Today we’d like to introduce you to Siddhartha Ullah.
Hi Siddhartha, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I was born in Venice and when I was little I had a lot of energy. My mom kept putting me in different activities- like soccer or basketball at the Santa Monica Y but nothing ever stuck. I would get so distracted, the ball would roll by and I wouldn’t even notice. So like most Venice kids, I spent a lot of time at the beach and skatepark. Then one weekend when I was four, our neighbor invited us to Tahoe and my mom put me in snowboard school. So that’s when I started snowboarding, and I never stopped! I joined a team in Mountain High when I was six and started competing locally. Within a few years, I knew I wanted to explore being a pro snowboarder, so starting in 3rd grade, we began living in Colorado in the winter. A couple of years ago, I was able to start competing professionally at an international level. I’m 17 years old now and in my freshman year at Stanford and still traveling the world on my snowboard!
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
There have definitely been a lot of challenges. Snowboarding is a demanding sport, physically, mentally, and environmental conditions can be a challenge. One of the biggest challenges, is obviously, dealing with intensely cold weather conditions, where it can be icy or windy. Also, climate change is a real issue- we’ve had events postponed or canceled for lack of snow.
From an athletic perspective, doing tricks in the halfpipe takes a lot of mental focus and physical energy, so that too can be challenging. You have to give your all every day, over and over again. It takes a lot of discipline.
And definitely, the lack of diversity in snowboarding can sometimes be tough to navigate. As a person of color from Los Angeles, diversity is something a lot of us take for granted. So, spending a lot of time in mountain towns was an adjustment!
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’m a freestyle snowboarder who specializes in the halfpipe. Probably what sets me apart and what I’m most known for are my creativity and style as a snowboarder, and my hair! I would say one of my proudest moments on snow was learning a front double 1080. I was relatively young when I learned it and it took a lot of commitment on but at the time, it felt like a big achievement.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
There’s definitely a large aspect of risk in snowboarding but like any other action sport, it’s calculated risk. The sport is really progressive, meaning the way you learn a new trick is in stages. For example, to learn a 900 degree rotation, you’d first learn a 360, then 540, 720, and finally 900. So when you work their way, it takes away some of the risk. And as you get further in the sport, there are other ways of training, like trampolines, dry slope or airbags, which allow you to learn a trick into an airbag first instead of starting on snow.
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Image Credits
Photo 1: Dew Tour https://instagram.com/dewtour?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA== Photo 2: The Stomping Grounds https://instagram.com/thestompinggroundspark?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA==
