as he lays into a graceful backside kick turn, using his speed rather than leverage. |
When you’re a ten-year-old skateboarder named Brandon Woodward and live right on a famous Southern California surfing beach, life can be pretty exciting—especially when any spare time is spent surfing in your front yard or skateboarding in a backyard tennis court. Surfing and skateboarding have come to be recognized as natural complements: practicing one improves abilities in the other. And at the recent International Skateboard Championships Brandon Woodward’s surfing and skateboarding training program really paid off.
“Brandon Woodward,” the public address system announced and skateboard aficionados waited expectantly. When the four-foot seven-inch skateboard star wheeled onto the court, the fans all recognized him. “It’s Woody!” they cried and from that moment the single-A competition at the International Skateboard Championships was Woody all the way. He took the Tricks Division easily, amassing 28 points—only one- half point less than the Senior Double-A Class winner, Torger Johnson. Woody also won the Figure Eight and the Flatland Slalom for a clean sweep of all the events in his class. Woody won one of the three $500 scholarships awarded by SKATEBOARDER Magazine.
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| On a skateboard (above) or on his surfboard (below), Brandon "Woody” Woodward is basically a hot-dogger. His lively style on a skateboard or in the surf features fast turns and plenty of nose riding. |
As the Championships’ only three-event winner, Woody received enough public acclaim to swell the head of any ten-year-old—anyone but Woody, that is. After his triumph he went home and surfed and it was days before any of his friends on the beach knew about Woody’s victory.
As any top skateboarder, Woody puts in lots of practice. And having a backyard, private practice court helps even though the roar of Woody's wheels as he flashes through slalom and tricks sometimes grates on the family’s nerves. “Still,” as his mother mentioned, “we are glad that Woody stays off the sidewalks and out of the street when he’s skateboarding.”
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| Although Woody is only waist-high to a lot of people, he can compete with anyone when it comes to surfing or skateboarding. Here’s Woody in his winter wetsuit after a morning of surfing his front-yard waves at Topanga Beach, California. |
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| Fast skateboard turns, like the one pictured above, are Woody’s specialty. |
It was about five minutes from Woody’s house, in back of an unfinished housing development—so there were no cars. The hill was long and smooth and gentle and it took Woody nearly five minutes to slalom down from the top. No wonder he fared so well at the Skateboard Championships with a slalom run like this to practice on!
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| "Hanging five” is often a major triumph for many skateboarders, but for Woody it’s just part of a busy practice session on his backyard tennis court. |
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| Woody says skateboarding really helps his surfing—and vice versa. Walking a skateboard requires the same basic coordination and balance as Woody demonstrates as he strolls to the nose on a wave at Topanga Beach. |
The Junior Bombers also frequently drop by a place they call “The Maze” where there is an orchard of orange trees that bear the sweetest fruit they’ve ever tasted. The Maze is located on famous millionaire J. Paul Getty’s Malibu Estate. In the garden, past the orchard, are cages with real lions and tigers and buffalo and all manners of wild beasts. And while the keeper looks the other way skateboarding is fantastic amidst the orange trees and the roar of lions.
Rumor has it that Woody became famous at the Maze—famous for performing what might be considered the skateboarding counterpart of a famous surfing trick, the head-dip. Only here, flashing by the lion’s cage (while the King of Beasts was asleep, we might add) he stuck his head between the bars for a split second and arched away to safety before old toothless Leo could bat an eye. Thus Woody performed the first “Lion-Dip” on record.
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| In his backyard tennis court Woody practices tor hours every day. In perfect trim on the nose, Woody starts a series of tricks with a nose wheelie. |
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| Woody, only triple winner at the International Skateboard Championships, shows the technique that made him the single-A division’s champion. He starts a difficult turn from the nose, and spinning quickly, turns the board 180 degrees—almost faster than the fast eye of the camera can follow. |
Woody's style of skateboarding is quick but with a certain smoothness that comes with endless hours of practice. Having spent a lot of time surfing and skateboarding with champion surfer Mike Doyle also has helped. Woody surfs just as he skateboards. He holds his hands high when he turns (so does Doyle) and turns from momentum, using speed rather than leverage. Basically, Woody’s a hot-dogger and goes more for fast turns, nose-riding and tricks such as head-stands than slalom or speed runs. Many of his surfing maneuvers are purely for show—such as his “Phil Edwards slump”—something Woody saw that famous surfer demonstrate in a surfing movie. Still, Woody does not simply copy other skateboarders and surfers. He invents most of his own tricks himself, as the spectators at the International Championships can testify. Woody came through time after time with impossible tricks that no one had seen before.
Although Woody lives in a surfing and skateboarding paradise he loves to travel. He goes on surfing trips with the Senior Bombers (older brothers of the Junior Bombers) whenever he can. Woody just finished the biggest trip of his life—all over the USA on exhibition with the Hobie Skateboard Team. And he leaves soon on an exhibition tour of a spot where every surfer-skateboarder wants to go—HAWAII. Although it will probably be a few years before Woody can tackle the Island’s big waves, he can certainly show the Hawaiian big-surf riders a thing or two about riding a skateboard.
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| Woody makes the most of the ocean that is his front yard at his California beach house. Woody follows a difficult nose wheelie by kicking his board into a reverse kick turn. |
