Kenny Reed has been one of our absolute favorite skaters for a long time, because of both his his impeccable style and his tendency to skate in locations across the globe that a lot of others wouldn’t. True to form, his latest endeavor has been as the head coach for the country of Myanmar’s newly-founded national skateboarding team. We caught up with Kenny to hear about the how and why.

How'd you initially get involved with skaters in Myanmar?

I first went on a skate trip to Myanmar in 2012 with a big crew we traveled all over South East Asia. It was a trip with Patrik Wallner called Mandalay Express. We met a bunch of locals on that trip It was right at the beginning of skateboarding, for them so we met their first generation (of skaters).

They’d picked a team right before I started working with the Federation, and they had a national qualifier for the team. I knew one of the team managers, Ali Drummond from UK who runs Pushing Myanmar, which is a local NGO who are the main support for skateboarding in Myanmar.

Was this connected to your work with skaters in Palestine?

No, my work in Palestine is another project of mine. I'm co-directing a non-profit called SkateQilya – we work in the northern West Bank and have a skatepark. We work the the ministry of education bringing skateboarding into schools, and we have a big summer camp every year.

What's the skate infrastructure like in Myanmar? Are there any big parks?
It's still very small, they have one DIY park built by Make Life Skate Life, and a few other small ones built by local skaters.

He’s still got that back foot tweak. You love to see it.

What's street skating like there?

There are some great street spots, but you have to be careful as most of them are near culturally important places. Some new malls are being built with some marble ledges and flat which are good for a quick sesh before security comes out. The other street spots are few and far between, there are some cutty ones are around if you have a sharp eye.

A team member dropping in at the local DIY.

Tell us more about the SEA Games in the Philippines.

The SEA games are the South East Asian Games. They are held every 4 years, like a mini Olympics for South East Asia. They (the Myanmar team) did pretty well, 10th and 14th place for mens, and 6th for Women’s. I'm also bringing them to compete in the Continental Asian Championship Qualifying competition next month in Singapore!

What's it like getting into coaching in general? Was taking on the role of coach / mentor something you'd anticipated doing when you were younger?

At first I had no idea what the role of coaching should look like to a skateboarding athlete. It was never anything I thought was something I needed or wanted when I was skating professionally. I took what I learned during my years of skating and put together what I thought would be most useful to skaters who haven't had much exposure to skateboarding outside their own country, and just being at that age of 17-25 in general. Those years are hard ones, and I tried to be there to support what they wanted out of skateboarding for themselves and not what other people expect of them. I taught them yoga, stretching, contest theory, and visualization techniques to name a few.

It (coaching) was not anticipated. I am very glad I've had the opportunity to work with them and I'm happy to continue to be their coach and team manager.

Kenny Reed is Coaching Skateboarding in Myanmar