Christian Hosoi

KOOHHHHH! Is the sound a skateboard makes when it’s in motion and depending on whose riding, the sound is broken up with SSSSS! CRACK! KOOHHHHH! There’s even dead silence at times as a rider soars into the air from a 10 to 12 foot ramp. Few know those sounds better than Christian Hosoi. He’s been around since the beginning, I’m talking Dogtown badboy! Since his first time on a board in 1975, he’s made quite a name for himself. “In the past it was just a lot of innovation and really pushing the bar and getting skateboarding to have recognition in the public, in the mainstream people, you know, because we loved what we did. It was an off shoot of surfing, which we took to the streets and we rode in backyard pools, and skate parks.”

Whether backyard pools or skate park Christian did it all by the time he was fifteen. “My dreams were to become the best skateboarder, to be on the covers of magazines, to be you know, in the centerfolds of the skateboard mags. I started my own company. I sponsored other riders and really it was kinda like an expression of who I was.”

Well that expression quickly lead him down a path he wasn’t counting on. In the public eye things seemed to be going great, but behind closed doors, all of life’s pleasures got the best of him. “By the mid 90’s I got into hard core drug addiction of crystal Meth. I mean I did drugs my whole life like Marijuana , Acid, Mushrooms and Ecstasy and all that. I became heavily addicted to Crystal Meth. By 95’ I went from snorting it in 93’ you know, every other day or everyday even just a little bit to smoking it in 95’, which really took my life a twirl.”

Christian was soon caught traveling with illegal drugs and sentenced 70 months in prison. “I got arrested for carrying a bunch of Crystal Meth Amphetamine to Hawaii on an airplane. And my first day in prison, you know I basically had my first phone call and they were telling me I’m looking at 10 years prison time. And I’m going “Why me?”

All of a sudden he began thinking of ways to get himself out, but realized that it was hopeless. So he began talking to God. “I cried out to God on my bed, that first night I was in prison and I just said, “God if you’re real, Help me out of this situation.” I even went around the cells looking for a Bible.” He found one! “Here I am opening up the Bible for the first time in my life. I opened it up and looked at it and I read the you know, book. It was Genesis, Proverbs, Psalms, John, Revelation. I was like, “That don’t make sense.” But when I got to Kings, I saw Kings I was like, “This sounds interesting.” Then when I prayed and I said, “God, I need help.” And when I started opening up the Bible and started reading Kings and I started reading what David and Solomon and Elisha was doing and how God’s mercy and forgiveness and his love for his people, and I just started to get a clue of who God was .From that moment on, all I did was just read my Bible. Three weeks later I gave my life to the Lord.”

Christian spent five years in prison and hasn’t looked back. He’s back on his board living life to the fullest but with a different perspective. “My perspective for life now is to be a servant unto God. I love to skate. I go skating all the time. But God comes first in my life.”

These days you’ll find him in Huntington Beach in the process of restarting his old business Hosoi Skateboards. He also recently signed with Vans, receiving a pro model shoe, the Hosoi SK8-Hi. And for all the video game heads, he will also be featured in the upcoming Tony Hawk’s Project 8 video game.

“You know, Jesus Christ, I proclaim Him everywhere I go, where I skate. Because I know that people want that same freedom, the victory that I have, the confidence in where I’m going to spend eternity. And I think these kids just don’t have that. I’m a perfect example. I lived thirty years without God. You know 31 years thinking just like they are. Just trying to exist, trying to be what I can be, get what I can get, do all I can, while I can. God doesn’t desire us to go through those bad roads, to make those horrible choices. God didn’t desire for me to go to prison. But in my prison experience, I was able to finally give up on myself and surrender it all-surrender it all over to the Lord and say, “You know what? I give up, I surrender.” “You know what? I’m going to serve” “You know, I want to know you.” “You know what? Help me.” I mean people don’t realize that they were created for a purpose and that purpose is to glorify God.”

By Shawn K. Brown