Big Jim has been my favourite French rhythm skater and is in my top 3 skaters since I first discovered him on Insta around 3 years ago.
What do I love about Big Jim? It’s the freshness he brings to the traditional rhythm skating moves we all know and strive to master! Not only does Big Jim have a firm grip on the big moves, he is able to express them in his own way. He brings hip hop swag and high level skate moves with slow mo control — in ways that are uniquely Jim's. Jim has mastered taking his flow low, and slow. Yep, groundwork is a regular feature of his unmistakable style. Jim certainly appears to be compelled to create and skate in his own unique way.
When I first saw Jim, he was posting a series of skate clips, delivered with a slow mo style, on small surfaces — skating on small flexible acrylic tiles in his living room [often with his beautiful black cat perched on his shoulder, or chilling in the background], and eventually progressing to performing his skate moves ontop of boulders, brick walls, concrete podiums — anything he happened upon in his explorations in and around Paris. His approach to skating was fresh back then, and now some years down the line, he’s still giving us the freshest of interpretations through his skating art.
If I saw a silhouette of Jim skating — even for 30 seconds — I’d know it was him! There aren’t too many skaters who could pass that particular litmus test! And that’s why, for me, Big Jim is 'that guy', whose fresh approach to the art of skating never fails to impress, and influence my own skating goals. I love him for that — I don't feel I’m alone in this!
I've met Jim a few times now [during the European Skate Festivals] and I can honestly tell you that he is one of the most humble, REAL, and creative skaters you could hope to meet. We UK skaters really rate his style, so it wasn't a surprise to see Jim embark on his first UK tour in 2025, teaching his refreshing skating style, and drills that come together like poetry.
"...since I began, I saw the video of Soul Skate, my goal is to go to Soul Skate in the USA and skate the middle. It was my main goal since I began.
I am a big, big fan of US rink culture. All my inspiration comes from the United States."
~Big Jim
7 Questions
Q.1 How how did you start skating?
"We start when I was a child with my twin brother, at age 5 or 6. But just to play. At that time in Paris, skating was really popular. In Paris, everybody was doing it. Just skating through the streets or to go and buy bread. We played a lot, uh, in my building, you know like a housing estate, It was a good time.
We played a game where you skate fast and catch the other kids, and then you get to beat them [Jim gently punches me on my arm to demonstrate the game 😅]. We had a lot of fun, it's like cat and mouse. I loved it. It was a game the boys and girls loved to play on skates everyday. Its great for developing good agility on skates. By this time, I was a teenager. At this time in my life, my school also had roller skating classes as part of our physical education, that was normal in France. At this time, inlines hadn't been invented yet, so we all skated on quads.
After, when I become a younger adult at 18, I start to do hip hop dance."
Q.2: Tell me about your dancing?
"I became a professional hip hop dancer for more than twenty five years. I was performing and touring in the same dance troup with my twin brother [@brice_krummenacker]. I worked with a lot of choreographers and travel all over the world. And so, at this time, I didn't skate too much for some years, just to go to the shops for bread and things.
And, uh, I never imagined to combine dance with skating. I was nearly 40 when I saw a video of Soul Skate Detroit. When I saw that, I'm shocked [Jim makes an impression of being amazed with wide eyes]. For me it's like the same like, hip hop you know? You have cypher, and I saw the moves, the perfomance of spins, I saw it and I said, I need to do that! But at this time, it was before, COVID. You know roller skating wasn't popular then in France, nobody was skating. So I have a lot of difficulty finding how to videos to learn from. So I am learning by myself. I know I wanted to do it, but didn't know how to do the moves. There's no tutorials, no instagram like. So, uh, I decided to go to New York for the skate culture. I went to New York, I go to Central Park, to a rink, and, uh, when I came back, I start to, you know, I start to learn by myself."
Q.3: How did the trip to New York change things, that made it possible for you to be able to learn by yourself?
"I was inspired. I fiound some tutorial on, uh, YouTube, especially from, Chris Neima. I think he is a Canadian skater. He was very amazing. It was the first skate tutorial I found for grapevine tutorials and things like that, He helped me really a lot. I also watched a lot of videos by Bryan [BFunk Phenominom]. He had a lot of videos which helped me a lot. At this time, I was still only skating in my flat, my apartment."
Q. 4: I saw the of videos of you skating with your cat. What's the story behind you skating on small tiles at home?
"Ahh, I ruptured my cruciate ligament two months after I began skating again, while doing a hip hop freestyle. You do the show after you do a freestyle. I was out for six months, I had to have surgery.
And, uh, when I come back slowly, slowly — I had only do the straight straight lines, no rotationat moves. So I began my re-education to do this move [Jim gets up to demostrate his iconic slow motion walk in his skates]. So this is what I did. Because I can only that, and I fell in love with this move, I said, okay, I need to to buy a little surface for training. So I bought just 1 square metre of this flexi glass. And, I started doing this move for 10 miutes non stop, then after 20 minutes, then after 30 minutes non stop, nothing else.
I think this inspired my skating style, you know, because I have a very small place to skate. After that, I loved skating in this way. After, when I was able to introduce a moves with rotation, I began to dance on the square.
I think skating this little space has given me a lot of control when I dance on skates.
And, you know, in your apartment, you can't go crazy, you have to think of your neighbours ...the things in your kitchen, or you end up in the sink [we laugh]. And honestly, for two years, I only do this kind of skating at home. Just slow moves.
Me: "This makes so much sense now."
And now, you know, I'm very comfortable with, uh, small space moves.
Me: "So you turned it into a blessing?"
Yeah. I was living the past 10 years Lyon, and uh, after 2 years, I came back to Paris because I saw there was a little skating community in Paris, and my brother lived in Paris, and I feel it's it's the time to come back. It would be better for seeing my family. When I arrived in Paris, I met the community. We have a place, called, Passage Saint Honore, people meet there for practise. We called ourselves Team Saint Ho. After, I was only doing roller dance in skates, I stopped performing as a hip hop dancer."
Me: "When I first saw you, on Instagram, you were skating in small spaces, it was so fascinating, and, the control ...wow. It's like drilling, but you turned it in into an art form."
Q.5: How did your skating progress after that?
"I say in my mind, now it's time to to go out, to go meet people. And after, since I began, I saw the video of Soul Skate, I see in my mind— my goal is to go to Soul Skate in the USA and skate the middle. It was my main goal since I began. So I went to work, and after I'm ready to go to Soul Skate, but at this time it was COVID, and Soul Skate you know is every 2 years. So, after 4 years, I say ok, now it's time to go to Detroit. And I go with my twin brother and a friend Etienne. We went first to Chicago, then after to Detroit. I am a big, big fan of US rink culture. All my inspiration comes from the United States. I really love to go to the US.
And after, uh, COVID came, roller skating blew up, all over the world."
➡️ Watch Video: Big Jim Skate Cypher [Valencia: Nov 2025]
➡️ Watch Video: Big Jim Skate Cypher [Paris: June 2024]
Q.6: So you've been a few times now? How did it Feel?
"Two times. I've been New York, Miami, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta, I want to go to as many places as I can. And we started doing snapping there, because we in France, we don't have rinks. We don't have space like this. It was, really great. A lot of pleasure. And, of course, uh, you know, I come from a hip hop dance, I know, how it works. I have experience of doing cyohers, so when I did the middle on roller skates, I didn't have too much pressure. It's the same as hip hop. I was able to relax and do my stuff."
Q.7: So what now, are you just enjoying skating or do you have other goals?
"This goal is my second goal [after going to Soul Skate] because me, I come for dance. Me, I dance not for singers, but for the theatre. It's really my job, my work. You have time to create, to repeat, and quickly, I see in my mind, ahh, I can do the same thing I do in sneakers, but I can do it on roller skates. I wanted to do this creation with the top people [in the industry]. Creation with sense, not only with spins, but telling a story, it all depends what the choreographer wants.
Now, for the past year I've been creatiing a show called Pacific Sqaure with Le Scribe So I'm very happy. It's not a street show, it's really for the theatre with big lights, a special musical creation, we take a lot of time for create. For example, we do, uh, one choreography with water. Okay, we have the bottle, two of us, explore what we can do and just like this [Jim demostrates ways to creatively move while passing a bottle of water]. We improve it, and after creating something from the improv, we take the best parts and create a theatrical performance.
This is what I want to do more of."
➡️ Listen & share: Big Jim's Audio [via YouTube]
➡️ Follow: @jembigjem on instagram.
➡️ Previous interview: 7 Questions With Skate Dredd
Kelly
Cranial Osteopath | Wellbeing Coach | Roller Skate Instructor
🗯️ What did you take away from Big Jim's story? Were there anything that surprised you? Share your thoughts and comments below, or leave us a quick emoji resonse.
