At 64, Santa Cruz Slalom Skateboarding Mom Trains for World Games

Judi Oyama weaves a skateboard through small, white cones lined up on a bike path in Santa Cruz. She’s training to compete internationally as a slalom skateboarder. It’s a sport she’s mastered over the past 50 years.

“When they see me with a skateboard, they think it’s my kids or my grandkids,” Oyama says, adding that she doesn’t have grandkids. “They don’t expect someone my age to be skateboarding.”

At 64 years old, Oyama is faster than she’s ever been. In fact, she’s one of the best in the country. At the World Skate Games in Rome this fall, she’ll race against riders from all over the world.

Slalom skateboarding, as opposed to traditional skateboarding, doesn’t involve fancy tricks or style points. Slalom skaters compete based on speed and accuracy while weaving through obstacles — usually cones. Riders typically launch off a ramp to generate speed, and on some courses, skateboarders reach above 30 miles per hour.

“I’ve gone on these giant slalom courses where sometimes I’ll just scream as I’m going because I’m scared and happy at the same time,” Oyama recalls with a laugh.

One of her recent races was a bank slalom — where riders weave up and down walls in a concrete ditch — in the middle of the Nevada desert.

“It was new and challenging and scary,” Oyama says. “There were metal rung ladders that were on each bank, and you had to time it to go around the cone and go in between the metal ladders. I did crash a couple of times and tweaked my ankle, but I kept doing it because it was fun.”

Competitions are nothing new to Judi. She did her first downhill race at 15 in Capitola in the 1970s.

She’s been part of the local skate scene ever since.

One of her first jobs was packing and shipping skateboard parts and putting bearings in wheels for the Santa Cruz skateboard company NHS, or NHS Skate Direct.

“I silkscreened skateboards for them,” Oyama says. “That’s kind of where I learned how.”

The job at the Santa Cruz skateboard company helped launch her career in graphic design. She started airbrushing surfboards and creating window displays at a shop owned by NHS.

For about 20 years, there weren’t many slalom skateboarding races to go to, but Oyama kept skateboarding for fun and to get around town.

When a friend called her in 2001 and told her that official races had started back up, she jumped at the chance to get back into it. Her hands were full with two young children at the time, but she didn’t let that slow her down. The kids came to her races.

“They were in diapers,” Oyama remembers. “I was still breastfeeding when I started racing in my early 40s again.”

When she jumped back into the game, she started winning and never stopped. In 2018, she was inducted into the Skateboarding Hall of Fame.

On the world stage and in museums 

When the NHS Skate Museum opened in a large warehouse in Santa Cruz, Oyama helped curate it. During a tour of the museum, she points out a glass display.

“Inside this case is my original Santa Cruz skateboard team bag,” she says.

The museum is full of photos and videos of old competitions, colorful skateboards and vintage skate art.

The first display is one of Judi’s early skateboards — an original Santa Cruz brand board. It’s made of deep red fiberglass with red wheels, and “Santa Cruz skateboards” is printed in yellow block letters on the bottom.

One of Oyama’s helmets from her early skating days is in the Smithsonian Institution Archives.

“You know you’re old when your stuff’s in a museum,” she says.

Ruiz was a junior racer when the two first met around 2005, and Oyama became an inspiration to her.

“She’s always really been a mentor to me,” Ruiz says. “She’s always cheering me on.”

Oyama encourages them even when they compete against each other, like at the World Skate Games two years ago.

“I actually beat her for the first time in the giant slalom at the World Skate Games. And so that was a huge accomplishment for me,” Ruiz says. “And she was just so happy for me and encouraging. … We can all be really competitive in the sport, but she really felt joy and was really proud of me.”

Judi also inspires other moms through her skating apparel line. She created a line of stickers and clothing called “Badass Skatemom.”

Friends encouraged her to start selling shirts, socks, and sweatshirts with designs and phrases like “be brave” and “fearless.” The profits help sponsor her races and other skateboarding moms.

“I have a couple silk screens that have different graphics on it,” explains Oyama. “One says ‘badass,’ or it has the mermaid or my dog standing on a skateboard.”

The tagline for Badass skate mom is “Be Badass every day.” And she tells people to keep pursuing things that they love.

“Don’t let anyone tell you you’re too old or it’s just a toy,” Oyama says. “If you enjoy it, keep skateboarding.”

Oyama says she’ll keep skating for as long as it still brings her joy, whether that’s from slalom races or from the ramp in her backyard.

She says if the joy ever wears off, she may pick up another passion. “I want to get back into riding horses.”