Yo Bailey, for those that don’t already know - could you introduce yourself?

Yo whats going on guys my name is Bailey Payne. I’m going to be answering a few questions for you guys today in regard to my life, flips, everything in general.

How did you first find out about tricking and how did you start?

So I found out what tricking was at a gym in Irmo, South Carolina called ACX. That’s where I grew up training. Spring floors, trampolines, foam pits, there was a wide variety of training stuff there. 

One day I saw a guy doing a gainer off one foot, I didn’t know what it was called at the time but basically, he was just running forward swung off one leg and did a flip and it blew my mind! I was just like “what is that called?” “and he told me it was called a “Jstep gainer.” He proceeded to tell me there are other tricks in this sport that's called “tricking”, so he showed me some videos of some legends like Teddy Agnvic. If you don’t know who he is, he’s from Sweden, he’s a legend I grew up watching and his 2009 samplers really got me wanting to start training like heavy heavy tricks. So that’s how I really got into tricking.

At what point in your tricking career did you feel like you were starting to really stand out as a tricker and why do you think that was?

In the beginning of my tricking career I wanted to get good fast. I was starting with a tumbling background but not really martial arts or breakdancing so my kicks and transitions weren’t the best but the flip side of things were a lot better for me.

My friend Isaac back in South Carolina showed me a trick called a wrap full. He said basically do a round off or cartwheel but land on my right foot ( I round off and cartwheel on my left by the way ) but he said take off only my right leg and do a full. That sounded easy, so I took it to the floor and landed it. Then right after I landed a wrap dub, he was like “dude you just progressed so fast with this”, then I did a wrap hyperhook. I started adding variation and I think I picked up on that pretty quickly and it felt so nice just doing wraps, obviously it’s my favourite set up.

I think at this point I was becoming a big powerhouse I was combining my heavy hard tumbling with the new tricking I was learning at the time and those fused together. I think that made me really stand out in the tricking community.

Who was your biggest inspiration when you started, and who are your inspirations now?

Like I said in an earlier question, Teddy Agnvic from Sweden. I grew up watching that guy, loved his stuff, loved his boxcutters, loved his ‘flowiness’. He is absolutely satisfying to watch but also the GOAT Michael Guthrie. I grew up watching him as well, I found out about him not too long after Teddy. 

Michael Guthrie just destroyed my mind. He like just blew my mind with literally every single thing he did, all of his movements, every single trick was just so precise so perfect, so textbook that it just didn’t make sense to me. So I just grew up watching those guys as inspirations and I still look up to them today for inspiration even things outside of tricking, just in their lives in general as well.

I also look up Shoesei Iwamoto, Zen Kahjihara and Jin. They’re all absolutely amazing. They’re from Japan and they’re young, they’re the younger generation and they are tearing it up right now. They are absolutely insane. I look up to them because they are training hard and doing things that people in the world of flipping will probably never be able to do, I sure as heck wont, but those guys are very inspiring to watch, they are good friends of mine as well and that’s the answer to that question.

What would you say has been the hardest point in your tricking career? 

So it’s pretty obvious but I would say this knee injury that happened at Hooked gathering 2019. It’s rough, I had a ruptured ACL, which means my ACL just completely got destroyed. The doctor said it turned to dust, whatever that means, and both meniscus were completely torn - which sucked. I was so upset about that, it was a terrible feeling I was actually planning to compete at that event the next day. About 4 months after I am still impacted to this day. It was definitely the hardest thing that I have had to overcome and battle in my tricking career thus far, but y’know its not gonna slow me down. It’s just another motivation factor for me to be inspired and push past this mental barrier I have right now with this injury but I will overcome it guys don’t worry. I am doing a lot of good PT on it and its healing strong. I’ve got some good news about it coming very soon.

Something I’m sure many people are curious about… you were the first officially sponsored RedBull athlete for tricking. How did that come about?

Yes that is true! I was the first RedBull tricking sponsored athlete in the world. I am not anymore, that ended at the beginning of 2019, so I’ve not been with them for about a whole year now but its okay they’re still amazing people. I love RedBull. RedBull has helped me in so many different ways. Not just in my life but giving me the opportunity for me to give others opportunities. They hired me for so many half time shows, demos and allowed me to bring tricking friends, and pay them to come with me and do these performances with me and help trickers step out of their comfort zone and get in front of large crowds and really helped them as human beings too y’know. Mentally push past these factors that they never thought would come across in their paths but y’know that’s why I was so grateful and blessed that I was able to give these other people this opportunity. 

It started back in I think my senior year of high school, that’s when I got sponsored by them (or when I was about to finish high school something like that) but yeah, its started out with me going to a couple of tricking events with them - “RedBull Throwown" was in Atlanta, Georgia and also in Tampa, Florida. These were amazing tricking events in my opinion, I loved them, they were so cool I wish I could bring them back. I mean also the “RedBull Kick It” in South Korea that one is amazing as well. I wish I could bring them all back actually, they are so fun.

Being able to attend these small competitions for tricking, like okay, even if I didn’t win some of them and even if they some of them were rigged and I should of won for some reason, I think it was such a blast and a fun opportunity. Because at the end of the day I wouldn’t eve care if I won. Like dude, I got to spend good quality time with my friends that I don’t get to see from all over the world. The fact that they allowed me to have that opportunity I couldn’t be more appreciative. That’s why I love gatherings and that’s why I support gatherings because they allow people from all over the world to come together after training for so long and hard at their home gyms and just be able to crush  it and show their homies what they have got skill wise. 

Before you were pushing YouTube you were already killing it on Instagram (and still are) but what made you get into starting YouTube vlogs? 

Well, y’know vlogging… its not what you see most people doing it for which is the money. I mean the money comes with the vlogs… let me take it back…

So like, when I was younger my mum had all these photos of me as a baby. I am sure all of your parents have baby photos of you guys, they are legit memories like it makes you feel good when you see them. Like damn, that was me back then. So it’s the same with this modern day vlogging stuff - like wow that’s how I looked like back then etc, like it’s a crazy concept but its real and it’s there. You are able to timeline and track yourself via vlogging y’know. Even hearing what your voice sounds like a few years ago versus now, your looks your change of everything.

Especially this knee injury I am documenting right now. The beginning of the knee injury, to the surgery, to after surgery, to months after and I’m gonna keep going. I wanna see this future footage of myself. It’s really sentimental of me to record almost everything I do because you never know what’s gonna happen and all of this is good quality content guys. Even if I wasn’t a well known tricker out there, I still for my personal self would wanna have these videos and stuff. Even doing this interview right now, answering these questions, I will be able to see this when I am older and look back at what I was saying and be like wow did I really follow through with some of these things I said. Are some of the things I said back then still affecting me now? that’s why I think it’s really cool to have the vlogs. It will really just show you perspective, that’s the best way to sum it up. 

How has your life changed since starting YouTube?
What does a day in the life of Bailey Payne look like right now?

I’m gonna combine these 2 questions. So, YouTube has changed my life tremendously. Like, in the course of a small period of time. It’s brought me to meet new friends, it’s brought me new opportunities, new change in my life, its also brought me to literally where I am today, sitting in the apartment. I’m not gonna say this is just from YouTube alone because it’s also my talent that’s helped. But I would definitely say YouTube has like changed my lifestyle 100%. I can’t express it in like terms, I’m just beyond grateful, I have no words for explaining it.

When you hear the word YouTube and you see someone’s name on it. You just obviously associate someone’s name on YouTube for someone who’s making good money, I mean that’s all well and good but y’know there’s a lot of people out there who just chase the money side from YouTube and they hit a plateau and fall down.

But for me like I said before in the last question I love documenting my lifestyle, my life and what I’m doing currently. Watching it escalate [upwards] because people are falling in love with what I like filming or what I like doing and genuinely like doing it, rather than faking the content. You can tell that people like watching that. And the realness is there so I dunno how to end this question but let me say what my day to day life looks like right now – PT every day, doing something for me knee, stretching, rehab for my whole body and just making sure that I’m staying healthy and in shape.

For anybody out there who might be considering trying to make tricking/flips into a liveable income. What advice would you give them?

My biggest advice would be - Well, when I was younger and I was starting flips, social media wasn’t a thing so I wasn’t doing anything for clout, like doing some crazy tricks for high views. I was doing it because I personally wanted to. I loved it. So if you actually truly genuinely love the sport of tricking, you love the process, you love the ups and downs of it, if you truly truly love it and it comes first more than anything. I would say then you’re gonna be successful with the YouTube grind if that’s what you wanna do. 

If you know if you wanna document your videos that’s another thing because I know a lot of really really good trickers out there and they don’t document themselves. Either they’re too camera shy, or they don’t like filming because they don’t wanna talk, or I don’t know what it is, but at the end of the day - I have had to do this personally myself, put your ego aside and just get to it y’know. You love posting videos online and you love doing it for yourself, so its literally perspective it’s how you look at it.

If you upload a video and your like I’m uploading this cause I know its gonna be a banger. If it’s not a banger, you’re gonna be upset about it but if you’re uploading it cause you personally like it, it doesn’t matter how the views do. It’s all about consistency. You have got to consistently keep posting something you enjoy posting and just love it. So if you’re passionate about it like I am, that is your best bet, you’ve truly gotta genuinely really enjoy what you’re doing, because if you don’t, there’s gonna be a plateau and all plateaus end.

Whats next for Bailey Payne and where do you see yourself in 5 years from now?

That’s a great question, honestly… I see myself being pretty successful. Still enjoying every moment of life like I do right now. Its gonna be just like this except I will have a lot more things going for me in life. I have a lot going on right now, but a lot better to come. Im not giving up on my journey right now.

Theres actually a quote I heard the other day that goes like… (forgets quote) uhh, okay lemme just sum it up for you. It’s essentially why would you start a goal, and not achieve it fully. Does that makes sense? Why would you start a task and expect everything to go 100% right, fast, quick, simple, easy and not expect any type of failure involved. That just doesn’t happen. There’s ups and downs in a journey. There’s gonna be really good times really bad times, its just the rollercoaster of life. So if you’re able to overcome those obstacles that are all through life, you will be successful. You’ve heard this a lot from all types of people but you haven’t heard it from me. But now you have, so really take it to heart guys, because this stuff is knowledge.

I really do appreciate every single person listening, and [reading] right now. I dunno what else to say -  keep tricking, keep doing what you love guys. I hope everyone’s staying safe out there during these times of corona. take care and have a blessed day.

END.


Let us know what you guys think of the new blog format! Ideally we'd like to post one of these blog posts once a week. Each post could take the form of an athlete profile interview, tricking news, general news about what's happening at PZ and whatever else we think is cool.

If you're into that, let us know, and let us know who we should interview next!