It’s rare to see anyone officially retire from snowboarding, let alone go out on top. It seems that guys just hang on until they are irrelevant or kind of disappear entirely, chewed up and tossed aside per the needs of this demanding industry. We knew that would never happen to Jussi though. With skills that have only ripened with age and a technical consistency unmatched in the history of shred, Jussi Oksanen is unarguably a snowboarding legend. So when he announced his retirement from snowboarding last week despite being a top tier professional we thought that was such a stud move. Stepping into a marketing role with the water bottle company Mizu he founded seven years ago, Jussi talks about change and challenge and why they’re so important in snowboarding and beyond.

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Retiring from pro snowboarding? Most guys don’t even get that chance. How does that work?
I always knew I wanted to finish off clean and not just hang in there. I think we’ve seen some riders that have hung in there a little too long and I think that makes it a bit harder to shift into the next chapter. The last four years my mission was to just progress my snowboarding and push myself and prove that I could still do this. But more than anything I was out to really enjoy the journey as well. There were a lot of times over the years that I really kind of missed the point of it. I knew this wasn’t going to last forever so I just really appreciated these last few years.

I’m just very realistic as well and the timing was just perfect. With Mizu, my partner Tim [Pogue], who had run the show the past few years, had put the company in a place to where we are growing and could pay some salaries. So with that there was kind of a need for me to step into the company more full time. Given I have a lot to learn and in a few years maybe I would not be qualified or capable, I jumped on it. So I’m just getting in the groove here, learning new things. It’s perfect!

That seems like a very smart call. Sometimes in snowboarding it’s easy to not make the smart call because we don’t want to give this feeling up for anything! What’s going to replace that feeling of excitement for you?
I think it will be weird but at the same time I’ve been chasing shots and snow for 17 years. I’m pretty tapped out as far as going after it goes, although I will miss the missions! The fact that I have two kids who are getting older, and have really had a good run… As you get older your pace of life kind of changes and snowboarding, while it does offer a lot, wasn’t offering me everything I needed to grow. More than anything, a new challenge feels really good.

But as far as excitement, it’s a different kind of excitement that happening now. With Mizu, so many people doubted that success was even possible and here we are proving them wrong. At the same time, with the mission we are on trying to reduce the single use plastic bottle, it’s kind of what snowboarding use to be to me in that I was trying to prove to myself that I could be pro and progress each year. I have that same attitude with Mizu… we can grow this business and do great things. That’s fascinating to me now.

http://youtu.be/5iz2GsrmOvw

It seems that you guys started Mizu not from the “Let’s make a lot of money” stance but rather from the point of view that it just feels right. What’s you take on that business model?
Well I always say that if we started this with a business plan we would have never even bothered. The plastic thing, even more than the waste it’s a health concern. It’s so bad for your health because those bottles are essentially made out of petroleum. There are all these chemicals and the water just sits in there and maybe bakes in the sun in the back of your car and you are basically drinking a chemical soup. So then you have kids and you just want to do the best for all of your families health. That was the inspiration behind it. And as we began to take a look around at what was offered in the way of metal bottles it was just granola brands, so we thought we could do something cool there.

I think a lot of people are going to be curious as to what your snowboarding future holds. You have been with Burton for a long time; are you going to work on any level with them?
I’m so close with all of the guys over there and everything went down great but right now there is nothing official. I’m a lifelong ambassador for Burton personally just because of what they have done for me and because I believe in their product and the brand. But right now it’s just going to be vacation snowboarding more or less. But there will be some fun trips we put together with Mizu. We are an active outdoor company so we’ll be going out and making some snowboarding happen.

http://youtu.be/CDmW1yvY1nM

Robot Food: Afterbang

In the end there are just a handful of guys who have been able to ride at the level you have for so many years. What was your secret to longevity?
Health-wise I have trained very hard the last 10 years. If you don’t you are going to get hurt a lot, it’s that simple. But the mental thing is very important in how you find you motivation and your path. I think it’s important to ride with other people. I went through a lot of different phases— Standard to Robot Food To Mack Dawg to Transworld to Burton. Every three or four years I changed my groove completely. There’s a spark that happens when you hang out with people who look at snowboarding different.

Then also, having some kind of plan was important. Setting an intention towards the things I was looking for or what I wanted to accomplish, whatever it was, at the end of the year I was always surprised to see the end result because it kind of fell in line with what I had been thinking all along. So for me it wasn’t about setting goals but just a kind of direction. When the sky is the limit you do have to narrow it down a bit. There’s no secret really, but that’s how I approached it!