Board Women

If you’ve seen a video recently of a woman in her 50’s, 60’s or 70’s cruising the waves and telling the story of how she came to be a surfer later in life, chances are it’s been shared by the Sassy Silver Surfers community, founded by Inessa Love and Lisa Alfano.

Whilst Inessa’s films on instagram show the beautiful waters of Hawaii, she’s actually originally from Ukraine, an unlikely surf girl destination. What feels more unlikely is that she spent 8 years in Hawaii before turning to surfing at 50, an event that came about after she was divorced and seeking new freedoms.

She didn’t find it easy, but she stuck with it, describing it as ‘opening up her life’. She started a facebook group with Lisa, as a way to seek out people who were surfers in the same age bracket, and the two were surprised that it grew at pace. The group is closed, if you’re not 50 you’re not coming in, but the Instagram account @sassysilversurfers has acted as a route for surfers who aspire to be surfing in their 50’s, but who aren’t there quite yet, to find a route into the community.
Inessa is now hell bent on demonstrating that women in their 50’s and beyond an do anything they want, through the lens of the inspiring stories of the women in the community.

We cover:

The story of Sassy Silver Surfers coming to life
Why prioritising yourself is an essential practice
Surfing post Divorce
Why 50+ women are so surfing obsessed
Belonging in the line-up

Producer: Selma Chalabi
Presenter: Caroline Keylock

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jo Moseley is that rare breed: a positive menopause story.

The first woman to stand up paddle from coast to coast in the UK, Jo first came on the Board Women podcast two years ago, talking about how this challenge had transformed her life at a time when she needed it most. She described periods of being on the bathroom floor crying, her relationship having ended, and how paddleboarding had brought her joy, challenge and a new found confidence, which she later applied to learning to skateboard in her late 50’s.

Two years later, Jo’s coast to coast challenge has proved instrumental in changing her entire existence. She is now a 3 x author, having released two SUP guides, but more recently launching her book ‘Adventures on The Water: the Power of Paddleboarding to Change Lives’. It’s a collection of stories from people talking about their relationship with Paddleboarding and the water more generally, and it spans from aspirational adventures like Brendon Prince navigating the entire British coastline, to Caz Dawson’s amazon expedition, to Karthy Marston’s SUP yoga classes.

Jo has also released short films, the latest one having debuted at Kendal Mountain Festival, ‘Skinny’ charting her first experience of skinny dipping outdoors, in her sixties.

Whether planned or not, Jo has become the poster child of embracing joy in later life, and a key theme to our conversation is the need for more positive stories of this chapter. The interview covers:

The life changing influence of her adventure
The story behind her new book
Why taking care of yourself in menopause is essential
The need for a more positive view of our next chapter
Why more accessible role models are important
Skinny Dipping in your 60’s (and being on the big screen naked)
Finding freedom in the idea that no-one thinks about you

Jo also talks about two amazing women that we’ve been lucky enough to interview before on the show - Gemma Palmer Dighton, and Sam Metcalfe.

Host: Caroline Keylock
Producer: Selma Chalabi
https://weareboardwomen.substack.com/

Ep 11. Brave enough to take the next step
https://www.jomoseley.com/
https://www.instagram.com/jomoseley/?hl=en

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Founder of the iconic movement, Cheer up Luv, Eliza Hatch is a force to be reckoned with. She’s an award winning feminist, photographer, educator, speaker and curator. She’s spent the last 8 years working to highlight the voices of sexual assault survivors, break down taboos around sexual assault and drive awareness of misogyny in society.

However, more recently Eliza has become known for covering her own journey into the world of skateboarding, and translating some of that analysis of gender barriers to this new space. I’ve really enjoyed following her content about visiting new parks for the first time, and highlighting some of the internal narrative we all have that can, at times, get in our way.

What I didn’t know was that there had been a blip in Eliza’s journey. She had been called out by someone who was a well known male figure in the skateboarding scene, who stitched one of her social films, and eviscerated her in the process. The content went viral, but not only did it affect her in the online space, it started to creep into the real world.

It resulted in Eliza beginning to question whether she should create this type of content at all. In some ways it positively reframed her relationship with the sport, and rather than professionalising her journey, running events and creating content, she embraced the pure joy of the journey. However, it’s clear the impact is still relatively raw, and it’s frustrating that anyone has to deal with this kind of harassment online.

We cover this (the first time she’s spoken about it online) and so much more:

Her journey into skateboarding (and more recently surfing)
Finding a more mindful relationship with skateboarding
The journey of building Cheer Up Luv
Photographic Essays with collective Transkaters London
Developing positive self talk and your own journey of progression

Eliza is super self deprecating, but I really recommend her skateboarding content when it does appear, it’s doing a great job of breaking down barriers in this space. Her social accounts are below if you want to find out more

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Host: Caroline Keylock
Producer: Selma Chalabi

https://weareboardwomen.substack.com

https://www.instagram.com/elizahatch/?hl=en
https://www.instagram.com/cheerupluv/?hl=en

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Snowboarder, mother, activist, feminist, producer, the list of Kimmy’s achievements as a professional snowboarder and beyond is endless. She’s an icon of the snowboarding industry, the first female snowboarder to land a double backflip in the park, multiple time winner of rider of the year.

Despite all of that, it’s her role as a vocal ambassador for women in the sport that really stands out for me. She has created events and platforms to accelerate women in snowboarding, but that focus peaked in the last year with the release of her film, ‘Butterfly in a Blizzard’.

Initially created to chart her journey into motherhood as a professional snow athlete, the film resulted in covering five years of Kimmy’s life as she navigates the birth of her first child, the death of her mother, childhood trauma that came to the fore as she embarked on motherhood herself; and later (as if this wasn’t all enough), advanced breast cancer resulting in a double mastectomy.

It’s a film that makes you question just how much one person is capable of overcoming, but what really connected with me was that it is the most honest portrayal of navigating parenting as working parents that I’ve seen on screen. Kimmy is articulate and humble, and I loved talking with her.

In this episode we cover:

Being at the peak of her career and finding out she was pregnant
Choosing to stand up to sponsors to ensure they supported her contractually
Deciding to publicly portray the real story of parenthood + being a professional athlete
The film evolving to cover more than they ever expected as a family
Why she chose an all female crew to bring the film to life
Navigating cancer & family & choosing to come back to snowboarding

And so much more. This one is searingly honest, and it sucker punched me more than once as it chimed with my own experiences of parenthood, I hope you enjoy it.

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Host: Caroline Keylock
Producer: Selma Chalabi

https://weareboardwomen.substack.com
Find more on Kimmy here: https://www.instagram.com/kimmyfasani/
Watch the film here: https://www.butterflyinablizzard.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An interview with Emylia Hall, best-selling author, snowboarder and skater.

One of my favourite things about board sports is the people you meet, but I hadn’t realised when I started this community that it would lead me back to someone I was friends with 15 years ago.

Emylia was then ‘Mimi’, the very cool girlfriend of the best friend of my boyfriend at the time, an effortless snowboarder cruising down the mountain as I struggled to deal with the flat spots on the mountain.

Fast forward to now, and reading an article in The Guardian written by Emylia Hall, author of the best-selling Cornwall based mystery series ‘The Shellhouse Detectives’, talking about the power of taking up skateboarding in your 40’s, and I realise they are one and the same person:

“As a “later skater”, what I’ve come to realise is that everything seems impossible until you try it. Every minuscule achievement, every incremental progression, feels epic, and each experience hard-won. There’s a lesson in that.” - Emylia Hall, The Guardian, June 2024

Emylia is on a strict writing schedule, having been commissioned for 7 books in the series she is writing, and skating provides a much needed escape for her brain. We haven’t written much on Board Women about the connection between skateboarding and creativity, but they are clearly intertwined.

“A lot of writing is about trying stuff and just exploring different avenues, trying different things with characters, trying things with plot, seeing what happens and when it doesn’t work, just rewriting and rewriting. I’m having to find a new way of working, and I’ve got a new routine because of that. But what that means is desk time is really intense, and so I really cherish the time that I get away from the desk, and skateboarding is absolutely my release.”

Board Sports provide that elusive escape for your brain that so many of us crave in mid life. The life jenga that we deal with on a daily basis (Mimi has a son, coaches other writers, and also runs an organisation called The Mother Ship, encouraging mothers to be writers) needs an outlet, and board sports hit the spot in a way that no other sports can.

This interview is a true ode to the wonder of skateboarding, its relationship to the creative process, and what it is to accept the status of being a beginner again in your 40’s. We cover:

Emylia’s journey into snowboarding, and several seasons on the mountain

Lockdown and skateboarding and being an ‘unlikely skateboarder’

The uphill learning curve of being a beginner (and how amazing it is)

Starting The Mothership and getting mums to believe in themselves

Her skateboarding future & what success means now

It’s a warm, inviting hug of an interview, I hope you love this one.

Host: Caroline Keylock
Producer: Selma Chalabi
https://weareboardwomen.substack.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.