Behind the brand: Karmen Lee of Panda Skateboards

With the recent release of Panda’s first skate video, we took the opportunity to jump on a call with Karmen to learn more about her 25+ year history on a board, how she managed so many different skate projects, coping with mental health and burnout, getting sober, how Panda came to be, how skateboarding has changed and changed her, the struggles of filming a skate video, and more.

This is such a generic question but I always like to ask it — where did the name Panda come from?

It’s named after my dog. I racked my brains for so long trying to come up with a name. Panda came into our lives, funnily enough, right in the midst of when we had the skate shop and Skateboarding WA. For some reason, we just decided to add another responsibility.

We found out that she was born with patella subluxation on both legs, which is dislocating kneecaps. She had to get 4 surgeries on her knees. That was also the time when I was dealing with the stress of owning two businesses, and I was in a really bad mental place and really struggling with the thought of being around and coping with it all. So she was really looking after me too. She made it through though and for me that’s insane.

So I named it after her because even after the surgery when she could only use one leg and was doped up on so many drugs, she was still trying to run around and didn’t even care. So I guess Panda, the brand, is kind of about that. You know how skateboarding is like the best thing because you can just be whatever you want to be, and you can free your mind and you use your willpower to get through? Well yeah, it’s named after her because she made it through.

How long have you skated for?

I first got on a board probably 26 or 27 years ago. But I’ve had quite a few really long stints off with ankle injuries and being stuck in those dark places. The most recent time off was a 5 year break so even though I have always lurked in the wings, I can’t say I’ve skated that whole time.

Do you feel like skateboarding has helped you to get sober and repair your mental health?

I’d say back in the day when I first started it was probably my introduction to partying and stuff. But then at the same time, when I think about it, that personality has always been in me anyways. It’s that go-all-in kind of thing, and I was just a very curious kid.

After my last break from skating, when I first stepped back on my board — probably about 2 and half years ago now — it really did help me immensely. I came back to skating through the non-male skate clinic scene and it was just a totally different thing to what I was used to. It wasn’t the usual clicky kind of industry thing. There were all these fresh faces and people who didn’t care who I was. There were no expectations and I could just be a little hyperactive skater and everyone seemed to accept me for who I was.

That was a massive turning point, jumping back on board through that scene, because I’d never really felt that in skateboarding. That was quite recent but it took me that long to really feel like I could be myself in skateboarding. And that meant that I could be sober because I had always used illicits as a crutch to feel like I could be accepted.

Skateboarding, in recent times, has really made me feel like I can just be myself. I think that’s what most people crave: to freely express yourself without judgement. That’s what skateboarding really helped me with.

What is it about skateboarding now that makes you feel like you can be yourself?

It’s probably not just one thing. I think there has definitely been a big shift in skateboarding. It’s a funny one because I can complain about how the culture has shifted, but at the same time, some of the parts of the shift are what make it feel like I can be myself. I think skating with other girls is just different. It’s really different.

I think more broadly people are just a lot more open now to difference. Before I always felt like I was in the spotlight because I was a girl, and I really didn’t want that. I just wanted to fit in. I just wanted to skate. Now it’s not really even a thing. You go to the skate park and the girls tend to outnumber the boys, at least here in WA. So yeah, it’s a few things. But that being said, I do still struggle with the intimidation but it’s getting better.

Ben still works with some councils to run a few girls-only clinics and you still do get some parents come up and crack it at us because it’s only for girls. They tell us that they bring their girls down here to skate with the boys because they believe in equality. It’s a funny one because we’ve made huge progress, obviously, where things have evened out a lot, but when you get a bunch of girls together it’s a totally different vibe. There’s less pressure in a way. But then at the same time, girls can be really intensely hard on themselves, myself included.

Talk to me about the end of Skateboarding WA. You created something really amazing with that so it must have been hard to call it a day.

We just had to pull the pin. We got through the first COVID year and then the growth of skateboarding went bonkers and attendance at our clinics just went nuts. Everything was run out of our house and we had coaches coming and going all the time. We were trying to find ways to make it a bit more viable, physically, mentally and financially but we were run into the ground and stuck in the hamster wheel. We had to be like, hang on a second, we can’t just keep doing this with no end. So we decided to pull the pin.

It was really hard because we were choosing to simplify our life for the better but we felt this responsibility to the community. But I think we sometimes forget that you can be sad and happy at the same time. It was the right thing to do but it was a bit of a shock for a lot of people. I just lived so much of my life in a state of What If. I’ve done a lot of mental growth and realised that if you stay the same it’s really hard to find positive change. You try to make time to make things better but you’re always busy trying to chase your tail.

I think especially in skateboarding, we feel like we owe it to the community. There’s the classic “skateboarding doesn’t owe you, you owe skateboarding” and I think we really take that quite literally and quite to heart sometimes. When you’re passionate about it, it’s very easy for it to become all-consuming.

That feeling that you’re letting people down was soul-destroying. With the nature of the business, with being able to hire your friends, and provide an income for your mates. It was really hard to not feel like we were letting them all down as well. And you see and feel all the highlight reels all the time, and it’s really easy for the years to just go past because every event is a highlight reel. But I feel like we did our bit.

Do you have any advice for people running skate organisations, whether that’s skate clinics or otherwise?

Don’t do it as big as we did, without some solid plans in place and take note, if you are doing it as a husband and wife team it can be even more challenging [laughs]. Nah, I think grassroots is really important for skateboarding. So keep pushing, because without growth from grassroots, there will be less people stepping on a skateboard and then skate shops will struggle and they are imperative for skateboarding. It’s where I learnt everything, it’s where knowledge is passed down, my friends get hired, it’s the reason I’m able to run a brand. I couldn’t run a brand if skate shops didn’t buy my product. So yeah, I think, awesome and keep going!

What’s it like running a skate brand in this day and age? The skateboarding landscape has changed so much in the last 10 years.

It’s definitely challenging because there are like 5 million brands out there nowadays. When I heard Tobes was going to be doing Pearls boards, I was just tripping out because I’ve been around skating for 25+ years and I’d never have thought there’d be a day when there are two female board brands in the industry. It’s pretty insane. It’s amazing.

I mean back in the day it was crazy to imagine there being two female skateboard brands in the world, let alone two in Australia.

Yeah, it’s a real trip out for me. But that being said, in the skate industry now there are the core brands in the skate shops but then there are a lot of other brands too. That’s where it starts to get a bit tricky, having a brand now and growing it, because you’re up against all these other brands that are sold online directly to the customer. I really want to keep trying to push for people to get into skate shops though and I’m trying to help pass that knowledge onto the new gen.

So when did Panda start?

It was May of 2020 around the first lockdown in Perth. We had just left ownership of the skate shop and then suddenly our Skateboarding WA events were on hold. To be honest, at that time, we had no idea when or if we were going to be able to even start them again.

All our events were funded by the local councils and government and they were the last people to open up to events, plus there were restrictions on the number of people we could have at a park so I was kinda just stuck at home. I had been thinking about it for a while. I just really wanted to make it a challenge for myself to put myself out there. I had really been quite lowkey all of my skateboarding life. There are not really many photos or videos of me because I’ve always really struggled with watching myself skate. I hated it. I just cringed watching myself.

Why was that?

It’s like how people hate listening to the sound of their voice. I just didn’t like the way I looked when I skated and I never thought I was good enough for people to watch me skate. Everyone struggles with the perfectionist thing but I’ve come to learn that for me, a lot of that has come from doing gymnastics for about 14 years, which was pretty full-on. There was a lot of being told you’re not good enough, a lot of pressure to be perfect. But with ongoing therapy, my mind was stable enough to be able to really challenge myself and put myself out there. I just really wanted to promote the idea to the other girls that they can do this and put themselves out there too, although I think Instagram does that for a lot of people anyways.

Instagram has definitely changed the game for women’s skateboarding and given everyone an equal platform. But on the flip side, skate videos are an important part of skate culture and I think a bit of that is lost with Instagram.

I took that break from skateboarding and when I came back it was like, suddenly there was this whole Instagram thing and it tripped me out. Like, what is this thing that is part of skateboarding now? So I was like, nah, we have to have something else. We’ve got to work toward something.

When it came to this video part, I really wanted to get the ball rolling and give the other girls a go and experience. I had all these opportunities during the 90s and so many of these girls, especially the young up-and-comers, haven’t had the opportunity to be part of the culture in that way, or to be sponsored and be working toward bigger projects. So doing this video part was about trying to get the other girls amped to be involved. It was definitely a bit of a struggle because you have to put in time and dedicate weekends to go out and film a trick for hours or get booted out within minutes [laughs]. But I think it’s worth it.

‘Simmer’ is the first official Panda Skateboards video. Give us a little behind the scenes background on the making of it.

After a lot of questions and help from friends and people in the industry, I came to realise that I was overthinking a lot of what needs to be done rather than just jumping in there and doing it. It’s definitely my forte to think things into the ground, making sure I do it to perfection and the best it can be, which is exhausting. It doesn’t help get things moving. Tobi actually helped me with the camera choice and I was able to find one secondhand one online.

The next problem was trying to find a filmer all the time. There are filmers around but to find someone that’s always available is really challenging. It’s a real dedication to be available all the time. So again, we ended up doing the husband and wife thing [laughs]. It’s probably not the healthiest thing because we have very different personalities. He is completely laid back — like completely horizontal — and I’m the opposite. With ADHD I have the ability to explode under pressure but I also will be completely hyper-focused and try a trick for like 3 or 4 hours. We just started chipping away at it and it’s been awesome, but also really intense. We’ve been having heat waves nonstop this summer. That’s why I called the video “Simmer”, because of the heat, and I also sometimes tend to simmer a bit below the surface. But I only actually cracked the shits once which was pretty amazing.

What did you crack the shits over?

It was the double-sided curb line where I did the krooks 180 and the switch krook. It was the second time we had gone back and I put a lot of pressure on myself to make it look as good as it can — and again, this is the downfall of filming with your partner, because you can push each other a bit more than a third party person so it’s kind of a danger. I put an extreme amount of pressure on myself and I felt like he was pressuring me too. He actually wasn’t, now that I reflect [laughs]. But at the time, I thought he was and cracked the shits. I tried to snap my board, which I have never done before, and apparently I tried to snap it the wrong way around, from the bottom of the board. And then I skated home, about 10kms, by myself [laughs].

It has been so fun though. And there are some plus sides to skating with your partner. Like on Christmas day we went to see my olds and then we went out on Christmas night to spots that you just wouldn’t be able to skate on any other day. It was so fun. And then on New Year’s day too — that’s the benefit of not being hungover.

How do you feel about the finished video?

I look at my footage and I’m like, hmm it’s pretty low and slow. But I’m happy with it. My ankles, neck and back aren’t in top shape so I can’t huck down stairs or do super gnarly stuff so it was always going to be a challenge to skate within my means. It feels good to finish something that has taken a lot of work mentally and physically.

After I hit rock bottom I felt like I got a real second chance with skateboarding and I really wanted to try and do something before my body completely falls apart. It’s hard to explain but my body is pretty broken but my mind sometimes doesn’t compute. Gymnastics teaches you to not feel pain. Like it shuts off the part of your brain that acknowledges pain. I’ve had to really train my brain to reverse out of that through therapy. But it’s still in me a bit so I’ll go out and literally try one trick for 3 hours, and Ben will be like, you’ve got to stop. My mind will keep going but my body just shuts down and my legs don’t work so he has to call me out. So it’s been fun, hard, body-breaking, but worth it. I think [laughs].

There wasn’t an expectation for all the girls to try film as much because they’re not always going to be available. Have to be realistic as well, there is a lot of shit going on in the world and it has been unrelenting for many. So while I’ve been filming, it was a chance to get them involved if they were able to and to challenge them without too much pressure or expectation. Hopefully, for the next video, I can get the whole team involved as I would love to have them experience the same feeling of accomplishment.

I’m super keen to start again as soon as possible to be honest. There’s this one damn trick that I went back to try for the fourth time the Monday before the release when it was about 37 degrees (celcius). I roped my friend Bec into filming me and she had to sit there for like 2 hours (what a legend) but I couldn’t get it. I’ll need to forget that I even tried it before I go back again.

I look forward to seeing it in the next video [laughs].

Yeah, I want to start working on the next video in Autumn and hopefully have it done by the end of Spring, but realistically it may run through till the end of summer. But who knows what else is going to happen in the coming year. The weather is definitely one of the biggest challenges. My friends think I’m a fruitloop because I go out skating when it’s 40 degrees. But I just don’t have a lot of time to do this stuff as I get older. It’s usually just the weekend, and if it’s 40 degrees, what am I going to do? I can either keep cool and sit around and think about the project or go out and get it done. I find as well, as my body gets older it’s really hard to warm up and I have to have warm feet to be able to feel my board.

But yeah, hopefully over that longer period I’ll be able to get more footage of the whole team and we can slowly chip away at it and pull together a full video. I tend to dream big, but I’m learning how to dream big with what’s reasonable now. Otherwise, you end up with a skate shop, Skateboarding WA, GMTA, and Panda all at once [laughs].

Interview: Sarah Huston
Photos: Tom Elliott