APTOS >> Judi Oyama didn’t drink the Kool-Aid.

If she did, she’d be spending her free time bowling, playing pickleball, or participating in water aerobics. Those are some of the recommended athletic activities for middle-aged women, according to Google.

Oyama, an age defying, 64-year-old Japanese-American, prefers something a little more intense and thrilling. That’s why she has competed in slalom skateboarding for close to five decades — a feat that has had her featured in several newspapers and magazines, on television, and will soon lead to her name being added to Guinness World Records.

“I know one day I’ll eat (sh**) and crash, but I don’t know, I’m still having fun,” said Oyama, a mother of two boys. “You can still eat (sh**) and crash walking down the stairs. And I feel like at least I’m doing something I like. I like the adrenaline.”

She not only competes against women half her age or younger, she shines. She placed 14th overall — third among Americans — at the 2024 World Skate Games in Italy in mid-September.

Oyama plans to transition from her competitive career into a mentorship role for younger American skaters, but no one really knows when she’ll use the “R” word, retirement.

“I always say, ‘Go one more year,’ but it has been 20-something more years,” said Oyama, a mother to two boys, Taylor, 25, a landscaper, and Ryan, 23, a paramedic.

What keeps her going? “It’s fun and it’s challenging,” she said.

Oyama planned for the 2024 World Skate Games to be her last event. But, by the time she returned home, she already had two more events on her calendar.

She’ll likely compete in the Gold Rush Classic giant slalom race in Fair Oaks on Saturday, and plans to attend the Honky Tonk U.S. Nationals in Nashville in November, if one of her protégés, 15-year-old Campbell skater Leiola Kahaku, goes.

Oyama is also serving as a mentor for 14-year-old Texan Maggie Harrison.

If this is the finish line for Oyama, it has been a hell of a ride.

“She is a superstar,” said John Ravitch, a former competitive skater who has known Oyama for more than two decades. ”I gotta hand it to her, she started taking her fitness seriously about 6-7 years ago. She put in the hours so she can compete against athletes decades younger than herself. She’s a wonderfully dedicated human being.”

Oyama smiles when she talks about her training sessions near the Wrigley Building in Santa Cruz or describing her feats at CrossFit, and enjoys what she is accomplishing at her age.

She has never stopped trying new things. For this reason, she learned to tail drop into a halfpipe as a 50-year-old.

A decade later, she’s still flying down BARs, an industry acronym for “Big Ass Ramp,” which are featured at the start of some slalom competitions and range from 10 to 12 feet high.

BARs are an undertaking several of her male skater friends refuse to attempt, noting they wouldn’t do so even if they were 20 years younger.

Oyama doesn’t let her age define who she wants to be or what she wants to accomplish.

“I don’t look at the stereotypes, because if I did, I know I wouldn’t be skating,” Oyama said. “I wouldn’t be going to CrossFit at 6 in the morning, four days a week, and trying to deadlift over 200 pounds. I think it’s because I don’t realize what the limit is. I don’t compare myself, because, otherwise, I probably wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing.”

She not only remains active, she’s reaping the benefits of being so.

“I don’t tend to think of Judi’s age,” Ravitch said. “The only time I do is when she brings it up for inspiration. She doesn’t look, act, or move like a 64-year-old. She’s just fully committed. In her case, age is irrelevant.”

The Young Shredder

Oyama, a 2018 inductee into the Skateboarding Hall of Fame, took up the sport as 13-year-old. She started on a board her older brother, Cary, made her in wood shop and practiced on the driveway and in the street in front of the family’s home in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

A few years later, she competed in her first race, the Capitola Classic, held on Monterey Avenue, as part of the Begonia Festival on Sept. 12, 1976. She said she wouldn’t have competed if she wasn’t able to coerce a female friend into joining her in the competition.

Shortly thereafter, skateboarding consumed her. She began training with world champion John Hutson, elevated her game, and picked up sponsors.

Oyama traveled to parks and pools throughout the greater Bay Area to shred. She eventually shifted her focus to slalom competitions after experiencing the injustices that can take place in judged competitions.

In slalom, it was a race against the clock, and the clock didn’t have a bias.

Her passion hasn’t waned over the years.

She not only has enjoyed career longevity, she’s remained relatively healthy for the duration.

Sure, she has endured some spills. Her worst bail came while park riding as a 19-year-old. She suffered a dislocated and broken ankle while attempting to pull off a frontside air on the “washboard,” similar to a pump track, at the since-closed Winchester Skatepark in Campbell.

At a recent competition, she fell on her butt while dropping in on a BAR and tore a hole in her shorts in the process.

Her pride was hurt more than anything. So, after a change of clothes, she climbed back up the ladder to try again — and succeeded.

“I knew if I didn’t do it, it would haunt me all weekend and the rest of my life,” Oyama said. “And it scared me. It was scary.”

Aging Gracefully

Oyama, who became a world champion in hybrid as a 43-year-old in 2004, has had a decorated career. Many of her trophies and medals are stored in a small shed in her backyard. It’s a museum of sorts, full of awards, contest posters, photographs, old boards, and other accessories, and located about 20 feet away from a 4-foot halfpipe.

Away from competition, Oyama remains active and is on her skateboard most weekends. She’ll skate to the post office, into the grocery store from the parking lot, or while on lunch breaks … And, that’s outside of training.

Asked if she ever sees women her age and feels bad for them, her son, Ryan, within earshot, blurted, “All the time. All day at work I see people her age that look 20 years older than her.”

Oyama feels the body pains that come with aging, but she never uses them as a crutch. Moreover, she doesn’t cut younger skaters any slack when they whine about hurting.

The sport has evolved since Oyama first began competing, and she’s doing her best to keep pace.

She does so by being prepared, both physically and mentally. Slalom skateboarding is a tremendous core and legs workout, she said.

She often walks the course before competitions, and counts steps between cones. She wants to know exactly what to expect.

“Half the battle is making sure you have enough stopping distance,” Oyama said. “I always ask if we have to foot-brake. That’s where you put your foot down when you’re still going at speed,” which ranges in the high 20s to low 30-mph range.

At the world championships, there are three events that make up the slalom skateboarding competition: Giant slalom, tight slalom and hybrid.

The giant slalom features a ramp start, followed by a steep hill. Skaters reach speeds in the high 20 and low 30 mph range as they weave between cones, and compete next to an opponent doing the same.

The course was paved in Italy. But the slow area, past the finish line, wasn’t.

“It was a really hairy finish,” Oyama said.

In the tight slalom, 54 cones were separated by 1.8 to 2.0 meters. The end of the course featured a sharp turn into a rough finish area.

In the hybrid, the cones are offset more, which breaks up the skater’s rhythm.

“It’s funny, because as long as I’ve been doing it, I still get those nervous jitters,” she said of competition.

She does lunges and burpees to loosen up and calm her nerves.

Because the courses vary and so do the host cities, competition still feels new to Oyama.

“We’re going faster doing the giant slalom than we were doing downhill when I first started,” Oyama said. “But now downhill has progressed and gotten faster and slalom has gotten faster.”

As much as she enjoys the competition, Oyama looks forward to reconnecting with dozens of athletes from all over the world that she has competed against or made friends with over the decades.

“That’s what kinda keeps me going,” she said. “It’s a community.”

‘A Different Cat’

Anyone who knows Oyama or has seen her skate will tell you that she has an edge to her. After all, she grew up in skateboard royalty and has put in the hours to be the best.

“She earned her talent,” said Henry Hester, 72, a former world slalom champion and Hall of Fame inductee. “She has a little bit of a chip on her shoulder. She’s a different cat, no doubt about it.”

Morro Bay’s Jack Smith, a Skateboarding Hall of Fame inductee who is considered the founding father of long distance skateboarding, agrees.

That chip is still on her shoulder.

“It has driven Judi for a long time,” he said.

None of her friends knew what Oyama would let fire her up, just that she would be.

“She was fearless,” Smith said.

Early in Oyama’s career, the internet and social media weren’t around. But magazines and skate films were huge. Most of the nation’s major publications were based out of Southern California, and, for that reason, many of their regional skaters stole the limelight from the NorCal talent.

“She deserved a lot more credit than she got,” Smith said.

Smith said Oyama let that drive her, as she did when people mistook her for Los Angeles-based shredder Peggy Oki, 68, an original member of the Zephyr Competition Team in the 1970s.

Many of her skateboarding friends believe Oyama was a late addition to the Hall Of Fame, and that also provided her fuel.

To date, there is always something that triggers Oyama’s competitive juices.

Now, when a teammate or competitor makes a distasteful comment about her age, even if playful, Oyama makes it a point to finish higher than them in the standings.

Last year, one of her U.S. slalom teammates was mad that she finished behind Oyama at a competition.

“I got beat by a grandma,” the skater told her teammates — Oyama among them.

“Hey, I take that as an insult,” Oyama replied. “I’m not a grandma, but I am old.”

Oyama hasn’t forgotten that comment.

She’s ultra competitive, Smith said.

“When she was at her best it was because she was so competitive,” he said. “She always wanted to win. She wasn’t there to take second.”

Smith last saw Oyama at her Hall of Fame induction, but he knows the same thing still holds true.

“If she shows up, she’s gunning,” he said.