Inside South Africa’s Fingerboard Scene | El' Dublow Interview | S4 E158

On this week’s episode of the podcast, we welcome a very special guest Michael from El Dublow! We dive into what fingerboarding looks like in South Africa. We talk about the local skateboarding and fingerboarding scene, how Michael got started, and how El Dublow is helping grow the community through decks, parks, events, and teamwork. We also get into the challenges of limited access to parts, the culture in Johannesburg, and the passion behind putting South Africa on the fingerboarding map. This is a great look into a scene that deserves more attention. 

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If you haven’t been keeping track, we have weekly episodes! Audio versions out on Wednesday and video version out on Thursdays!

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Transcript

speaker-0 (00:04)
Welcome to USAFBL Fingerboard Podcast, the official voice of fingerboarding culture from league news to community stories with real insight, writer interviews and heart of the scene. Please follow and turn on notifications for us. Now let's get into fingerboarding. I'm your host, Levine Cunningham. Today I've got Michael of LWO. Michael, welcome to the podcast. How are you?

speaker-1 (00:23)
Thank you. Good man. Good. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

speaker-0 (00:26)
Man, right, so you are from South Africa. Side of the world for us. Johannesburg, right on. For people that don't know, are L-double-o on Instagram and you're pretty predominant. Okay, okay, yes. Definitely ⁓ tell us the pronunciation because I'm sure I'm butchering this.

speaker-1 (00:31)
Yeah, Johannesburg.

Can you just add a template?

Nah, you good man, it's called El Dablo.

speaker-0 (00:50)
⁓ And

then we are fresh off of a, an event that you guys had a event yesterday.

speaker-1 (01:00)
Yes, we did actually. Mini mayhem.

speaker-0 (01:03)
Mini Mayhem and this is hosted by you or co-hosted or tell us about this event.

speaker-1 (01:07)
It was basically hosted by myself and that was it. The brand was just hosting this event.

speaker-0 (01:14)
And then if I'm not mistaken, you guys do this fairly often, like probably once or twice a year.

speaker-1 (01:20)
Yeah, yeah, so we try to push comps at least once or twice a year. If we are lucky and we have the time, we'll do a third one. yeah, trying not to overdo ourselves too much, but yeah.

speaker-0 (01:31)
Okay, so you do a little bit of everything. So you host events, you make decks, you're pretty predominant within the community. you're putting South Africa on the map.

speaker-1 (01:40)
Dude, I'm trying to, you know, like we have to, you know, we have our little voice over here and we also want to be known that we are here, you know, like we're trying to make sure that we are able to show what South Africa can actually offer.

speaker-0 (01:57)
Definitely definitely. Okay, so I know like our viewers our listeners they're gonna be like South Africa like what does South Africa look like what's the vibe like? tell me what you know, tell us the vibe like if I was to like just hop on a plane and come visit you like when I step off the plane like Tell me about the weather. Tell me about the culture. Tell me about the vibes. Like what am I gonna expect if I come out?

speaker-1 (02:24)
So first thing I can tell you, like, it's gonna be hot, man. It's not, it's, it's, we have all four seasons in one day, basically. So it will either rain, it will be cold, it will be very hot, or it will be super windy. Like you can have that all in one day, if you, if you're lucky. So bring a jacket. Yeah, bring a jacket. Bring a backpack, put your jacket in your backpack. It's, wear some sunblock or...

wear hats or something like the weather is very nice especially in Johannesburg we have like very dry air so it's ⁓ overall it's just it's it's nice weather it's very very nice weather like we don't ever get snow in Johannesburg so we've never actually seen snow but ⁓ yeah like when it gets cold it gets really cold i would say it's like it's like minus minus one degrees and that's about it and yeah it's overall

Like if you had to picture Johannesburg, think of New York City basically. Like our city looks very similar to New York City. It's just a lot more rundown. Let's put like it's... Hey man, like it's true. Like, I don't want to get obviously into politics or whatever, but yeah, like a lot of particles. Yeah.

speaker-0 (03:31)
Say that.

⁓ That's a typical American city. have potholes everywhere. We have beautiful cities, but our streets, infrastructure is not the best.

speaker-1 (03:49)
I do percent, no this tree's so bad.

speaker-0 (03:51)
and i would say like run down i'd probably say like charming charming

speaker-1 (03:58)
the crime in South Africa is quite hectic but like it's not too like it's manageable if you if you just avoid like the main CBD areas then you literally then you find

speaker-0 (04:09)
Gotcha. Are we talking like little crime like pickpockets and theft or are we talking like big crime like people getting like unalived?

speaker-1 (04:16)
But it's like a deep, rough, rough areas that a lot of people avoid anyway. So if you're not that side, you're good, man. Yeah. Otherwise you in the very nice areas, the people are, but you know, like I can say like they're very proud. They're very, or like I said, they're very true to who they are. And, ⁓ I mean, if you're driving in South Africa, like the traffic is nonstop. Like there's always traffic. You just gotta be calm, patient. And yeah, if you meet people, they very, very nice. Everyone's always down to earth.

for the most part.

speaker-0 (04:48)
America's got pretty much the same problem. Even here in like, Indianapolis, like there's a good side of town, a bad side of town. Our bad side of town is really like bad for crime and theft and things like that. then you have the really good side of town and it's like a whole different world. It's just like there's shopping malls and golf courses and just all kinds of stuff.

speaker-1 (05:07)
Same here. I just playing down the road from a golf place. Everyone always goes there, so yeah, it's pretty neat.

speaker-0 (05:15)
Man, okay. You look like a skater. Like you look like you started skateboarding before you fingerboarded.

speaker-1 (05:20)
Yeah, guilty as charged, 100%.

speaker-0 (05:23)
Okay, so let's talk about the South African skateboarding scene. Like, is there skate parks all over the place? Are there programs? Like, what does skateboarding look like in South Africa?

speaker-1 (05:34)
What I can say is we do have a lot of skate parks. I wouldn't say we have enough skate parks, like we do have a few that are really good. We have programs for, I think they're called Girls Skate. They help all the females basically. They bring a whole female community in skateboarding, which is really cool. You should also go check them out on Instagram. They're really cool.

The same person who owns Gullskate, she also helps to push the Olympics for the kids in to get them to the Olympics for skateboarding. So we have two people now at the moment that's going to Olympics. So it's pretty cool. yeah, overall, the skateboarding is pretty big. I wouldn't say it's as big as the US, but it's massive this size. So everyone wants to skateboard, and we got some really, really good, we got some proper talent out here.

speaker-0 (06:25)
Okay, you got a lot of ⁓ street skating and you get spots, stuff like that? Yeah.

speaker-1 (06:29)
We

got some like, like the street skating, mainly people went to Johannesburg CBD to go do it. So it was a bit sketchy that side. like, yeah, other than that, like we got some pretty cool spots. I wouldn't say we have any famous gaps that people have created or whatnot. But I know there was a recent thing that the Red Bull team actually came out and they skated in Cape Town. So Jamie Foy was there. ⁓ Ryan Sheckler, was it? Zion Wright was there as well. Yeah.

So there was a whole, yeah, all the big dogs just came to Cape Town for one random event and then they were just there. yeah, unfortunately I didn't get to go see it because it's quite far away from me to jump on a plane if I had to go get there. But in Joanne and Thurgg, the skateboarding scene is also pretty good. I think overall we probably have maybe 12 to 15 parks. might be incorrect on that in entire country, I think. So it's not a lot, but yeah, I think that's how much we probably have.

speaker-0 (07:24)
That's awesome. I mean, you guys have the infrastructure to bring kids into skateboarding and there's a safe place for you guys to practice that and usually ties people into finger boarding because you know, if there is rain or anything like that, people are usually stuck indoors. So let me pull out my, my tech deck or my finger board. Yeah.

speaker-1 (07:32)
100 % yeah.

Yeah, so

that's I was trying to do as well like I was trying to push making fingerboard parks I've made a couple of parks and then I basically just donated it to the skate parks So then when people when it's a rainy day or the kids just want to hang out they can go use the fingerboard park and that's like this basically push a little bit of El Pablo in there in all the sketch skate shops and all that so that Everyone can have an access to a fingerboard park

speaker-0 (08:06)
Right on. So are there a lot of, are you like one of the only real like park makers or are there other like ⁓ fingerboard obstacle makers, park makers, things like that? ⁓

speaker-1 (08:17)
We have a bunch of variety of different brands in here that make fingerboard decks, that make ramps, make... So we don't have any wheels or trucks in our country. So we have to either use Tmoo stuff or if we're lucky, we can get some international product and then we buy international product to be able to use high quality end products. yeah, mainly we...

We're pretty good at making decks. We have one brand that makes concrete obstacles. ⁓ No, sorry, there's two brands that make concrete obstacles. The one makes decks as well. Yeah, like overall, like I just make parts out of scraps. So if I have, because I work in the CNC industry, so we work with a lot of off-cut plastics and everything. So that's always been thrown away. So then I basically just recycle it. I take the plastics, a part together, and then I just give it away to a skate park or a skate shop or something.

It's there, people can use it. I don't have space to carry all this stuff with me, so like I'll just make some spruce things and then, you know.

speaker-0 (09:15)
No, that makes sense.

I know like, you know, as an American, we take things for granted all the time. Like we have access to basically everything like, you know, USFPL is making parks and obstacles. We have tons of deckmakers. We've got tons of wheels companies and there's just like, there's just so much stuff out there and like we have access to. And so like when you go to other countries, I'm like, you guys have these things? And then like, you know, you're telling me you guys don't have wheels and like trucks. And I'm like, we have like four companies that make trucks in our country. so I'm like having

to import all of these goods for you guys. I'm like, that's gotta be, ⁓ you know, just some infrastructure struggles for sure. So I feel like someone or maybe us or someone, someone's going to help you guys out. Like we're going to figure out a way to like, make sure that you guys have access to some pretty good finger boarding gear and stuff for sure.

speaker-1 (10:05)
That would be amazing, Like, yeah, that would be amazing. Yeah, so like we have since I'm in the CNC industry and I am one of the late operators and programmers, like I can literally, I wouldn't say I would replicate a Black River ramp or like one of their big parks or whatever, but like we'll slap something together in that size and we can like put the woodwork together and everything and then we paint it or try to make it look nice and all that stuff. But yeah, obviously time.

Money and all that stuff is always an issue here.

speaker-0 (10:38)
It's an issue everywhere, trust me.

speaker-1 (10:41)
I'll the dish.

speaker-0 (10:42)
I don't think anybody's safe from that anywhere in the world.

speaker-1 (10:45)
⁓ It's either do it yourself or if you have the money go buy it.

speaker-0 (10:49)
Yeah, that's pretty much a good rule of thumb. Alright, so when did you get incorporated into fingerboarding? Like, when did fingerboarding start for you?

speaker-1 (10:58)
I was actually thinking about this a while ago, like, because technically, El Dublo has only been, I would say almost two years now, almost two years old. But I remember finger boarding in COVID, but like just for fun. But then I remembered I used to fingerboard primary school even like that was now because I'm 28 right now. And I would say I started

when I was probably like 13 years old, but I didn't realize what I was doing. obviously had a tech deck or whatever and I would play around with it. I just remember floating always with it, but I was probably like holding it the whole way. But like properly finger boarding, getting into it, I would probably say from COVID, but I didn't even know that any brands existed until two years ago.

speaker-0 (11:45)
Okay, okay. What was your first fingerboard? you remember?

speaker-1 (11:49)
Obviously, so if we talk about a professional fingerboard, I would probably say it was a dead end fingerboard. if you want, I don't know if you know dead end fingerboards, but it used to be in South Africa. It was a locally brand in South Africa under, I think the guy's name was Russell. I can't remember his surname or anything, but I know he used to run dead end fingerboards. And I remember in 2015 when I got my first.

fingerboard from him. It was my first wooden one. I wouldn't say urethane wheels, it had bearing wheels. had, I think it had those dump trucks and yeah, it was a 32 mil. It was a very interesting concave, but like it still was my first wooden fingerboard. Exciting stuff at the time. Yeah. I bought the thing and then used it for like a month and then put it away. Got really into my skateboarding. then after that COVID hit and then

I found it again and was like, yo, let me play around with this thing and basically incorporated everything that I know from skateboarding into the fingerboarding and just try replicate my stuff. I don't know what about it. Garen doesn't exist anymore that he moved to the UK and he's actually sponsored rider for Maple Lab and Islander.

speaker-0 (13:05)
Interesting. All right. So do you remember your actual like first one fingerboard like back in primary school?

speaker-1 (13:13)
I would probably say it was just a tech deck. I probably won't even have the graphic or yeah, I think my parents just bought me a tech deck and that was about it.

speaker-0 (13:22)
Okay, right on. No, I was just kind of curious. I'm like, what are, what are people in South Africa skating or riding on back like 10 years ago? So man. All right. So COVID is basically the same for you guys as it was for us. So you guys had, you know, lockdowns, all that stuff. So nobody basically was kind of safe because I hear a lot of the people have a lot of the same story. Like, you know, COVID got them back in the finger boarding. It got me back in the finger boarding as well. Like an interesting origin story, but it's.

speaker-1 (13:47)
Yeah, I mean COVID hit everyone man, so like it was a case of like, now we're stuck at home, what are we doing?

speaker-0 (13:55)
Yeah. And that's weird because like, think that like, you know, COVID affects different countries differently. And for some reason I just figured like, you know, just Africa as a continent, I'm just like, you guys are cool. You guys are okay. Like there's nothing going on over there, but you guys have the same lockdown procedures and all that stuff. that's interesting.

speaker-1 (14:12)
That first breakout, we had a whole month, no one's allowed to leave the house, companies were shutting down, it was actually very sad. it was a case of no one leaves the house for whole month, we were trying to figure out what's going on and all that. That first month was literally me trying to have fun fingerboarding because I was missing my skateboard. we just fingerboard.

speaker-0 (14:33)
Man, okay, so then when did El Dublo get started? You said two years ago, like, what's the, tell us the history behind the name and then kind of walk us through why you kind of got the brand started.

speaker-1 (14:48)
So,

okay, I'm going to just start off with the name. The name has nothing to do with fingerboarding whatsoever. Originally, I was really into my cars and all that stuff. And me and my homie were just joking around. was like, yeah, let's start a car crew. I was like, yeah, why don't we just call it El Dublo? And he's like, oh, why El Dublo? I was like, no, because Dub is basically sounding like Stance. And then the car is low, two and two together, put a word together. And that was it.

speaker-0 (14:54)
Okay.

speaker-1 (15:17)
add that name. I had an Instagram for that and we posted a lot of about our cars and all that stuff. It just for fun. wasn't really like, didn't think about anything about that. The account was lost. It was just sitting there. I never used it again. The name obviously was still there. It wasn't registered or anything. It's just a name and then like an account name and then I started finger boarding. After COVID, after everything happened, I was still playing around with it and then I legit

met my one friend who actually really fingerboards like when I was still using my tech deck because I didn't I lost my dead end board and then I found it again but like my one homie that used to skate or he still skateboards with me and then he he had an actual proper wooden fingerboard from a brand called WeSkate so it's a it's an in-house brand in South Africa so then they get boards and everything and then so they'll sell you budget completes and all that stuff so they they were like probably

one of the first brands that popped off after dead end and I didn't know they existed. this, my homie just told me, look at this fingerboard, try it out. So I got hooked, I got my first thing and now I wanted to post clips on Instagram because I've seen people posting our clips and I remember, damn, I still have a fingerboard account. It's Mandel Dublo and I just kept the page and just posted clips on there. So if you go to my early days on Instagram, you'll see some nice three fingers throwing the board around.

Click and pray and everything like that. And I just eventually said, okay, well, I'm going to keep the name. don't know what to call this, this account. And after I saw the board that my friend showed me and I'm like, dude, I think I can make this. Like, obviously I don't want to keep buying fingerboard and stuff, but I think I can make this. Let me figure out how, how they do it. And I did a bunch of research and everything and got my first 3d printed mold. So I pushing some decks and then.

Yeah, apparently I showed my homies the decks and they were like, dude, I really like these, these are cool. And then I was like, okay, let's start a brand. And then he was like, what are we calling it? like, I don't know. I got this account with the name of Doublo, let's use it.

speaker-0 (17:25)
Very cool, very cool. You started the brand and you became primarily just a deckmaker.

speaker-1 (17:31)
Yeah, so it was just, so I built the one park over there because we wanted to place to play with the fingerboards. After that, I just started focusing on making boards. And that's literally all I focus on right now at the moment is just making boards.

speaker-0 (17:46)
Okay, so park making and board making are basically like the heart of like the actual brand then. Yeah. Not too many people start off making parks. So that's, ⁓ that's interesting to say the least.

speaker-1 (17:58)
It was just a case of like, okay, let me, I have my technique. don't want to grind on books anymore. Let me try and make like a wooden half pipe or like a kicker or something, or let me do like a tube block with a handrail or something. Since I have the skateboarding background and everything. So I was like, okay, I can sort of make this feel like real skateboarding. So it was just a case of, okay, let me make some parts. And it was all out of old off-cut plastics from work. So it was quite ideal. Like I didn't have to cut anything. It was literally just.

piece blocks that I just put together and drilled two holes, there's a handrail and then made a quarter pipe because the one had like an angle or something, know, like an angle.

speaker-0 (18:38)
Well that's super convenient.

speaker-1 (18:41)
Yeah, it was.

speaker-0 (18:42)
What? All right. So tell me about the events. like what, like, what was like the first finger boarding events that you went to and the first finger boarding event that you hosted.

speaker-1 (18:54)
So the first finger boarding event that I've ever went to was the one that I hosted. Yeah. It was my first finger boarding event. It was also the first international sponsored event in South Africa. so that's Yeah. So like I was, I was trying to like, like, okay, we're having an event. I, I, no one just wants a board. can't offer completes or anything like that. And I, I messaged some sponsors out there and

Our biggest supporter so far is Ttuning, 100%. Geraldine, absolute sweetheart. She has supported the South African scene from the get-go and I really appreciate her, so shout out to her. Ttuning helped us out on the first event and it was absolutely amazing. It was called Fingerboard Jam 1. It was just called the Fingerboard Jam. That was hosted about last year.

Yeah, that was last year, like in the beginning of the year.

speaker-0 (19:52)
Yeah, we love teak tuning as well. We do a lot of stuff with them Also, if you guys are fans of teak tuning trying to save some money use plies 10 at checkout to save 10 % man. Alright, so they Sponsored your event. They sent probably a bunch of completes and components and stuff like that I bet everybody went crazy when they saw all that stuff

speaker-1 (20:11)
Yeah,

100 % man. like we had a case of, so I also was making, I was pushing my boards at that time and I was perfecting the craft and everything. So it was a case of, cause I went through a bunch of different molds. Like I went through the case of like, okay, we'll have the free cheap mold that you can print off of like printables or whatever. Started off with those. And then eventually I was like, no, I don't like these. me try to design my own one. Cause I have a little bit of background with.

architecture and all that stuff as well. So I was able to use AutoCAD and draw stuff, but I wasn't able to put it onto the STL files. So I got someone to just draw it out for me, but I gave them all the specs, all the angles and everything that I wanted, proper boards from there. And then those were part of the competition's prizes. So T-tuning basically sent, so they didn't actually send any completes. They basically just sent us trucks and wheels because that's literally all I I didn't request the boards because I tried to...

show people that, I also have some really good boards, you can try these out and so far everyone has been really enjoying the boards.

speaker-0 (21:14)
Right on. Okay. So if someone was wanting to purchase a board from you, where would they do that? And then walk us through like a buyer's guide, like kind of explain like what sizes, shapes, molds, like if someone was new to your brand, like how would you point them towards like, you know, finding the perfect board for them?

speaker-1 (21:34)
Unfortunately, I don't have a website yet for the the brand. So it's basically all through DM. I'm always on Instagram, always replying to everyone. So if you hit me up on DMs on Instagram, I will probably reply to you in like five seconds. yeah, like with the board regarding buying a board, will be a of like I can ship it through the post office system, or I can go anywhere you want to ship it basically, as long as you are able to pay for the shipping price.

then I can either do FedEx for you, can do DHL for you. All depending on what the person wants and how much they're willing to spend on the shipping. So it's all through Diem. I got three molds at the moment. So we have one that's called a Dax Boss and a Don mold. So the reason why there's three molds is because I was trying to figure out which one I want. Because I wanted to do one board, one mold, and that was it for the brand. But there had to be different testers and everyone

tried all the testers and some like this and some like that so I ended up just keeping all three.

speaker-0 (22:38)
Gotcha. Variety is always nice. Yeah. That way you kind of meet everybody's needs.

speaker-1 (22:42)
Yeah, it's literally just 32 to 36mm and if you do want a custom hand shaped board I can do that as well. So I do use the router to shape it so I have my own shapers but if you want me to make like a cruiser or like custom shape I could do that for you as well.

speaker-0 (22:59)
Do have any distributors? got any like skate shops or anybody carrying your products?

speaker-1 (23:03)
So at the moment we have our headquarters called the Skate Emporium. that's where our main fingerboard park stays. And right now we sold out all of our stock. So I need to re-up on all the stock and all that. So they usually store all my decks or some of them. Yeah, we try getting trucks as well. So we buy trucks from LeFi and Bulk and then we also do some wheels from LeFi as well. So then we'll just try and put some completes together.

and then we just end up putting it in the skate shops. Yeah, I've noticed that a lot of different skate shops want to start stocking my boards as well. So I'm trying to just get my product out to as many skate shops as possible. Because we don't have any fingerboard stores really. So it's mainly just skate shops and try push the fingerboard because fingerboarding is still pretty frowned upon in South Africa, especially by the skateboarders. They're like, your fingerboard, why don't you do the real thing? You know, it's like one of those things. But since I am, since I

used to do the real thing like that, dude you can't tell me anything. If you want to play a game of scale I'll full destroy you, that's fine but don't laugh at me doing the same tricks with my fingers.

speaker-0 (24:03)
He's like, can still kickflip, I got this.

We have the same problems in America. Fingerboarding, there's so many of us that fingerboard now that like the skaters are starting to slowly like adopt us. But I mean, it's still, I think it's a problem everywhere.

speaker-1 (24:23)
That's

I'm lucky since I was actually, I wouldn't say I'm very well known for skateboarding in South Africa, but I was, if I go to a skate park, people would know me. Like if I go to any skate park in South Africa, they would know me. It's just because of, I had a big social appearance on Instagram for skateboarding at a time. Like I would say like maybe three or four years ago, like I was really in my peak, picked up a bit of weight and like kind of slowed down a bit. So I'm not doing, I'm not really skateboarding that much anymore, but I do want to get back into it. When I was in my peak, I was,

pushing it, I was always with the locals, I was always skating with the local sponsored people, like helping out with everything. I was always deep in the community. like I was, people do recognize me and now that I have brought out our doublet, they do respect it. It's an art basically, you putting your art on a board, you putting it into the craftsmanship. So it's like still carrying on the passion for skateboarding.

speaker-0 (25:13)
Yeah, that almost definitely. You've got, do you have a team, team of riders? We do.

speaker-1 (25:17)
We have seven people on our team. Yeah. Yeah, we got a... I didn't know that was going to be this big because everyone just wanted to be on the team and I had to choose the right people. And I think, I chose the right people, man. Like we have people all over the country here. Yesterday was literally the first time ever that we had the entire team together. It was crazy. After the first, everyone joined on the team. Yesterday was literally the first. It was amazing to see everyone. It was absolute.

speaker-0 (25:20)
Big team, okay.

speaker-1 (25:45)
vibe. Yeah, like my team, do a lot for the brand, actually, like everyone has a role to keep the everything going for our doubler, you know, like, one of the team members, they they supply the veneer for me and the stickers and then the other one supplies rails if we want to start selling rails, like they make the rails. ⁓ Overall, we have people that also make some more decks for us. So I have another deckmaker in the company as well. You can do customs and all that. Yeah, like everyone has a role.

speaker-0 (26:15)
That's awesome. I like that everybody's local. Like I, I find it very beneficial to have a local based team that you can reach out to collaborate, test products out. ⁓ I know that there's a lot of teams that like, know, their team members are all spread out some across like different countries, things like that. I really love the collaboration of stuff of a local team. I feel like that vibe can't be touched. Like it's unmatched. think.

speaker-1 (26:33)
yeah.

Yeah, no, it's I'm not going to say I have the best team, but they literally probably some of my best friends and like the overall love for the finger boarding. Like it just I love all of them. They they they the best hundred.

speaker-0 (26:52)
Yeah, no, I feel that. feel that. Yeah, everyone I know that has like a local team and they can all meet up and hang out. And that's what it's all about, man. Like that passion, energy and being able to like capture that and bounce off of it. love it.

speaker-1 (27:03)
and they have the same goal as me, just push our doublet to them on the map. That's all we want. We just want people to know that we exist and they are all for it. So, yeah.

speaker-0 (27:12)
You want to give a shout out to the team? You got to show us some love.

speaker-1 (27:15)
Yeah, yeah, 100%. Firstly, I want to give a shout out to Johan. So it's Johan, Henku, Damien, Derek, Kyle, Ricky. I think I mentioned all of them. That was seven, yes. If I missed, I think I felt like I missed Henku. But yeah, those guys, you guys are my bread and butter. You guys are, you guys literally keep me going all the time. And yeah, I really want to.

Give a shout out to those guys, they have really helped me focus on this dream of just pushing the fingerboarding. yeah, then our last shout out I want to give is my girlfriend, because she is literally my number one supporter. Yeah, she's been through it with me all the way and supports me all the way.

speaker-0 (28:02)
on right on no I'm stoked for you you had a great support system you probably have some projects that you're working on any ⁓ anything that you can leak on the pod as far as future collaborations or projects that you got going on

speaker-1 (28:05)
Yeah, no, it's good out here.

So we're doing, I can say we're doing an artist collab. So my girlfriend's a illustrator and graphic designer and all that stuff. we are going to release some of her graphics onto the decks. It's very exciting stuff because she's a really, really good artist. I'm gonna try to push some other local artists as well to do some collabs with. And then overall big projects is just gonna be...

trying to make as many fingerboard parks as possible to try and push them all over the country, just so that everyone has access to a fingerboard.

speaker-0 (28:49)
That's noble. That's what we've been kind of working on as well as far as our parks and obstacles that we've launched as well. There's a huge shortage of that stuff even here in America. I'm sure it's equally a problem for you guys in South Africa as well. So that's noble.

speaker-1 (29:03)
Yeah, I think we probably only have maybe three or four parks if people bring them to the events and that's it. I know we have two parks and then I just have a lot of random obstacles that we just end up putting on the table and it's all stuff that we made ourselves and that's about it.

speaker-0 (29:18)
like that you understand that like parks bring people together. And that was one of our struggles even here in America. It's like, how do you get parks? How do you make parks? How do you find parks? And it's like, everybody's wanting to grow their local community. it literally, it all starts with parks. And so I'm glad that you recognize that and you're working on trying to like, you know, grow the scene out there through that because

speaker-1 (29:43)
That was literally the first thing on my mind.

speaker-0 (29:45)
Yeah, yeah, that's the same thing for us because people are like, I want to start a meetup. Like, how do you do that? I'm like, okay, well, how do you have, how many perks do you have? And you're like, I don't have any. And I'm like, okay, well, that's problematic. Let's, let's figure this out.

speaker-1 (29:56)
That's

problem number one. Let's solve it. Let's make some box.

speaker-0 (30:00)
Definitely definitely. All right. Do you have any hobbies about you that people might not know?

speaker-1 (30:05)
Besides, well, I mean, I used to do a lot of things when I was younger before, but at the moment, hobby wise, I just do skateboarding and finger boarding right now. I used to play baseball back in the day. I used to draw a lot, but I kind of messed up my left hand since I'm a lefty and I literally can't hold a pencil for longer than 20 minutes and then starts cramping and burning. So I stopped drawing and otherwise I would have designed my own graphics. I have ideas, but yeah, I can't draw them out anymore. Yeah, it's...

It's okay, it's something to work on, you gotta just get over it. yeah, basically just fingerboarding and skateboarding.

speaker-0 (30:40)
Okay, how does that affect your finger boarding?

speaker-1 (30:42)
So lucky for me, I'm ambidextrous. I fingerboard with my right hand. My left hand is what I usually write with.

speaker-0 (30:48)
You should have led with that. That's talent right there. That's crazy. So you're a left handed person who fingerboards with the right. That is why.

speaker-1 (30:51)
Hahaha

⁓

the

speaker-0 (31:07)
That's

intense. That's... Man, that's wild. Okay. So now when I see your clips, like, it makes me respect those clips even more because I'm like, he's doing that with his non-dominant hand. This whole time, okay.

speaker-1 (31:19)
Well, I don't even think about it. Like I do something with this hand and then I'll do something with that hand. Even when I'm skating, like skateboarding, I'm a goofy skater, but I'm technically left-handed, which I don't understand how would that even make sense though. But like I'm a goofy skater, but I prefer skating fakie. And ⁓ like my switch is not too bad, but like I would in a quarter pipe, like if I'm in a bowl or something or like just a mini ramp, I would probably mainly just skate in fakie. Do all my tricks in fakie where...

as if I'm street skating, would do rather backside, so it will just stay in regular stance. So I don't know, it's bit of a weird, I'll do this this side and then I like doing it that side.

speaker-0 (32:01)
Yeah, I can see that being, yeah, that's interesting for sure. Where can people find you on the internet?

speaker-1 (32:07)
If you just search El Dublo, E-L-D-U-B-L-O-W, it will pop up and we are mainly just active on Instagram. yeah, we do have a TikTok page, but I don't really use TikTok. I have a YouTube, don't have a lot of subscribers, so subscribe to that button would be nice. And yeah, I want to do a lot more video content on YouTube, sorry, but yeah, we mainly very active on Instagram.

speaker-0 (32:32)
I'm sure you got a nice little list of shout outs. I know you already gave out shout outs to the team and to the girlfriend anybody else you want to recognize or ⁓

speaker-1 (32:40)
Yes,

I want to actually shout out to some of the local brands here. The local brands here actually started before I started and they actually helped me to figure out that I can make my own boards as well. I want to shout out to WeSkate because they were literally the company that got me into, okay, let's make some boards. Fatmax, another brand and then

Another upcoming brand called BU is launching, or they literally just launched yesterday. So, excited to see what I'm getting one of their boards, because I like to get a little bit of collection piece from every single brand out there. yeah, I'm trying to, I'm getting one of his boards. So I'm waiting to see how the job goes. And yeah, I'm rooting for literally everyone, everyone that tries to make decks and everything in South Africa, like do it, don't even hesitate.

If you have any questions on how to do it, ask me, I'll show you how to do it. I do not gatekeep when it comes to fingerboarding. If you want to know how to make a board, how to shape the board, how to round the board, what glue to use, where to get your molds, this and that, you can ask me. I'm not shy. I'll tell anyone how to get anything. The more we have access to this, the better. I don't want to just gatekeep and be like, buy my brand, buy my boards. I'll double it. I want it to be a community. That's literally the goal. So shout out to everyone.

literally who's a part of this community. Just to stay alive, that's it. Just to stay and push this brand and push the name.

speaker-0 (34:12)
No, I love that. That's respectable. Spreading fingerboarding and just getting as many people into this should always be the goal. Well, Michael, it's been an absolute pleasure. I appreciate you coming on the pod.

speaker-1 (34:24)
Thank you so much for letting me have my little say on your pod and yeah, looking forward to whatever comes to our future plans and all that stuff.

speaker-0 (34:33)
Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited. Glad to get to know a lot more about you and South Africa and the scene out there. And I'm actually now starting to consider putting South Africa on the map. I'm like, all right, cool. Let's take a visit. Let's do this.

speaker-1 (34:49)
Let's do it, man. Pull up, bro. Pull up. We'll host an event in your honor to come here. We'll make a big vibe out of it. It'll be fun.

speaker-0 (34:58)
Right on, right on. Till next time.

speaker-1 (35:01)
percent t-socks

speaker-0 (35:03)
You

Take tight, I'm soaring like a bird Every trick or story, every slidle word Grinding on the edge, I'm brining a mold Fingerboarding dreams with the weight in gold Hear the wheels as they scream In this fingerboarding dream

speaker-1 (35:46)
With every flick I'll write my story On this board

speaker-0 (36:12)
In this finger boarding dream Finger boarding, I'm flying free With every flick I'll write my story On this board, I'm never alone In the skate park I found my home Finger boarding, feel the thrill Chasing feelings and never ending the will

you