Asia Cruz

Photography by Matt Fookes

Whether it’s carving up the bowl in Venice Beach or taking on handrails in the streets, Asia Cruz always has a big smile on her face no matter what she’s skating. While speaking with her recently, we discovered we
had a huge thing in common.

Did you know I was there the day you broke something at 4Seasons skatepark? I think that was the first day I met you, or maybe the second day.
Yeah, that is crazy. Damn.

That was three-and-a-half to four years ago. That was when I first started skating.
Yeah, no, literally because the thing that I remember in my brain is being like, Damn, Megan and Molly [Lefeber] can do half-cabs. It’s funny because I know you’re not a transition skater really.

Dude, not at all. I mostly skated with Molly in the beginning. I was a mini-ramp guy. I feel like everyone does that when they first start. Once I started hanging with Karli and skating the street obstacles at the park, I didn’t look back.
Yeah, fair.

Wait, was that when you first started skating, too—in 2020?
Yeah. Did you break your leg, too?

I just did, yeah.
Did you get the IM Rod where you had to go through your knee or was it like a plate?

It was a rod.
Was it your tibia basically?

Yeah, I actually broke my tibia and fibula.
Yeah. I think we totally had the same break. I broke my tibia. It was so weird because they told me about the tibia and I was like, “Okay, what about the other one?” There’s two bones. They were like, “Yeah, that was broken, too.” I was like…

Why didn’t you tell me both? What the fuck?
I know, that one just didn’t matter I guess.

It’s my first break. I was street skating in Colorado. I just landed weird, and it was just a freak accident.
Did you know right away too or you’re just, it was not connected?

Oh, yeah. I just looked at my friends and was like, “I think I broke something.” They were like, maybe you didn’t. I lifted my leg up that was flopped over and I was like, “No, I did.” I wasn’t crying or anything because you’re in shock. I was just pissed.
No, literally same, because then you’re like, well, how many weeks till I can skate again? I have to relearn how to walk, I might have to do the surgery thing. But it’s really just knowing your friends are going to be skating and you’re not going to be able to do the things that you want to do.

Exactly. I didn’t know mentally how I would be. I’m very fast-paced, always doing something. If I’m not skating, I’m working or doing yoga. I was like, what am I supposed to do if I just have to sit there for months?
Yeah. What did you do?

I started playing guitar and making chainmail jewelry and, of course, obsessively doing my physical therapy exercises.
Yeah, cool crafts and stuff.

But dude, I can’t believe we broke the same thing. I had no idea!
It’s crazy, it’s literally the same.

When you broke your leg, was the recovery long? Did you have a point where you weren’t sure if you were going to get back into skating since it was early on?
It felt like forever, it’s probably the same for you, but from the moment I broke my leg, I just wanted to skate. Then, I think back to that time, and it’s so strange, because at that point, I’d only been skating a few months. I don’t even know why I was so obsessed. Do you ever take a step back and think, Why are we so obsessed with this?

Because it’s an addiction.
Because it’s everything. I’m always thinking about it. I love it so much, but why?

Totally. When I was thinking of questions to ask you, I wondered what would be best—to break something early on when you’re learning or break something with years of experience. Like what is the best-case scenario?
I know. We’re going to have to circle back in a few years and see.

I’m just in my head now because I’m skating again and everyone’s like, you’re psycho. It’s only been two-and-a-half months since surgery.
Some people don’t even start to walk then.

It’s positive to be back, but my knee still hurts from the drilled hole. I have to build my quad muscle back. It’s a struggle since of course every time I go skate, I want to go hard.
That was how it was for me too, it was this crazy pain. Like if I bent it past a certain amount, I thought it’s never going to be better. But for some reason, they were like, it might never feel better. But then I just started stretching it a ton and it actually got better.

That’s good to know. There aren’t too many people with the same break in roller skating. I’m nervous that I’m not going to be able to do the big shit I was doing. But my physiotherapist says it’ll be fine, just be patient. I’m like, yeah, but I want to do it right now.
It’s so funny. I feel like there’s got to be trade-offs of both too, because on one hand you know how much you’re capable of, which it could be good but it also could be bad, because it’s just such a longer period of being frustrated. Where I felt like I broke it so early that I was starting from square one and it felt like I basically had to relearn how to skate once I started again. But it was nice since I was coming from basically square one. It forced me to slow down and be a little bit gentler with myself. I think you broke the curse right now.

Yeah. I was talking to Miguel [Ramos] and he was like, “Megan, you’re dancing with the devil already, jumping on big shit. So, it was bound to happen.” I meant to ask you, is that where you are from, Wisconsin? Where 4Seasons is?
Yeah. My family still lives in Milwaukee. I’m from there originally, so I still go back there sometimes for Christmas. I’ll usually go back in early December and just hang out with family and then skate 4Seasons.

Being from Chicago, it’s only an hour and 20 minutes to go to 4Seasons, and that park is so sick. I’m always down to drive the hour and a half to skate there.  
It was the pandemic, what else is there to do? You might as well go to a skatepark. I feel like I’m always in Milwaukee skating, but I never have made it down to Chicago to skate. I know Asylum park is there, and Fargo looks really fun, too. It’s crazy, there’s so many indoor parks in that random area.

I think the outdoor parks in Chicago blow. I didn’t start skating hard until I moved to Colorado, which was in 2021. I think you would like Fargo, even though there’s no bowl there. They have a cool mini, a vert ramp, and all the street stuff. It’s probably not too far from you. When did you move to California?
I had moved out there right before the pandemic in January, and then I came back to visit family. I did a road trip with my dog and I just stayed out there for a few months. Right before I was going to head back is when I broke my leg, so I stayed out there a bit longer and moved back once I was better. I started skating in Milwaukee and then restarted skating in LA in 2021.

I feel like I see you skate mostly Venice. Is that your local park?
Yeah, I live on the west side, so it’s a little bit closer to Venice than other parks. It’s one of those parks though that it is easy to only skate that park, and I just feel like there’s so much to skate.

How do you feel about always having an audience watching?
It’s the worst. Sometimes I’m salty about people taking my photo, where somebody will just come up to you and won’t ask for permission. I know it’s like on one hand it’s a tourist park. It’s Venice, you assume that you’ve consented. But I just wish they’d ask instead of just being like, “Oh, there’s a skater,” and acting like you’re a tiger in a zoo.

I’ve been to Venice. Every time I am there, I always think I can’t imagine people skate this all the time. Some people like an audience because it pushes them, but I hate it. I just want to be in my own little street corner with my friends. I thought maybe you’d like it if you skated there often.
It’s funny because I feel like it’s almost like a necessary evil. I just have to pretend that they don’t exist because I like the park and I like the things that I can do there. No joke, I literally tell this to people that are new to that park. You know Wee, where there’s the little Wee characters in the background, I just pretend they’re all the little Wee characters. Also, they don’t know how to skate. They literally don’t care what you do, unless you do a flip or something, then they’ll be like, “Whoa, they can flip!” So, I’m chilling. They don’t care what I’m doing. If they see someone sliding coping or jumping off something, they literally couldn’t care at all.

I mean, the general public doesn’t know what’s hard and what’s not. Like someone does a handstand and everyone’s like, “Oh my god.”
Yeah, crazy. We all love the handstands, but the skill. Yeah, whatever.

Maybe I’d like it if I enjoyed skating bowls, which I need to be better about doing. Being a well-rounded skater is always better. I get stuck doing the same five tricks in transition and then I’m bored. 
Yeah, it helps in some ways, and it hurts in some ways, too. I feel like sometimes when you’re so used to getting the momentum from somewhere, it’s kind of scary to have to find the momentum within yourself.

Dude, if you skated transition with me, you’d think it’s funny. I don’t carve and ride up, I jump up to coping because I’m so used to jumping on shit.
It’s so much harder. It’s funny because in my head, I saw you do half-cabs.

I did do those. I could even do a full cab if it was a good day. I just felt like when I started skating with Karli and she taught me about street skating, I thought it was so sick because no one was doing it. So, I was like, I want to do that.
That’s crazy too, yeah. When you were doing it, it was not the same scene. A lot of what I feel like is Fantom.

I still think it’s sick, but it’s different now. Some might say it is even a popularity contest over skill level these days, which is depressing and honestly quite comical to me. You, however, have been fucking killing it in the streets. After Matt sent me your photos, I was like, what the? What made you start to focus more on street?
The person who inspired me to start street skating was Jess Agtang. She lives out here and was always into street skating. She was always like, “Jump on that, jump on that.” I’d be like, Jess, I don’t want to jump on that. I just want to go back to my mini-ramp. But over time, when you have somebody that always wants to go out or is excited to show you what you’re capable of, I think it helps unlock that in your brain and breaks out what you can do. So, shoutout to Jess. I started to see things I was doing in transition that could translate to the street. It’s only been a recent feeling that I’ve been able to just get out of my brain. I think, for a while, what made street skating fun is that it felt so different from transition skating.  You know that feeling when you really want to do something, but your body is too sore and you can’t?

Oh, I am very in touch with that emotion.
I feel like the benefit to me to start street skating more was that when my transition muscles were tired, I could still do street skating. Then when my street muscles were sore, I could still skate transition. It’s a balance for sure, but I felt like it opened up more days for me to skate.

That makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, the more opportunity to skate is good.

I didn’t even think about it like that. I don’t know how the fuck you guys flow in bowls because I have to plan it out in my head where I’m like, Okay, I’m going to do this and then I’m going to do this. Ivey Wohl is always like, “Dude, no, you just don’t think about it.” That just doesn’t work for me. In the streets, I know what I am going to do on a certain obstacle. You know what I mean? So that’s just how my brain works.
Yeah. Do you feel like you’re more of a planner when you skate? You usually know what you’re going to do or you just find yourself?

Oh definitely. When I am going to a spot or even a park, I am like, Okay Megan, you’re going to try an AO soul 3 out on the A-frame today. 
Do you visualize it in your head? I’ve heard some people can’t visualize things.

I could visualize it. I’ll have dreams that I can do it. For me, it’s just muscle memory. Explaining the mental process is way harder than the physical process of how to do things since everyone is different. Like, I’ll try to do something on the bump to rail 10 times in a row, and land that. If I land all 10, then I’m like, okay, I can move to the next level and try it on the A-frame. Because at that point, it’s muscle memory. It’s like a game. And then if you don’t do it 10 times in a row, you have to start over.
Ten’s a lot.

I learned that from my friend David Reyes, who is a skateboarder. He’s like, “You just do it 10 times in a row and then you know you could do it on a bigger thing.” It’s been a good process for me. I was nervous with the break that I was going to lose precision. I just practice the same tricks over and over repeatedly so that I could eventually bring them to doing bigger things.
Totally. Do you start on a flat rail and work your way up to?

If there is a flat rail at the park, yes, but if not, I don’t mind. I’ll try something on the flat rail and then the bump to rail, and then a small down rail. Then the next big thing. 
It’s so interesting. I get in my head when I’m trying new stuff, even if it’s something that I’ve done before. So, I like your idea of trying things 10 times and nailing it down in your brain so that you can’t not do it. Sometimes I feel like the mental piece of it is everything.

For sure. There are tricks that are just the basics for me, but then tricks like alley-oop top porn where I’m still trying to work on the precision. Some days I am locked in where I got it. Other days, it isn’t clicking, or I am more afraid of it.
Yeah. That’s me with anything truespin. I’ll have one week where I can truespin and I can’t alley-oop, and then the next week I’m only able to alley-oop and not truespin. I’m like, “What is going on right now?”

It just depends on the day where I’m like, “Wow, I’m killing it.” But other days I don’t know why my legs just don’t want to jump that way.
Or rotations, too. Rotations I feel like are such a dark horse. The more you do them, the less they make sense. Somebody told me to just turn my head, and I was like, I am turning my head. Then you look at the clip later, you’re like oh I do need to turn my head. It’s crazy, too, what makes sense to one person. That’s why it’s so good to have different friends that explain things differently or people that are good at different stuff, because I always approach things from a transition perspective. Usually, if I’m learning a grind, I’m learning it in transition and then I take it to street. I don’t know if this is just a me thing, but I feel like the way backside things feel in transition is how frontside things feel on street?

I feel safer doing backside things in transition and frontside things in the streets.
It’s probably going to kill me one of these days, but the thing that always gets me is I just love a challenge too. So, if I know I’m bad at it, I want to do this all the time too. It’s like fakie, I hate fakie. So, I’m just going to do fakie all the time. It’s worth it.

Are you going to start filming a street part?
Maybe. I was originally just getting photos for this interview, but maybe now since I’ve been filming.

I think you should start filming a street part, or you could do a fucking street part with gnarly backyard bowls and DIYs.
My dream is a pool edit, even if it was just a quick one, but pools are so much harder to find.

You’re gnarly for that, dude. I can’t skate a fucking pool. If you ever go to Colorado, I have a bunch of connections for backyard pools.
Damn, the Denver skate scene sounds so fun. I feel like skating is such a funny thing because I want it to be something that brings me joy, but I also always want to be challenging myself. So I think however that comes, whatever happens, I just like to play it by ear.

But dude, you did a fucking zero kind grind on that rail.
You did a back unity though. That’s harder.

No, are you kidding? Doing something backwards is fucking crazy.
Yeah, it’s so funny what’s doable for people and what’s hard. Everybody’s so different. When you really think about it, there’s so much inspiration even beyond roller skating. There are bladers that have the craziest style and skateboarders, too. I always love watching the lines that skateboarders will hit in super-gnarly places.

Totally, I skate a lot with both. There was a clip in the new video where I did an alley-oop soul, revert three out. I wouldn’t have even thought to try it if Miguel wasn’t there.
It’s like you know what’s possible because people have already paved the way. There’s inspiration out there if you’re looking for it.

It’s cool how connected we are with other types of skating. I’m sure if you’re skating a huge bowl and a skateboarder is watching, they’re like, “Holy shit!”
Dude, it’s a love-hate thing. You know when somebody’s like, “Do you know how to drop in?” There was this one guy at the park. I was sitting by the bowl, clearly about to skate it. He was like, “Can you drop in on that?” It came from a good place but I just walked away. I don’t want to prove anything to you. I’m just going to do my own thing. Then, later, if you see me skating it, good for you. 

Is that why you skate with your headphones?
All the time. Especially Venice, because I can’t be bothered. I feel like music is a way to quiet out my thoughts. You can’t skate with music, really?

I mean I would love to skate with music, but I don’t like skating with my phone on me. If I’m skating a big park, my phone just breaks up because I’m not in one spot. I’ll bring a speaker but can’t do the headphones thing.
I’m very strategic so I have my phone in my backpack, and I’ll put it at the very top, and then I’ll find a spot that’s not skated where I can keep an eye on it and it’s like my little radio tower. It still cuts out sometimes, but usually I can get it right to the edge of the range or move it. Yeah, I’m constantly just bringing my backpack to different places.

Do you have a roller skate playlist or is it just whatever you’re on that day?
My playlist is so eclectic, it’s a little bit of everything. The way I’ve been doing it this year, I’ve been doing a monthly skate playlist. So, I have Skate Jan, Skate Feb, I’m going to start Skate Mar soon. Then I put in new music that I’ve heard recently into the next month. When it’s a new month, I’ll start fresh. Anything I don’t hate at the end of February, I’ll put it into the next one. It’s evolving, some of it I can just take out. It could be Justin Bieber; it could be Death Grips.

Hey man, “U Smile” by Justin Bieber is still a fucking banger. Guilty pleasure.
Yes, a banger. I honestly have a low bar for what I like. If it’s good, I like it. If it’s bad, I probably could still listen to it. If it sucks, whatever, I’m probably okay with it.

Was it weird going out with Matt? I know for me it can be nerve-racking going out with someone you’re not super comfortable with for the first time.
I prefer when there’s less people, because I don’t want to feel watched. You know in rollerskating sometimes the safest falls look the craziest because you just have to spread out. It’s not like we can run off our boards. They look psychotic to other people. Any filming I’ve done in the past has been with people that I’m comfortable with or roller skaters. So, it was interesting to be around professional skateboarders that I don’t know.

They’re good about making you feel comfortable, because they’re used to it by now.
It’s a blessing and a curse to skate with people that aren’t roller skaters. On one hand it’s so inspiring and people are doing different tricks, but also, I think skateboarders don’t ever think about grabs because a grab makes things easier on skateboards, but it’s a sign of more control on roller skates. So, they never think about that. Or a top soul is harder than a soul. Or backside soul, whatever. 

I’m more of a frontside skater, so a soul is easy, but a top soul is harder.
Yeah. Also, top soul on a ledge on roller skates, I’m just starting to learn. I was just working with Sora Supernova. We were at a skate meetup last weekend and pushing each other to learn how to do that trick. Now we’re sending each other videos and might play a game of S-K-A-T-E with each other.

Everyone thinks I’m crazy, but I just think everything’s easier on a rail. Because you just have to get on.
Sure. Until you fall.

I feel way more comfortable with my balance centered instead of, like a top soul on a ledge.
I also can’t figure out how everybody can do a top acid, and I’m like, how?

That was my hardest trick for the longest time. I couldn’t do them for shit on a ledge, only a rail, but one day finally it clicked. 
Yeah, totally. It’s so crazy, and I feel like a lot of the time with those things, it doesn’t make sense. I hate this. Then one day, it just clicks. It’s usually shoulders and where you’re looking.

But it’s so weird to think about the tricks that took you the longest to learn. A backside in a mini-ramp and a 50-50 on a ledge for me.
Yeah, you learn so much more with that stuff because you have to learn everything about how the transition works and how to balance on it. Once you can figure that out, there’s so many ways you can apply that. I feel like there’s still things we’re doing that are like that, we just don’t realize it. I always feel like people either have an easy time with backsides or an easy time with half-cabs. I really struggled with half-cabs. That’s why, when you were doing half-cabs, I was like, how is she doing that? I can remember this in my brain.

For me, it’s just tricking yourself into doing tricks. For example, you can do a backside and a mini-ramp. Okay, that means you could do a true mizou because it’s the same thing. You just turn your foot. Like, if you could 50-50 a rail, you could do an acid. It’s the same thing.
Yeah. If you convince yourself, it’s easy, it’s probably doable.

Often, I feel like I’m not improving, doing the same shit all the time. Or I’ll have stages where I will learn new tricks, or do the same on bigger things.
Yeah, it’s waves, right? It’s frustrating sometimes though. It’s also hilarious because I feel like an adult child sometimes. People will ask me that don’t skate, what did you do over the weekend? And I’ll be like, “Oh, I went to the skatepark with my friends.”

Just adult children over here. Well, your photos are seriously really impressive, and I’m stoked for you to get more into street skating.
I love it. Keep peer-pressuring me. I’ll peer pressure you to do more transition.