Board Women

Known for her amazing freestyle routines and tricks (including handstands on her board), Cornely @raizortail has competed in the European Championships, having taken up the sport in her late 30s.As a child she'd always wanted to skate, but she didn't want to stand out more than she already did, and so she decided not to. Now in her middle years, she's fully embracing 'dancing' with her board.Episode highlights:Getting in to skateboarding and joining forces with other women - Dorks On DecksGrowing up queer in a Christian family, and not wanting to stand out more.Freedom and energy - "skateboarding makes me a better mum, partner and worker".Freestyle skating is like a puzzle of tricks you shove in to one another - the weirder the better.Taking part in the European Championships.Skateboarding is like dancing.The skate community is such a warm and uplifting community - "I totally fit in".Cheer for each other and for every single baby step you take.More about Cornely:Insta: @raizortailGroups Cornely mentions:@dorksondecksJoin the Board Women movement:boardwomen.co@boardwomenHost: Caroline KeylockProducer: Selma ChalabiPhotography - Clare KeylockArtwork - Rozi Wan Rimli Music - Brother Brother by Benjamin Caleb Johnson, performed by BENSON

Introducing Board Women, the podcast - an exploration of women, board sports and confidence.Get on board. Join the movement.boardwomen.co@boardwomenHost - Caroline KeylockProducer - Selma ChalabiPhotography - Clare KeylockArtwork - Rozi Wan Rimli Music - Brother Brother by Benjamin Caleb Johnson, performed by BENSON

Get ready for the infamous @auntyskates. Oorbee is well known for her social media images and videos of flying along on a skateboard in a saree. Oorbee began her skating journey in her 40s after deciding she no longer wanted to sit on the sidelines, whilst her husband and children had fun. Now almost 50, she has made skateboarding her career, inspiring women around the globe with her teaching, retreats and Tiktok and Instagram posts. “I’m so freaking lucky that I get to call myself a skateboarder. This is not what I imagined my life to be at almost 50 years old.”Enjoy this half hour of infectious energy and enthusiasm, and tell us what you think. Episode highlights:The journey from being a kid who wasn’t allowed a bike to a women skating huge bowls.The unexpected rise to fame through social media posts going viral.Skateboarding through grief and loss.Coaching and encouraging others.Representation and skating.When you feel fear, that’s the time to take action.More about Oorbee:Insta: @auntyskatesauntyskates.comJoin the Board Women movement:boardwomen.co@boardwomenHost: Caroline KeylockProducer: Selma ChalabiPhotography - Clare KeylockArtwork - Rozi Wan Rimli Music - Brother Brother by Benjamin Caleb Johnson, performed by BENSON

Dress Like A Mum founder, Zoë de Pass is an extreme fan of snowboarding, having spent 3 years doing a 'season'.“It’s just like being on top of the world. It’s like breathing out a massive breath. Going up that first chair lift and looking down the mountain, my shoulders drop, there’s relaxation. I just love it.”She now runs her own snowboarding retreats, and last year ran a surfing one too. She’s also designed her own eyewear.Episode highlights:How @dresslikeamum came about and how it's evolved.Zoë's passion for snowboarding & how she's made it work.Her board retreats & women trying new things.Why as women we sometimes get in our own way.How her concept of risk has changed as she's got older.Finding confidence in her new sunglasses business.Setting boundaries in social mediaMore about Zoe:@dresslikeamumDress Like A MumZoe De Pass EyewearJoin the Board Women movement:boardwomen.co@boardwomenHost: Caroline KeylockProducer: Selma ChalabiPhotography - Clare KeylockArtwork - Rozi Wan Rimli Music - Brother Brother by Benjamin Caleb Johnson, performed by BENSON

Danni is a transpersonal psychotherapist, as well as surf confidence coach. Much of what she has to say about surfing applies to all board sports, so listen in - this episode is packed with lots of tips and wise advice. “When we go out and surf, whatever is happening in our real lives is almost an exaggeration of what is going on in our lives. Because we experience such highs in surf, especially in that honeymoon period, where we catch our first wave, it’s this high we are constantly chasing. And because we’ve felt such a high, we have to experience the lows that go with it; and the higher the highs, the lower the lows. So that is why, in surfing, emotions are so exaggerated, and it’s almost like our capacity to feel grows within surf.”Episode highlights:It's good to fall.Finding surfing later in life: “When I found surfing, it became this anchor to who I was as a person….I felt powerful.”Surfing is pure presence: ‘When you’re in the flow with the surf and the ocean, it’s pure freedom. Nothing else matters.”Running surf confidence coaching workshops.Surfing as a relationship cycleBeat the inner critic.Importance of mindset pre surfRegaining confidence post injury / incidentMore about Danni:Insta: @danniunwaytherapyDanni Unway TherapyGroups that Danni mentions:Newquay Women’s Surf ClubJoin the Board Women movement:boardwomen.co@boardwomenHost: Caroline KeylockProducer: Selma ChalabiPhotography - Clare KeylockArtwork - Rozi Wan Rimli Music - Brother Brother by Benjamin Caleb Johnson, performed by BENSON

Sam is an award winning writer and editor specialising in action sports, the environment and the outdoors, having written for @huckmagazine @guardian @thetimes @telegraph @financialtimes and many more.She’s a snowboarding and surfing enthusiast and I love her attitude to seeing everyday as a privilege that she gets to do these sports,“It’s slightly morbid to say, but with something like snowboarding I’m conscious of how many more days am I going to have on the mountain, in terms of the years you have left in your life, the climate crisis. That sounds like a depressing thought, but I don’t see it as depressing, I see every day on the mountain as a privilege.”We talk about so much, but I particularly love her focus on continuing to have adventures even when you have a family. It can be easy to let that stuff slide, but life is so much better when you stay fulfilled.Episode highlights:Sam’s ToysRUs skateboard in the 80’sFeeling lucky to do these sports at 47Being a lifelong intermediateThe frustration of criticising middle aged womenBeing an adventurous mumGetting people to care about the environmentMore about Sam:@samhaddadClimate and Board SportsGroups and people Sam mentions:oceanset.co.uk@surfersforclimateprotectourwinters.uk@sophiehellyer@stephaniegilmoreJoin the Board Women movement:boardwomen.co@boardwomenHost: Caroline KeylockProducer: Selma ChalabiPhotography - Clare KeylockArtwork - Rozi Wan Rimli Music - Brother Brother by Benjamin Caleb Johnson, performed by BENSON

Having brought up 2 sons as a single mother, and cared for her parents, Jo Moseley decided to welcome in a new adventurous chapter in her life when she entered her 50s. In 2019, she became the first woman to stand-up paddle board coast to coast from Liverpool to Goole, litter picking along the way - 162 miles in total. She documented the ups and downs of her journey in a beautiful film ‘Brave Enough - A Journey Home to Joy’. Part of her motivation for doing the trip was that she’d lost some of her friends to cancer. Life, she realised, was short and needed to be lived to the max. She has written a book about paddle boarding in Great Britain, and is about to publish a second book about stand-up paddle-boarding in the Lake District . More recently, she has taken up skateboarding. ‘I’ve always wanted to learn to skateboard. I was growing up in the 70s, my brother had a skateboard but ‘girls didn’t skateboard’. There were no skateparks, nowhere to have a lesson. It just wasn’t seen to be a thing that a girl from the north would do. So skateboarding is the thing where I said ‘you can be a beginner, you can invest in some lessons. The minute I went for that first lesson, I loved it.’Episode highlights:Paddle boarding coast to coast - the plan and the reality.‘For the first time in months, I felt like a warrior and not a worrier’.The impact of losing friends - honouring their creativity. Going through peri-menopause. Becoming brave - taking the next step, and the next step. Taking up skate boarding - ‘I love being a beginner’. More about Jo:@jomoseleyjomoseley.comPlaces that Jo mentionsLS-TEN.org@LS-TEN SkateparkJoin the Board Women movement:boardwomen.co@boardwomenHost: Caroline KeylockProducer: Selma ChalabiPhotography - Clare KeylockArtwork - Rozi Wan Rimli Music - Brother Brother by Benjamin Caleb Johnson, performed by BENSON

As founder of Project Fearless, Merida Miller has made it her life’s work to empower young girls and gender fluid youth to take on new things, fall, and get back up again. Merida was fortunate enough to grow up in an environment where failing was accepted, and even encouraged. Through Project Fearless, she aims to create that safe space for others to learn and fail, and ultimately to grow. Project Fearless offers a variety of activities, but it’s best known for its skateboarding programme. It’s even come to the attention of big brands like Nike. Episode highlights:The psychology of falling.Setting up Project Fearless.Before Project Fearless - designing snowboarding clothing.Being Hype Girl - cheering people on and creating a ripple effect of impact.Boosting confidence through learning how to fall and get back up.Role models: more women and gender minority coaches are needed.Building teams is an important basis for Project Fearless.Merida’s story with board sports - “snow boarding is my first and greatest love”. Moving to the Netherlands and getting in to skateboarding - Dorks On Decks.Mums want to get involved too.Creating safe spaces for girls and gender minorities. “School is not necessarily a safe space, so it’s important to have spaces outside of school.” Find your comfort zone and then get a little bit out of it to get in to your growth zone.  More about Merida@mercatmiller@project.fearlessprojectfearless.orgPlaces and groups that Merida mentions:@dorksondecks@womenskatetheworld@skateparknoordJoin the Board Women movement:boardwomen.co@boardwomenHost: Caroline KeylockProducer: Selma ChalabiPhotography - Clare KeylockArtwork - Rozi Wan Rimli Music - Brother Brother by Benjamin Caleb Johnson, performed by BENSON

The fantastic Nick Woodhouse is founder of Sister Motion, a business she set up to close the gender gap in commercial production, led by female teams. “7% of commercial directors and women are only 11% of creative directors are women and this is why we still have these lazy outdated stereotypes of women in the commercials and the content we’re fed”She became analytical about gender stereotypes when she had her daughter Nancy. Providing Nancy, and girls like her, with strong female protagonists to look up to, became a driving motivation for setting up Sister Motion. Nicky is an avid surfer (and was a skater when she was in her teens) and this passion has spilled in to her work, informing many of the clients that have bought in to her all female talented teams. Episode highlights:Taking the slams - falling in surfing and falling in the business. Sister Motion - “comes from my own lived experience. I was often the only female on a shoot, other than hair and make-up.”“I want my daughter Nancy to have better role models in commercial content and adverts.”We need to change the statistics in the broadcast and advertising industry.Journey in to boarding - from teen skateboarder to avid surfer. “In an ideal world I would surf every day.”The joy of surfing - “surfing is my new high.”Social media is encouraging more women in their middle years to try out these sports.Surf etiquette - finding your space in a male dominated environment. More about Nicky:@nickywoodhouse@sister_motionSister MotionGroups Nicky mentions:London Surf ClubSurfing England@sauntonsurfsistersJoin the Board Women movement:boardwomen.co@boardwomenHost: Caroline KeylockProducer: Selma ChalabiPhotography - Clare KeylockArtwork - Rozi Wan Rimli Music - Brother Brother by Benjamin Caleb Johnson, performed by BENSON