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Raise Your Game: How did you learn English?

Wilfred Rossignol: With my sponsor a long time ago. I was the only French guy in the international team so I was with the Americans for a couple of weeks. At the beginning I spoke no English. Nothing! I was the only one who spoke French. I went crazy and then after a couple of weeks of trying I opened my mind to English and now I try to speak it at every opportunity.

RYG: What motivates you?

WR: Music is good. It makes me motivated to skate. Music and when you are with your friends. You can skate alone but you don't have the motivation to go and it's not fun. So if you get a group of friends together and all go skating, you have fun!

RYG: What do you listen to when you're skating?

WR: It depends on where I go to skate. If I go and street skate I prefer smooth music like reggae, some French dance, music like 'Vaia di Français'. But if I go in a skate park we do more and more jumps. We have to be faster so I prefer hip hop or some electro music to make me more motivated!

RYG: How important is the fashion?

WR: There are some people who just skate in the streets and the fashion at this time is more 'rock'. You know, rock and roll attitude! So tight pants (trousers) for street skating and for people who are used to skating in the skate park they dress more like skateboarders with their baggy pants. There are two types of people like 'hip hoppers' and 'rock and rollers', but we all have skating sessions together.

RYG: What are the dangers of skating and what should you do to avoid them?

WR: Protection, and never do what you think you cannot do. You have to be sure you can do it in your mind before you do it for real. If you just want to try but you're not sure then you're going to fall. You have to be sure in your mind and say "I'm going to do it perfectly!"

RYG: Preparation must be very important in this sport. How do you prepare?

WR: First you have to check your skates. Sometimes you get broken bearings and you can fall if you do not check your skates. So, first thing to check is the wheels. If it's moving too much, something is broken inside. So you check and if there are no problems then you skate.

Then you have to check your body. Before you go skating and do crazy things you just skate a little bit to make your legs and your body feel better. Warm-up before skating because you can skate really hard, do some difficult tricks on crazy ledges and if you don't fall, no problem, but if you miss and your body and your muscles are cold you can break your leg. So you have to check your body. Sometimes my back hurts a little so I prefer to do some exercises before I skate but sometimes it's better to just stay at home!