Mery Munoz is one of the best known european girl bladers, and has been in the forefront of girl’s blading for a couple of years now. Her skating skills brought her sponsors and titles like this year’s Winterclash champion in the girls’ division, won just a day after her horrible scorpion fall on the launch to rail obstacle in Eindhoven. Along with Aritz Ortega and Josh Glowicki, she’s hosting the Blading Camp, a grass-roots blading school project about to launch in Spain’s lovely province Andalucia. Be-Mag got Josh to ask Mery about her blading and the Blading Camp.
Intro: Josip Jagić
Words: Josh Glowicki
Photography: Josh Glowicki and Aritz Ortega
What have you been up too Mery? You just moved back from Florida, USA and now are living in Barcelona? What are you doing there? Why Barcelona?
A lot of new things in the last year. Life changed and I had to choose another city to live in. I love my hometown city Bilbao, but I felt like I had to continue my way in another place. What better than Barcelona, the blading paradise. I have already lived here for three years before moving to Miami; so the good weather, the beach, the big blading industry, having friends and the idea of wanting to find good audiovisual projects totally motivated me to come back here.
Right now I’m working for Ungravity Freestyle company, teaching kids blading in schools and particular classes. I´m also freelancing in film production. Working with Powerslide producing freeskate videos too.
We see that you’re doing a lot of teaching in Barcelona also, how did that start? Is it growing?
I started with Ungravity years ago, Sara Vilella offered me working with her, we were a good team, I improve my skills with kids and make them have fun while learning to blade.
Blading is getting big in Barcelona, lots of shops opened and started to teach blading too. This has created a wave of new bladers. Blading is cool again!
Do you enjoy working with kids?
Of course! I work playing with kids in blades, what is there not to love? Also, something that motivates me a lot is teaching them to drop in from the ramps and grind. They get super excited when they realize they can do the tricks.
How long have you been teaching for?
I´ve been teaching blading for five years now, always as my extra job, to help me with my travels to contests.
Do you like Malaga? Is the south of Spain different than the north? Isn’t Malaga just like Barcelona?
I love Málaga, is the chill version of Barcelona, less crowded, less contamination. All the cities in the South of Spain have this magical essence, they have a super chill life, always nice people, good weather nearly year round. All the fresh seafood, tapas in Málaga, important for food lovers like me.
Blading camp is all over social media? What’s going on?
Blading Camp is going worldwide! The first one will be the Bladies Exclusive Camp, we have only 20 spots in the house. So would you like to be one of the #lucky20 ?
So far we have girls signed up from Scotland, Holland, Latvia, USA, England, Spain and France!
All the coaches are loving the idea and promoting it. This kind of projects make blading community grow. So you are all wellcome to get to know more about Blading Camp in our website.
How did you become Involved in Blading Camp?
Aritz Ortega and Juan Suarez and Josh are the main managers. Aritz and I started blading together when we were 13 in Bilbao, so we´ve been close to each other since then.
Some months ago Aritz called me, asking if I would be interested in being part of the Blading Camp Coach team. I loved the idea of the first Bladies Exclusive camp.
Why Bladies?
During these past few years, together with Melissa´s help I have been pushing bladies to become better by showing us to the world. Basically I´ve been doing the filming and editing for them. Last Summer “Bladies in Barcelona”, the last one , my favorite “ Bladies in Scotland” ; girls from all around the world happy to film, enjoy blading and hanging out together.
So I think Blading Camp is the evolution of what we´ve been doing.
We are here and we want to keep blading and having fun.
“The reason we choose the bladies the sense of community that you girls have! The blading industry is very divided right now and the bladies are not. This is what were trying to promote this unity in the industry, one big family and the bladies are a great example”
-Josh
Who are the coaches?
Mery and Manon for June, July is Quinny and Montre, August is again Montre and Quinny and if we sell out in August… a big surprise… 🙂
What are the details of the camp? Can anyone join?
We will be traveling all around Andalucía to different cities, that includes, Malaga, Granada, Fuengirola, Benamadena, Ardales, San Pedro, Marbella and loads more!
The camp is 5 days 4 nights. We have rented the coolest house on the planet out-side of the city surrounded by nature with a pool. The house has beds for 20! #lucky20 We have a chef who will prepare all the means for the camps, breakfast lunch and dinner. All food is ecological and bread daily comes from a local family bakery. #bladingchef We have two vans to drive everyone around the province of Malaga! We are going to be going to two different skateparks every day, as well as doing other daily adventures such as city skate routes/city tours/beach tour and activities like the “camino del rey” (please google this and seeeee what your in store for), one on one teaching lessons for those who want. We have tried to think of everything for this one! We will even pick you up and drop you off at the airport! All daily costs like skate park entry and activity fees are included in the camp price! Super easy all you do is register and you can leave your wallet at home. Booom. For sure its a camp/session that is more than just rollerblading, its a full experience! All this plus more is included in price of the camp, which is 399 euros, the camp is ALL INCLUSIVE, ONE PRICE.
Are you excited for the camp?
Super excited, I invite all the girls from around the world that want to blade with me and Manon to visit out website to find all the details. Its going to be great for sure!
Anything else you want to say? thank your sponsors?
Thanks Aritz, Josh and Uani for the opportunity. Thanks Be-mag for the interview.
To all my sponsors Powerslide, Kaltik frames, Nexus Skate Shop and Wicked Audio.
Most important of all, thanks to my parents for their understanding and support.
I feel very lucky.
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