Jean-marc Johannes: “I never take it for granted”

Cape Town professional skateboarder Jean-marc Johannes talks to blunt about childhood illness, school bullies, hate from fellow skaters – and achieving his life goals nonetheless.

Words by Miles Masterson (bluntEd). Photos by Moe Abrahams and bluntEd.

Jean-marc Johannes – ‘The Kid from Athlone’– is one of the few skateboarders in South Africa who can reasonably call himself a professional skater, a term that has always come with baggage in this country. 

Since winning the first event he entered as a grom at the old Atrium skate park in Claremont, Cape Town and taking out several local comps, he’s won a FISE World Series Am event in China and placed third in a pro comp in Indonesia in 2018 – and won the Indonesia X Pro virtual contest in 2020. 

Known for his part magician / part mechanical approach to the art of skateboarding, Jean-marc recently turned pro for US wheel company Connexion, and boasts a raft local and international supporters, including Adidas, Nokia, Garmin, Oakley, Primitive skateboards and Destructo trucks. 

Jean-marc has had to deal with criticism from within skateboarding itself. While you can experience intense levels of love and support from the local skate community, it can dish out an equal measure of hate and judgement if you don’t do things exactly as some expect.

An astute self-promoter and ambassador for his sponsors, Jean-marc has enjoyed more media coverage than most SA skaters, featuring in scores of radio and TV interviews, on podcasts and websites as well as in newspaper and magazine articles. 

Introduced to the wider world in a recent Connexion video, Jean-marc has put out several video clips, including the short, ‘Seek and Enjoy’, with a longer full length video, ‘A Kid from Athlone’, due to drop soon. 

Yet, like most success stories, Jean-marc’s career has not come without challenges.

 

A self-confessed loner, Jean-marc has nonetheless forged his own unique path, carefully building a highly professional public persona with a 14,000-strong Instagram following. 

Watch him skate and you’ll see his obsessively measured approach, focusing intently on difficult flip, spin, grind and slide combo tricks, particularly on low ledges. 

Jean-marc presents himself as an ‘athlete’ rather than a hardcore street skater, which has seen US pros such as Nyjah Huston and Ryan Sheckler receive similar flack from US skateboarders. 

Along with a falsely perceived preference for skating in skate parks rather than raw street, this has led to Jean-marc falling foul of SA skateboarding’s most vocal critics, including some he once respected. 

“I was in the hospital for some time, and then when I began to recover there were other things. I didn’t want to go outside. I didn’t want to interact with other kids, because I had always been alone. These were building up as I was trying to recover.” 

He has got used to it now and takes it with the territory of being a prominent skateboarder. But a few years ago, when he was initially rising to stardom and first got wind of the shit talk about him, Jean-marc was both surprised and shocked. 

“It came from people I don’t know. People I looked up to, I had pictures of them on my walls, and watched all their videos,” he says.

Skateboarding finds Jean-marc

Ironically, as a child, it seemed like Jean-marc would never even do any sport, thanks to his chronic asthma, which impacted his health massively during his early school years. 

“I was in the hospital for some time,” he says, “and then when I began to recover there were other things. I didn’t want to go outside. I didn’t want to interact with other kids, because I had always been alone. These were building up as I was trying to recover.” 

Still, even when Jean-marc got better and returned to school regularly, attending Windsor High in Athlone, he battled to find a physical activity he could get good at. 

The youngest of three kids, with an older sister and brother, this feeling of frustration was amplified because both his mom and his dad were exceptional athletes. 

“My friends put my name down as a joke, because they knew I would freak out. I am like, ‘seriously?’ They were just laughing, so I thought ‘okay cool, let’s go with the joke’. I entered the contest, but I just thought I would do what I normally do when I am alone, and I ended up winning.”

“My parents Lorelle, Arnold and the rest of my family were champions in different sports,” he laughs. “Boxing, soccer, dancing – and then there was me. They wanted me to be in sport but I struggled and it was kind of demotivating because nothing was fitting.” 

One day he was scratching around in the garage at home and came across their old plastic skateboard – or rather, as he often says now, it found him. 

“Then that was it, I was just in my own space every day on the board. I just enjoyed doing it. I learned how to ollie. Then I was doing 180°s off the porch and then broke the board. But my parents knew I was enjoying myself and we went to a skate shop. Boogaloos in Claremont Atrium. That was the first skate shop I went to. I got an Angel Boy board. ” 

The shop staff told him there was a skatepark on the roof. Jean-marc was blown away that such a thing existed – though still shy and lacking confidence it took him a while to pluck up the courage to skate, as it was so crowded. 

“Eventually my mom would leave me there all day. And then at night, I made friends with the security guard and he let me jump over the fence when the park was closed. So I was mostly skating alone.” 

 

Jean-marc soon met established skateboarders and Atrium locals Amin Gray, Donovan Winterburn and Wandile Zulu, all of whom accepted him into their ranks and looked after him. Other early mentors and skating role models included Clive Crofton and Christi Wiehahn.

“They taught me a lot. Not just about skateboarding, tricks wise, as much as that is important. The other side is the mental side, you know the way you approach tricks, that kind of rubbed off on me.”

The fire starts burning

Jean-marc showed up one Saturday morning to discover not only had the Atrium park been moved from the roof – now a much improved covered version in a parking level below – but that there was a skateboarding contest on, the first he had ever seen. 

“I will never forget the day. This poster was up. All my favourite skateboarders were going to be there and it was like this open Am / Pro Jam session.” 

Some of his school friends – knowing he would never enter on his own – conspired to sign up Jean-marc without telling him. The first he knew of it was when his name was read out. 

“They put my name down as a joke, because they knew I would freak out. I am like, ‘seriously?’ They were just laughing, so I thought ‘okay cool, let’s go with the joke’. I entered the contest, but I just thought I would do what I normally do when I am alone, and I ended up winning.” 

Jean-marc’s final run included his now trademark ledge tricks, including a half cab noseslide and nollie heelflip out. 

 

“I did 360 flips over the box. A lot of rail tricks, switch tricks. I enjoyed it, I always had this thing. When I learn a trick in normal stance, I want to learn it switch. That was my thing. After that, a lot of skateboarders told me to keep pushing.” 

This win, coupled with a trip to George for the classic old Buck Tour skate series, ignited something in Jean-marc. “Straight after that, that was when the fire was burning and I wanted to go overseas and just pursue what I was doing.” 

He began working in Rust skateshop to save for his first international trip. “I used to watch a lot of Tampa Am videos. In my mind I knew that I could build this into a career. Whether I knew it or not, everything I was doing and learning was taking me to where I am today.”

Climbing the ladder

Jean-marc set himself a definitive goal: win an international contest. After winning and placing highly in several local competitions, he finally got an invite to an overseas event – the FISE World series Am in China in 2018. 

Though he had to pay his own way, it was an opportunity Jean-marc could not pass up. 

“I didn’t know anybody,” he recalls. “I had to compete as a wildcard and came first on the qualifying day. It was crazy, there were so many people in the contest and I was on my last board and pair of shoes. So I thought, ‘I am just going to do whatever I can do, right now’.

“I wanted to win an international amatuer contest. Then if I get a podium in a pro open, as an amateur international, then that is another stepping stone to turning pro and getting into more pro contests. As hard as I knew that was going to be, that is where I wanted to go.”  – Jean-marc Johaness on his career goals before turning pro.

Motivated by some kind words and advice before his final run from American skateboarding tech legend Willy Santos, with whom he still keeps in touch, Jean-Marc gave it his best shot. 

“I was going to do a hardflip at the end, and he told me don’t do that, do a flip melon. I really wanted to do the hardflip, because it was my new trick. But then I said no, ‘Willy Santos said I must do the flip melon, you do that’. I did it, landed it and won the contest.” 

 

The victory was a major turning point for Jean-marc, the win made all that much sweeter for him as his grandmother, who had always encouraged him to follow his passion, had just passed away. 

“I had no sponsors, last money, last board, lost a family member that told me to keep going, I thought to myself, ‘look – this is either the end, or it is going to be the start of something new’. I asked myself, at that low point, what would my grandmother want me to do? I said no, this is the start of something new, this is never the end. 

“I wanted to win an international amatuer contest,” he continues. “Then if I get a podium in a pro open, as an amateur international, then that is another stepping stone to turning pro and getting into more pro contests. As hard as I knew that was going to be, that is where I wanted to go.” 

“So thankfully I did that. And as much as in South Africa for a long time I would be classified as pro, I didn’t see myself as that yet, because there was a ladder that I knew that I needed to climb and I knew that I had to take the initiative to climb it. I knew no one was going to give it to me, I needed to go and get it.”

 

Inspired by Hawk

Apart from the Chinese and Indonesian comps, over the past few years Jean-marc has skated in the Dew Tour in the US. 

He’s also set a total of seven Guinness world records for skateboarding, has a lifetime induction into its World Record Academy, and holds the title of ‘Most Awarded Skateboarder in South Africa’, received earlier this year. 

This was inspired by an article on Tony Hawk in the Guinness book while in hospital as a kid, he says.

“That book was everything to me. I was not a confident person and it kept me going. Then fast forward a couple of years I realised ‘wow, this is something that really motivated me, I would like to be part of that, so maybe it can motivate somebody else’. That’s it.” 

“When I was young it was really bad. Being bullied at school – I physically got put in a bin, my boards were thrown in bins, my boards were thrown on the roof when it was raining.”

Funnily enough, his Guinness records are probably one of the main reasons Jean-marc has had to endure more than his fair share of criticism from some skateboarders, though ultimately he recognises most of it comes from jealousy anyway. 

But he rises above such trivialities – all of the obstacles he has had to overcome have made him far mentally tougher than his friendly, easygoing personality reveals.

“When I was young it was really bad. Being bullied at school – I physically got put in a bin, my boards were thrown in bins, my boards were thrown on the roof when it was raining,” he recalls. 

Yet, from playground tough guys and injuries, to financial hassles and online trolls, he has pressed on. 

“If I look back at it now, it is why I can endure things. Instead of letting that place in your head bring you down, you use it. I am not in control of what they are saying, but what I am in control of is how I am going to respond to that, so it has kind of all helped me in a way.” 

Jean-marc also believes his clean lifestyle and absolutely necessary discipline in looking after himself has also been misunderstood. 

“I have had to live that way, so I could be healthy. It wasn’t to look a certain way or say I work out at the gym or whatever. It was the battle in me that no one can see. But this is the only way I can get on a board and do what I want to do.” 

Another level

Jean-marc recently graduated from a business course, adding to several completed in design and social media so far. 

Receiving ambassadorship opportunities from various universities in South Africa, along with turning pro, has made him feel like he has reached another level in his life.

 

“It was non-stop. Skating during the day and doing everything else at night for about two or three years now. Now it has come to an end, I am stoked. It was a struggle, but I’m happy that there is a bit of breathing space now and what has changed in my life. It is easier to live comfortably, because of all that groundwork, definitely.”

No doubt there is still much more to do and wherever Jean-marc takes his career – more video parts, more overseas contests, more world records and perhaps even the Olympics if it pans out that way – you know he is going to give it everything he has, in his own style.

“Skateboarding always kept me focused. It definitely kept me away from any bad influences. I see it now and I realise how quickly life could have changed for me, in a day, being so sick as a kid. I feel very blessed and lucky that I kept going. I never take it for granted.”

Naysayers be damned – or better, ignored – Jean-marc has the support of his many thousands of fans, both within SA skateboarding and outside of it. 

Jean-Marc is incredibly thankful for all he has and that he has achieved, including charity work with the SA Bone Marrow Foundation, giving talks at schools and being a role model and inspiration for kids, especially those from backgrounds such as his own. 

“Skateboarding always kept me focused,” he says. “It definitely kept me away from any bad influences. I see it now and I realise how quickly life could have changed for me, in a day, being so sick as a kid. I feel very blessed and lucky that I kept going. I never take it for granted.”

Follow Jean-marc on Instagram.

Check out out takes from blunt mag’s photo shoots with Jean-marc at Mill Street and Generation School skate parks in March and April 2022 and the full gallery of best images from the shoots below: