No rules, no limits: Tobey McIntosh and Ganna Bogdan's new skating playbook

Tobey McIntosh: How long have you been ice skating? I assume a long time based on how good you are. 

Ganna Bogdan: I first stepped onto the ice when I was four or five years old. My dad took me to an ice rink close to our house. It was an old Soviet-built ice rink, and I just loved it so much. I was like, ‘I want to do this; can you take me again?’ My dad would take me to classes. Every Saturday, it was just me-and-dad time. Then I wanted to join this skate group. I was not in competitive skating; I was in Ballet on Ice. We did shows, we did performances, we did a bunch of cool stuff. We had a girl that did backflips on ice. It was a small community of kids trying to do something different. Then I started modeling and had to choose between staying in Ukraine or traveling the world. I had to quit skating at 15, and modeling brought me to LA. But modeling is so subjective. You can’t just learn a trick and be like, ‘I’m the best in the world.’ 

TM: You can never really control it either. 

GB: You never know, am I good? I think I was a good model, but I wanted to go further. I shipped my ice skates from the Ukraine, and that’s when my next journey began. 

TM: It’s really cool because you felt like you had to choose between them, but now you can do both. 

GB: We live in different times where you can actually go back to things you love and make a career of it. There’s no age restrictions anymore. You can be an athlete at any age you want. You just have to work hard. 

TM: That’s something that drew me to skateboarding: there aren’t these regulations. I would watch skate videos, and the skaters had their own style, their own hair and the boards they chose to ride were different. Everything was just very much of their own choice, and that’s why I learned to love it. I’m from South Central, but my dad would drop me off at Fairfax while he’d do his errands on the weekend. I would basically annoy all the store workers and sit there for hours watching the TV. They gave me my first board and then I took it to Norman O Houston Park near my house. I just started skating and I fell in love with it. I definitely fell the first time I rode, but once I learned how to ride, I felt free – I felt unstoppable. 

GB: That’s amazing. Was it like you wanted to understand that world better? It’s almost like you’re inside of a movie. You want to be inside this universe and know more. It’s not just about the skill; it’s about the music, fashion and people you meet. Can you describe your most beautiful ride? Was it a sunrise or sunset somewhere? 

TM: I remember once we got out of school on the first day of summer: the weather was beautiful with all these palm trees. I would say riding down 61st Street and looking up at clear skies and feeling like, ‘Wow, this is amazing.’ There’s no better feeling than clear skies and skating through your community. It feels like you’re in a movie. 

GB: What’s your ultimate dream in skating?

TM: I’ve always wanted to make Crenshaw Skate Club something that is actually part of a school curriculum. For example, an afterschool program where it could be a club for kids in the inner-city schools. A lot of problems arise in inner-city communities in that extra time when you get off school and your mom gets home. In those three hours, there are a lot of things you can fall into that aren’t so positive. That would be my ultimate goal. What about you?

GB: It’s crazy; I used to be obsessed with the idea of doing competitive skating at an adult age. It transformed into me giving opportunities to all these skaters who are doing competition but don’t have access to fashion and shooting for big brands. It’s my ultimate goal to use my fashion connections with the ice skaters and feature them in films and campaigns to show the beauty of the sport. It’s not about competition; it’s about actually bringing people together.

TM: That’s sick. Same for me: I was never the person who was like, ‘I’m going to go pro,’ but that’s always the dream when you start something. As I’ve gotten more into the skate industry and, being a brand owner in the skate space, it’s more powerful for me to shed light on these inner-city skateboarders who aren’t represented in the skate industry, rather than do it all for myself. I think it’s powerful to hold doors open for other people in your community. The biggest thing is just having options. Breaking barriers, in general, is just about letting people know their dreams are possible. 

GB: That’s pretty much the ultimate dream: just giving, right?

TM: Impact is everything because that’s something that lasts way longer than any amount of money or making cool stuff. What do you think is the biggest goal you’ve achieved so far?

GB: The biggest goal I’ve achieved personally is being able to feel free with my body and do certain tricks that I thought I would not be able to learn at this age. Everybody would say, ‘Aren’t you too old for that? You’re going to hurt yourself,’ but I was like, ‘You know what, I’m still going to do it.’ I need to spread the word that everyone can do that, no matter how old you are, and my biggest achievement is bringing more people into the sport – people who never thought they were going to be skating.

TM: I think age is part of both of our subcultures. I think it’s so interesting how 30 can be considered old. In both skating and ice skating, you start so young that by the time you are 30, you’ve been skating for 20 years already. But, in respect to age in general, it’s pretty young. You can defy those odds. I feel like there are so many synergies between the two – ice skating and skating. On the surface level, you would think there’s so much that’s different, but talking to you about your own experience, it has been amazing to hear the synergy there.

GB: I feel like there are a lot of similarities. It’s a feeling of freedom, of connection to your city and the outdoors, the community and the music. It’s all so important. Then, directing and capturing these crazy moves we’ve been doing. It’s also being superhuman and breaking the laws of physics – that’s what connects those two sports. 

TM: And the room to grow and just integrate more with the culture. Although it is a competitive sport, it can be merged with the culture easily. And sports are the epicenter or the heart of culture in some regards.

GB: It’s representative of the culture also. If you think about ice skating, you do think about Eastern European people. Then, when you do it in other places, a culture is brought into the city. It’s the same with skateboarders traveling all over the world, bringing skateboarding to areas where there has not been skateboarding ever, and now it’s a sport. I really want to check out your skateboarders. Maybe I’ll come film something one day. 

TM: It would be interesting to get the best skaters out there and put them on the ice and see how it translates. If a talented skateboarder who skates these big handrails and crazy tricks goes ice skating, do those skills of balance and coordination translate? 

GB: We can switch out for a week.