Ed Templeton is at a point where he doesn’t need to skate anymore. He’s become just as well-known for his art and photography as his impossibles and noseblunts, and Toy Machine speaks for itself. The Hall of Famer also snapped his leg in half seven years ago, which is enough to make anyone want to hang it up for good. Still, he presses on. Templeton breaks down how his approach to skating has changed over the years in a new interview published by Japan’s VHS Mag this morning.

V：　How do you approach skateboarding nowadays?

E：　The same as I always did. I just don’t do it as much as I used to. I think that there was an age when every morning you wake up and like, “When am I going to skate?” That’s all you think about. And then as for me, I got older and started doing Toy Machine, art career took off more. So the whole beginning of Toy Machine, I was trying to be a pro skater and doing Toy Machine. So I was really bad at doing Toy Machine, because I was focusing on skateboarding, focusing on art. Now I feel like I have more time to do Toy Machine in a better way. So it’s better for Toy Machine that I’m not skating as much. And it’s also been good for my art career, because I’m doing a lot of art shows so I have more time to paint.

V：　You had a big injury too…

E：　And yeah, the injury… I was going as hard as I could up until age 40 and then I broke my leg, and that has just changed everything. I think at that age to get hurt like that where you break both bones and you can see how fucked up it still looks. So there’s still two big plates in there.

V：　Oh, still?

E：　Yeah. 21 screws. Because both bones broke. So the leg was just totally sideways and it came out. The bone came out.

V：　The bone came out?

E：　Yeah, the bone was poking out of the skin. It was really bad, and they thought I was not going to skate ever again. But my goal was to come back to be able to skate. But then the doctor also said, “If you’re going to come back to pro skating, you have to do another surgery and take the plates out. Because you need flexibility in your bones, and with the plates there’s no flexibility.” So if I land crazy it’s going to just break right above the plate. You can see the plate kind of ends there.

V：　Oh, yeah.

E：　So if I land strange it’s going to break here now instead of down there. Cause there’s the plates are holding it together, and so I just decided, I’m not going to do the other surgery. I’m just going to take it easy and not try to jump down stairs anymore.

V：　You still got that nosebluntslide though.

E：　Yeah, I can still skate. Like small things, banks, fun things I still skate. But I don’t try to keep up with the kids anymore. Let the kids jump down the stairs. I’ll stay on the low step.

Read the entire interview here.

Image Via VHS Mag