Looking Sideways Action Sports Podcast Matthew Barr

Easkey Britton alert!
Yep, I’ve got my old pal Easkey back on the show this week for her second visit, a mere six years after we first chatted for the pod. We’ve stayed in touch, and over the years I’ve watched the evolution of her singular, insightful career as a surfer, academic and writer with awe.
So when Easkey got in touch to say she’d be in London in mid May to do a talk at the Finisterre store about her new book Ebb and Flow, I packed the podcast kit, called up Tozer to take care of picture duties, and headed up to meet her.
And what an endlessly stimulating, occasionally mind-bending and always thought-provoking chat this one was. For me, Ebb and Flow is a quietly political piece of work, concerned as it is with the world we want to live in as individuals and a society, and gently interrogating as it does recent explosion in all things Blue Mind over the past few years. As ever, Easkey has a lot of very interesting things to say about water, our relationship to water, and how her own relationship to the element that has thus far defined her life has changed since she became a mum of twins.
I very much enjoyed this conversation, which roves all over the place, and is embellished by the thoughtfulness and insight that characterises Easkey’s view of the world. Thanks for following me down my usual conversational rabbit holes, Easkey.


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I welcomed one of snowboarding’s modern greats back onto the show for this episode: Elias Elhardt.
If you’ve heard our previous conversation, or watched any of his films, you’ll know Elias is a true snowboarding original. On the snow, he’s one of our most highly-regarded freeriders, respected by peers such as Travis Rice, and with the CV to prove it. But it’s off the snow that he is arguably having the biggest impact on the culture. He’s one of our great thinkers, somebody for whom snowboarding is as much a forum for internal examination as it is physical expression.
His series of films prove the point,. In Contraddiction, he explored his own relationship with professional snowboarding. In Narcis, he ended to Kosovo to explore that land’s recent history. And now, in Invisible Ground, he turns his attention to one of the most important topics of all: our individual and collective relationship to fear, danger, and vulnerability.
That last word is key when it comes to Elias’s work, and why he’s such a unique snowboarding artist. Few snowboarders have experience of the situations that have formed the basis of Elias’s career. Among those that have, those willing to explore these situations through the context of fear and vulnerability are rare indeed.
It’s why Elias’s work is so important, and why I was happy to welcome him back onto the show for this vital and enlightening conversation. Hope you enjoy the episode.


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“I don't consider myself a world traveller because I haven't travelled the world. I literally found the 10 places I love and just keep going back. Because I would rather go deep and immersive with a culture, and understand it and its issues, than just fill myself with dopamine every time I get a stamp of my passport to shoot images out the car window at 60 miles an hour, which I've done.”
Earlier this year, I interviewed Chris Burkard at a special event in London organised by my agency All Conditions Media and my pals at Db. I offered up a number of free tickets for paid subscribers - and originally I released the entire conversation as a bonus episode exclusively for paid subscribers only. Now I'm dropping the paywall so everybody can have a listen.
If you listened to last year’s hugely popular conversation with Chris (also recorded in front of a live audience, that time in Stockholm), you’ll know what to expect. This was yet another intensely honest conversation about art, creativity and life itself with one of the most influential visual artists at work in the outdoor today.
Sure, we briefly covered some of the territory we discussed in Stockholm, but there are new insights, pearls of wisdom and sharp exchanges here that showcases Burkard’s trademark humour, vulnerability and insight.
Thanks Chris for being such a great sport, and to my All Conditions Media and Db family for taking care of such a brilliant event. And thanks to my paid subscribers for supporting the show! It’s so appreciated. If you enjoyed this, or have any feedback, tell me in the comments, or hit me up directly in the subscriber chat thread. Looking forward to hearing what everybody thinks.


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After episode 204’s polarising conversation with Steven Kotler, regular service resumes this week, with this lovely chat with surfers and film-makers Lucy Small and Maddie Meddings about their new film Yama Surf.
Regular listeners will recall my previous conversation with Lucy back in 2021, after she achieved notoriety for speaking up about gender equality in surfing in a famous post-contest speech that went viral. In the intervening years, Lucy has continued to lead this conversation on her own terms and in a way that continues to move things forward.
And now she’s back with this film, a collaborative creative project with British film-maker Maddie which sees them explore the female surf and skate scenes in Ghana, explore the country’s hitherto untold surf history and, as the duo put it, ‘challenge the historic representation of Ghanians in a story of reclamation and joy’.
They also focus on the work of two driven, impressive locals: Sandy Alibo of Surf Ghana, and Justice Kwoife of Obibini Girls Surf Club, who are building Ghanian surf culture from the ground up.
Embellished by Maddie’s pulchritudinous cinematography and Lucy’s lovely surfing, the result is a compelling surf film that tells a new story in what is rapidly becoming Lucy’s trademark style. This is really a  tale of complete creative openness and collaboration, and I particularly enjoyed hearing about how the pair devised and created the project as they went along. Hope you enjoy this one.



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Everything we know about ageing is wrong - and action sports are the perfect tool through which to test this hypothesis.
At least, that’s the contention of Steven Kotler, this week’s guest and author a new book called Gnar Country.
Kotler, who tends to be described as an ‘expert in human performance’, made his name as the doyen of all things flow thanks to books such as The Rise of Superman and The Art of Impossible, and his work as Executive Director of the Flow Research Collective. In Gnar Country, his latest book, he turns his attention to the science of ageing, and tests his theories of ‘peak performance ageing’ by attempting to learn to park ski at the age of 53.
As you might imagine from that brief précis, we’re in life hack and ‘actionable protocol’ territory with this one, which regular listeners will know isn’t really my usual style. But I enjoyed The Rise of Superman, which articulated supremely well a lot of concepts and experiences anybody who has dabbled in sport at any level will recognised, and also find the premise of Gnar Country to be an intriguing one, and something which I imagine most listeners will also find of interest. After all, who doesn’t want to continue to ‘kick ass before you kick the bucket’, as Kotler puts it?
On a personal level, too, an interview such as this, with somebody on the promo trail and with a very clear message to impart, always presents an interesting challenge. So it was that in early April 2023 I hopped on Zoom to chat to Steven. Of course, we discussed Gnar Country and the ideas that underpin Kotler’s quest. We also explored the reasons we do what we do, and how we can mindfully harness the techniques Steven has dedicated his life to understanding. And we delved into Steven’s own motivations, and some of the contradictions inherent in his own quest as outlined in the book.
Hope you enjoyed our conversation. I’ve really love to know what everybody thinks of this one, and whether you recognise the ideas and experiences myself and Steven discussed.


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Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.
And after four years - this is the final ever episode of Type 2! And what a fitting guest I’ve got for this landmark episode - Jenna Johnson, current President of Patagonia Inc.
Jenna is a Ventura lifer, a proud product geek, and somebody who has ascended the ranks from shopfloor to her current status at the very top of the company.
Today, she’s one of the senior leaders at Patagonia, one of a handful tasked with actually delivering that recent ‘Earth is our only shareholder’ announcement. Indeed, it was Jenna, if you recall, who set the tone at the announcement itself with her ‘We’re here to talk about a really big fucking deal’ line.
All of which makes Jenna herself kind of a big deal. Of course, we covered her career, and her path to her current role. But I was really interested in getting her take on some of the themes I began to discern during my time at Patagonia HQ. How the concept of ‘product activism’ has always been a key tenet of the company philosophy. How all the ‘it’s a tax dodge’ criticisms levelled at the company last year are nothing new. And whether ‘the announcement’ signals a shift into a more overt form of campaigning leadership as the company celebrates its 50th anniversary.
It’s a good one, this. Massive thanks to Jenna, Corey, Corley, Alex, Louise, Ryan and Jelle for all the help with this episode. And to my Patagonia Europe family for all the help and encouragement during this last four years of Type 2 episodes.



This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lookingsideways.substack.com/subscribe