Skateboarding

A skateboarder performing a frontside lipslide.

Skateboarding is the act of rolling on or interacting with a skateboard. Someone who skateboards is called a skater or skateboarder. Skateboarding can be a hobby, a sport, or a method of transportation. It is often considered part of the extreme sports family or, because of its creative aspects, an art form. Skateboarding has been shaped and influenced by hundreds of skateboarders throughout the years. A 2002 report by American Sports Data found that there were 12.5 million skateboarders in the world. Eighty percent of skateboarders polled who had used a board in the last year were under the age of 18, and 74 percent were male [1].

History

The first skateboard

Skateboarding originated sometime in the 1950s and coincided with the popularization of surfing in California. The earliest skateboards were homemade and were constructed of flat wooden planks attached to roller-skate trucks and wheels. Skateboarding was originally called "sidewalk surfing" and early skaters emulated surfing style and moves. Skateboards may or may not have evolved from "crate scooters." Crate scooters preceded skateboards, and were essentially similar except for having a wooden crate attached to the front, which formed rudimentary handlebars. In the film Back to the Future, Marty McFly is seen confiscating such a scooter from an unsuspecting 50s youth, and ripping the crate off to fashion an improvised skateboard.

As the sport of skateboarding matured it developed its own style, some elements of which have found their way into the sport of surfing—resulting in the evolution of both sports. The skateboarders most frequently credited with popularizing skateboarding are the Z-Boys from Venice Beach, California—who revolutionized skateboarding with the 'surf style' riding technique—and the Bones Brigade (including skateboarding icon Tony Hawk) from the 1980s—who helped produce some of the most influential skateboarding videos ever made. They started riding skateboards in empty swimming pools, as portrayed in the movie Dogtown and Z-Boys.

Second generation

In the early 1970s, Frank Nasworthy started to develop a skateboard wheel made of polyurethane. The improvement in traction and performance was so immense that the popularity of skateboarding started to rise rapidly again, and companies started to invest more in product development. Many companies started to manufacture trucks (axles) especially designed for skateboarding. As the equipment became more maneuverable, the decks started to get wider, reaching widths of 10 inches and over in the end, thus giving the skateboarder even more control. Manufacturers started to experiment with more exotic composites, like fiberglass and aluminum, but the common skateboards were made of maple plywood. The skateboarders took advantage of the improved handling of their skateboards and started inventing new tricks. Skateboarders, most notably the Z-Boys, started to skate the vertical walls of swimming pools that were left empty in the 1976 California drought. This started the vert trend in skateboarding. With increased control, skateboarders could skate faster and perform more dangerous tricks, such as slash grinds and backside airs. This caused liability concerns and increased insurance costs to skatepark owners. Many skateparks went out of business and were torn down. By the end of 1980, skateboarding had died again.

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Third generation

The third skateboard generation, from the early eighties to early nineties, was started by skateboard companies that actively promoted their art. The focus was initially on half-pipe and vert ramp skateboarding. The invention of the no-hands aerial (later known as the ollie) by Alan Gelfand in 1978 made it possible for skaters to perform huge airs off vertical ramps. With vert skating being dominant, decks became very wide and acquired larger and wider wheels. But as time progressed and skateparks became fewer in number, street skateboarding gained popularity, causing a change in both deck shape and wheel size. Street skating became skateboarding's most popular form. Mark Gonzales is one of street skating's pioneers and is credited as being the first person to ollie up a curb and to clear a set of stairs - adapting Rodney Mullen's flatland ollie to street skating. Nearly all manufacturers preferred maple plywood over more exotic composite materials, and concave decks became ubiquitous. The third skateboarding generation was nearly killed by the global economical recession in the early 1990s.

Current generation

The fourth and current generation of skateboards is dominated by two tricks: the ollie and the grind. Most boards are about 7 1/4 to 8 inches wide and 30 to 32 inches long. The wheels have an extremely hard durometer (approximately 99a) so that they will slide better during grind and slide tricks. Additionally, very high durometers offer the benefit of reduced drag on hard surfaces which results in an overall faster ride. The wheel sizes are relatively small so that the boards will rotate more easily during flip tricks. Today, modern wheels are currently around 50 to 58 mm in diameter and advances in technology have made them extremely light compared to the wheels of the eighties. Most decks are still constructed out of Canadian Maple, with 7-plys being the industry standard for strength and durability. Other companies have come up with different designs, such as the Element Skateboards helium board, made with internal air pockets, which the company claims makes the board lighter and somehow stronger. The modern shape of the skateboard is derived from the freestyle boards of the 1980s with a largely symetrical shape and relatively narrow width. Freestyle skateboarding has heavily influenced todays skateboarding with technical tricks based on the kickflip.

Longboarding, a discipline in its own right, has developed recently, and is ridden by some who believe that a long board is better for carving. The longboard is much smoother than a trick deck, and it is more stable. The longboard is usually outfited with very soft and very large wheels. These wheels are what are responsible for the smooth ride associated with long boards, and not the length of the board. It is popular with surfers because of the closer similarity to carving a wave compared to the rickety feel of a hard-wheeled trick deck.

In 2004, the International Association of Skateboard Companies started "Go Skateboarding Day", which is held on June 21 of every year. The day gives skateboarders a chance to appreciate skateboarding. Skateboard retailers, manufacturers, skateparks, distributors, organizations and individuals of all colors, creeds, and attitudes hold skateboarding events to celebrate the holiday..

Trick skating

See Skateboarding trick for detailed description of trick skating maneuvers

Young skater in front of a bank.

With the evolution of skateparks and ramp riding, the skateboard began to change. Early skate tricks consisted mainly of two-dimensional maneuvers (e.g. riding on only the front wheels (nose manual), spinning like an ice skater on the back wheels (a 360 pivot), high jumping over a bar, long jumping from one board to another (often over fearless teenagers lying on their backs), and slalom.

Around 1978, street riding was transformed by the invention of the first modern skateboarding trick by Alan "Ollie" Gelfand. An ollie is performed by popping the tail of the skateboard, sliding the front foot towards the nose and lifting up the back foot to level the skateboard out. This results in the skateboarder, along with his or her skateboard, lifting into the air. At first, none of Gelfand's companions believed it was possible to perform a feat like this, and they thought he was attaching his feet to the board somehow.

The trick was reinvented by Rodney Mullen in 1981, being transferred to the horizontal plane and used as a trick for freestyle skating (a style of skating popular in the seventies and eighties based on stationary maneuvers). Rodney Mullen also invented the ollie kickflip, which, at the time of its invention, was dubbed the "magic flip." No longer was the trick simply to fly from one place to another. On the way the board could be made to twist and flip. The development of these complex tricks by Rodney Mullen and others transformed skateboarding. Skateboarding went from being performed only on the street to the vertical tops of the half pipes (and other terrain like huge stairs (sets) and handrails).

The act of "ollieing" onto a rail or pole, and sliding along it on the trucks of the board, is known as grinding and has become a mainstay of modern skateboarding. Types of grinds include the 50-50 grind (balancing on the front and back truck while grinding a rail), the 5-0 grind (balancing on the back truck while grinding a rail, kind of like a manual) and the nose grind (balancing on the front truck while grinding a rail). There are various other grinds that involve touching both the trucks and the deck to the rail, ledge, or lip. The most common of these is the smith grind, in which the rider balances over the back truck while touching the outer middle of the board to the grinding surface in the direction from which he or she popped. Popping and landing on the back truck and touching the inner edge of the board, i.e. popping "over", is known as a feeble grind.

Culture

Skateboarding was originally tied to the culture of surfing. As skateboarding spread across the United States to places that were unfamiliar with surfing or its culture, it developed an image of its own. Skateboarding culture has long been tied to the punk subculture, but over the last decade skateboarding has broken from even its loose cultural ties with punk to form its own subculture. Skateboarding now has its own stereotypes, music, fashion, and slang. The "modern skateboarder" is no longer perceived as a degenerate or malfeasant, on account of the mainstream popularity and respectability of skateboarders like Tony Hawk. Previously, skateboarding was looked down on by most of society because of skaters' perceived affinity for crime and delinquency. Now that skateboarding has become an international sport and many have made their livings skateboarding, the sport is no longer considered illegitimate. However, skating still has an unsavory social reputation and is often seen as destructive and obnoxious.

The image of the skateboarder as a rebellious, nonconforming youth has come in direct conflict with the more modern image of skateboarding in recent years. This rift between the old image of skateboarding and the new one is quite visible: magazines like Thrasher portray an image of skateboarding that is dirty, rebellious, and still firmly tied to punk, while magazines like Transworld Skateboarding portray a more modernized, diverse, and controlled image of skateboarding stars.

See also: Skate punk

Fashion

Between the point of its inception and somewhere towards the late 1970s, skateboarding fashion was invariably linked with surf fashion. During its heyday in the mid 1980s, however, skateboarding began to develop its own style—with trendsetters such as Mark 'Gator' Ragowski and Christian Hosoi leading the charge. Garishly colored shorts and neon T-shirts were popularized with the rise of industry giant Vision skateboards, their ubiquitous square logo adorning the T-shirts of countless skateboarders around the world.

With the popularization of street skateboarding in the late 1980s and early 1990s came a change in trend. Taking its lead from hip hop, skateboarding fashion became baggier, with oversized denim jeans and extra large T-shirts becoming more and more prevalent. One of the icons of this phase was the Blind purple denim jean. Shoes were also much larger in design—a fad started by skateboarders cutting out tongues from other shoes and putting them into their current pair to widen them out.

By the mid to late 1990s, the trend moved away from baggy/saggy jeans and T-shirts, with many slimming down their wardrobe. By the early 2000's, Trendsetters such as Andrew Reynolds and Geoff Rowley began wearing much slimmer profile jeans, adopting a much more punk-rock aesthetic. Some skateboarders took it to the next level, wearing extreamly tight jeans and T-shirts. Professional skateboarders such as Ali Boulala and Jim Greco started experimenting with their style, wearing waistcoats, round brimmed hats, bandanas, puffy shirts, and other unusual regalia. Till now, the popularity of slimmer and more mainstream clothing, has been growing steadily to the point where skateboarding fashion is beeing categorised into two groups, "punk" and "hiphop", even though it's a bit more complex than that in the current status.

It should be noted that though these trends show the changing nature of skateboarding fashion, many skateboarders dress more according to comfort than trend. Even in the professional realm, these trends do not account for the fashion choices of the majority of skateboarders throughout the sport's history.

See also: Punk fashion and Sagging (fashion)

Further reading

• Borden, Iain. (2001). Skateboarding, Space and the City: Architecture and the Body. Oxford: Berg.
• Hocking, Justin, Jeffrey Knutson and Jared Maher (Eds.). (2004). Life and Limb: Skateboarders Write from the Deep End. New York: Soft Skull Press.
• Weyland, Jocko. (2002). The Answer is Never: a History and Memoir of Skateboarding. New York: Grove Press.
• Hawk, Tony and Mortimer, Sean. (2000). Hawk: Occupation: Skateboarder. New York: HarperCollins.
• Thrasher Magazine. (2001). Thrasher: Insane Terrain. New York: Universe.

External links

• Transworld Skateboarding Magazine
• The Skateboard Directory
• Emerica Blabs
• Skateboarding Sucks