http://www.lukehadley.com DVLH Skateboarding is the act of riding on or performing tricks with a skateboard. A person who skateboards is referred to as a skateboarder or skater. Skateboarding is a recreational activity, a job, or a method of transportation.[1] Skateboarding has been shaped and influenced by many skateboarders throughout the years. A 2002 report by American Sports Data found that there were 18.5 million skateboarders in the world. Eighty-five percent of skateboarders polled who had used a board in the last year were under the age of 18, and 74 percent were male.[2]
Skateboarding is relatively modern. A key skateboarding trick, the ollie, was only developed in the late 1970s. A decade later, freestyle skateboarder Rodney Mullen invented the kickflip. Predating the first skateboard, the New York Times reported on May 21, 1893 in an article entitled: "DANGEROUS SPORT IN BROOKLYN: Coasting on Lincoln Place May Sometime Lead to Loss of Life".
Lincoln sometimes {Park Slope} Brooklyn, smoothly paved with asphalt from the Prospect Park (Brooklyn) Circle to Fifth Avenue and has a slope about 15 degrees. During the past few weeks small boys from all parts of the neighborhood have gathered on Lincoln Place with little four wheeled carts, on which they have coasted down the middle of the Street…
The great amount of asphalt and vitrified brick pavement that is replacing the noisy and miserably laid cobblestones, and even granite block... {would create} roads the smoothest in the country and as noiseless as can be provided for by the very latest scientific pavement…
[citation needed]
The first skateboard
It wasn't until 1958 that a variation of the skateboard as we know it was made. It was built in a California surf shop. It was something for surfers to do when the ocean was flat. The shop owner, Bill Richards, made a deal with the Chicago Roller Skate Company to produce sets of skate wheels. Then they attached them to square wooden boards. 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. [4]
A number of surfing manufacturers such as Makaha started building skateboards that resembled small surfboards and assembling teams to promote their products. The popularity of skateboarding at this time spawned a national magazine, Skateboarder Magazine and the 1965 international championships were broadcast on national television. The growth of skateboarding at this time can also be seen in Makaha's sales figures which quoted $4 million worth of board sales between 1963 and 1965 (Weyland, 2002:28). Yet by 1966 sales had dropped significantly (ibid) and Skateboarder Magazine had stopped publication. Skateboarding's popularity dropped and remained low until the early 1970s. [4][5]
Second generation
In the early 1970s, Frank Nasworthy started to develop a skateboard wheel made of polyurethane,calling it the 'Cadillac' as he hoped this would convey the smooth ride it afforded the rider.[4] The improvement in traction and performance was so immense that from the wheel's release in 1974 the popularity of skateboarding started to rise rapidly again, and companies wanted to invest more in product development. Many companies started to manufacture trucks (axles) especially designed for skateboarding, and the modern design was reached in 1976 by Tracker Trucks. As the equipment became more maneuverable, the decks started to get wider, reaching widths of 10 inches (250 mm) and over in the end, thus giving the skateboarder even more control. Banana board is a term used to describe skateboards made of polypropylene that were skinny, flexible, with ribs on the underside for structural support and very popular during the mid-1970s. They were available in myriad colors, bright yellow probably being the most memorable, hence the name.
Manufacturers started to experiment with more exotic composites and metals, 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 Ty Page, Bruce Logan, Bobby Piercy, Jared Phillips, Kevin Reed, and 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, vert skaters could skate faster and perform more dangerous tricks, such as slash grinds and frontside/backside airs. This caused liability concerns and increased insurance costs to skatepark owners, and the development (first by Norcon,then more successfully by Rector) of improved knee pads that had a hard sliding cap and strong strapping proved to be too-little-too-late. During this era, the "freestyle" movement in skateboarding began to splinter off and develop into a much more specialized discipline, characterized by the development of a wide assortment of high flat-ground tricks.
Skateparks increasingly contend with high-liability costs that led to many parks closing. Vert skaters therefore started making their own ramps and freestylers didn't need skateparks. Thus by the beginning of the 1980s, skateboarding had died again. [5]
Skateboarder Brandon Cardone does a cliff hanger pivot to fakie (a lip trick) at the former East Coast Terminal Skateboard Park in Johnson City, NY.
Third generation
The third skateboard generation, from the early/mid eighties to early nineties, was fueled by skateboard companies that were run by skateboarders. The focus was initially on vert ramp skateboarding. The invention of the no-hands aerial (later known as the ollie) by Alan Gelfand in Florida in 1976[6] and the almost parallel development of the grabbed aerial by George Orton and Tony Alva in California had made it possible for skaters to perform airs on vertical ramps. While this wave of skateboarding was sparked by commercialized vert ramp skating, a majority of people who skateboarded during this period never rode vert ramps. Because most people couldn't afford to build vert ramps or didn't have access to nearby ramps, street skating gained popularity. Freestyle skating remained healthy throughout this period with pioneers such as Rodney Mullen inventing the basics of modern street skating; the flatground ollie, the ollie kickflip, the heelflip, and the 360 flip, to name a few. The influence freestyle had on street skating became apparent during the mid-eighties, but street skating was still performed on wide vert boards with short noses, slide rails, and large soft wheels. Skateboarding, however, evolved quickly in the late 1980s to accommodate the street skater. Since few skateparks were available to skaters at this time, street skating pushed skaters to seek out shopping centres and public and private property as their "spot" to skate. Public opposition, and the threat of lawsuits, forced businesses and property owners to ban skateboarding on their property. By 1992, only a small fraction of skateboarders remained as a highly technical version of street skating, combined with the decline of vert skating, produced a sport that lacked the mainstream appeal to attract new skaters.
Trick skating
See Skateboarding trick for detailed description of trick skating maneuvers
A skater performs a kickflip.With the evolution of skateparks and ramp riding, the skateboard began to change. Early skate tricks had consisted mainly of two-dimensional manoeuvres (e.g. riding on only two wheels (wheelie, a.k.a. manual), spinning like an ice skater on the back wheels (a 360 pivot), high jumping over a bar (nowadays called a "Hippie Jump"), long jumping from one board to another (often over a line of small barrels or fearless teenagers lying on their backs), and slalom.
In 1976, skateboarding was transformed by the invention of the first modern skateboarding trick by Alan "Ollie" Gelfand, the Ollie (skateboarding trick). It remained largely a unique Florida trick from 1976 until the summer of 1978, when Gelfand made his first visit to California. Gelfand and his revolutionary maneuver caught the attention of the West Coast skaters and the media where it began to spread worldwide.
The ollie was reinvented by Rodney Mullen in 1982, who adapted it to freestyle skating by ollieing on flat ground rather than out of a vert ramp. Mullen also invented the ollie kickflip, which, at the time of its invention, was dubbed the "magic flip." The flat ground ollie allowed skateboarders to perform tricks in mid-air without any more equipment than the skateboard itself. The development of these complex tricks by Rodney Mullen and others transformed skateboarding. Skateboarders began performing their tricks down stair sets and on other urban obstacles - they were no longer confined to empty pools and expensive wooden ramps.
Rodney Mullen is seen as one of the main founding fathers of modern skateboarding, inventing most of the tricks used today. He invented over 30 tricks, such as the kickflip, heelflip, 360 flip and ollie impossible.
The act of "ollieing" onto an obstacle 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 trucks while grinding a rail), the 5-0 grind (balancing on only the back truck while grinding a rail) the nose grind (balancing on only the front truck while grinding a rail), and the crooked grind (balancing on the front truck at an angle with nose touching while grinding) among many others. 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 ollied. 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. Slides such as boardslides, lipslides, noseslides, and tailslides are on the wooden deck of the skateboard, rather than on the trucks. One trick that doesn't fit these categories is the Darkslide (Invented by Rodney Mullen) which consists of sliding on the top (griptape side) of the board. The bluntslide, when performed on a ledge, which basically means the wheels are sliding. Another slide/grind trick that does not conform to the ordinary categories is the primo slide, invented by Primo Desidero; it consists of sliding on the board (albiet a flat surface rather than a ledge, rail or lip) while it is on its side, sliding on the ends of the axle bolts and the thin dimension of the board, pointing and moving the same way as one would ride it.
Wess Romero is the best skater in the world.
Culture
See also: Skate punk
See also: Punk fashion
Skateboarding was, at first, tied to the culture of surfing. As skateboarding spread across the United States to places unfamiliar with surfing or surfing culture, it developed an image of its own. For example, the classic film short Video Days (1991)[7] portrayed skateboarders as reckless rebels.
The image of the skateboarder as a rebellious, non-conforming youth has faded in recent years. The rift between the old image of skateboarding and a newer one is quite visible: magazines such as Thrasher portray skateboarding as dirty, rebellious, and still firmly tied to punk, while other publications, Transworld Skateboarding as an example, paint a more modern, diverse, and controlled picture of skateboarding stars. Furthermore, as more professional skaters use hip hop music accompaniment in their videos, many urban youths and hip-hop fans are drawn to skateboarding, further diluting the sport's punk image.[8]
Films such as Dishdogz (2005)[9] have helped improve the reputation of skateboarding youth, depicting individuals of this subculture as having a positive outlook on life, prone to poking harmless fun at each other, and engaging in healthy sportsman's competition. According to the film, lack of respect, egotism and hostility towards fellow skateboarders is generally frowned upon, albeit each of the characters (and as such, proxies of the "stereotypical" skateboarder) have a firm disrespect for authority and for rules in general. Group spirit is supposed to heavily influence the members of this community. In presentations of this sort, showcasing of criminal tendencies is absent, and no attempt is made to tie extreme sports to any kind of illegal activity.
Go Skateboarding Day was created in 2004 by a group of skateboarding companies to promote skateboarding and help make it more noticeable to the world.
Female skateboarders
Keeani LeiA survey in 2002 estimated that only 26 percent of skateboarders are female.[10]
In the early years of the sport, few female skaters gained widespread visibility; Peggy Oki, Ellen O'Neal, and Ellen Berryman were a few who achieved fame in the 1970s. The skateboarding boom in the 1990s, coupled with an overall advancement in women's sports, produced more female skaters than in previous decades. Skaters such as Elissa Steamer and Cara-Beth Burnside elevated women's skateboarding to a new level. This trend continued into the new millennium with Amy Caron, Vanessa Torres, and Lyn-z Adams Hawkins. Presently, skateboarding competitions for women can be seen at all major skateboarding events, such as the X-games, the Gravity Games, and the Slam City Jam.
There are many female-only skate companies, sessions, and camps to help advance the female skateboarding movement. An alliance of professional female skaters has also been established.[11] There have been two major skate films focusing on female skaters - Getting Nowhere Faster and AKA: Girl Skater.[12][13]
Skateboarding as a form of transportation
The use of skateboards solely as a form of transportation is primarily associated with the longboard. Depending on local laws, using skateboards as a form of transportation outside residential areas may or may not be legal. In this aspect, San Francisco has been described as having the most restrictive codes against skateboarding.[14] Nevertheless, the use of skateboards as transportation in San Francisco remains rampant. Backers cite portability, exercise, and environmental friendliness as some of the benefits of skateboarding as an alternative to automobiles.
Miscellaneous
A member of Charlie Company 1st Battalion 5th Marines carries a skateboard during military exercise Urban Warrior '99
Skateboard ban in Norway
The only country ever to ban skateboards was Norway, in the period between 1978 and 1989. The use, ownership and sale of skateboards were forbidden. The ban was said to be due to the perceived high amount of injuries caused by boards. The ban led skateboarders to construct ramps in the forest and other secluded areas to avoid the police.[15]
Military experimentation in the United States
It has been publicly reported that the United States Marine Corps tested the usefulness of commercial off-the-shelf skateboards during urban combat military exercises in the late 1990s. Their special purpose has been described as "for maneuvering inside buildings in order to detect tripwires and sniper fire".[16][17]
Novice and amateur skate teams
Many novice and amateur skateboarding teams have emerged in the last ten years consisting of groups of talented skateboarders. Amateur skateboarding competitions such as the Free Flow tour among many others allows such teams to compete with each other even though they may not be pro.[18]
Skateboarding in the Olympics
It has been proposed that Skateboarding be included in the 2012 London Olympics, however, a large portion of professional and amateur skateboarders are against the sport being entered. If it were to appear, it would be placed in with cycling.[19][20][21]
Further reading and information
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
SkateboardingLook up Skateboarding in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.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.
Brooke, Michael (1999) The Concrete Wave - the History of Skateboarding. Warwick Publishing
Mullen, Rodney and Mortimer, Sean (2003). The Mutt
Skateboard Kings, a 1978 documentary on skateboarding
SkateSpotter, a directory of skate spots A skateboarding trick, or simply a trick is a maneuver performed on a skateboard while skateboarding. Learning and perfecting new tricks is the major goal of many skateboarders, for whom most of the time spent skateboarding is spent on tricks. Nearly everything one can do on a skateboard outside of normal riding falls in to the following five categories:
Freestyle tricks involve balancing on some other part of the board than all four wheels, such as two wheels or one wheel, the tail of the board, or the edges on either side. Various ways to flip and manipulate the board in and out of these stances were invented in the earliest years of skateboarding and these form the basis of freestyle skateboarding.
Aerials involve floating in the air while using a hand to hold the board on his or her feet or by keeping constant and careful pressure on the board with the feet to keep it from floating away. This class of tricks was first popularized when Tony Alva became famous for his Frontside Airs in empty swimming pools in the late 1970s and has expanded to include the bulk of skateboarding tricks to this day, including the Ollie and all of its variations.
Flip tricks are a subset of aerials which are all based on the Ollie. The first such trick was the Kickflip. You can spin the board around many different axis, and even combine several rotations in to one trick. These tricks are arguably most popular among street skateboarding purists, although skaters with other styles perform them as well.
Slides and Grinds involve getting the board up on some type of edge, rail, or coping and sliding or grinding along the trucks or board. When it is primarily the board which is contacting the edge, it's called a slide; when it's the truck, it is a grind. Grinding and sliding skateboards started with sliding the board on parking blocks and curbs, then extended to using the coping on swimming pools, then stairway handrails, and has now been expanded to include almost every possible type of edge.
Finally, lip tricks are done on the coping of a pool or skateboard ramp. Most grinds can be done on the coping of a ramp or pool as well, but there are some coping tricks which require the momentum and vertical attitude that can only be attained on a transitioned riding surface. These include Inverts and their variations as well as some dedicated air-to-lip combinations.
Many types of tricks can be combined together, and finding new combinations and variations is often stated as the reason that skateboarding keeps its appeal amongst its followers.
Competitive skateboarding is primarily judged on the difficulty and success of such tricks.
[edit] Naming conventions
As with all recreational activities, skateboarding has its own vernacular and slang. Most of the names of standard tricks were made up by the person that invented them, and to some extent they reflect what the person was thinking about the trick at the time. The names range from descriptive (kickflip) to silly (Ho-Ho plant) to intentionally provocative (shove-it, sex change). The earliest tricks were often named after the person that invented them (Andrecht after Dave Andrecht; Ollie after Alan "Ollie" Gelfand; Elguerial after Eddie Elguera). The origins of some trick names are obscure, either because the inventor didn't name the trick or intentionally gave it an obtuse meaning based on an inside joke that was never shared. Some tricks have more than one name, likely because several people independently invented the same trick around the same time and gave it different names, or because the original name was lost.
Most newer tricks are invented by combining existing tricks together rather than creating something completely new, and the naming reflects that. For example, when Danny Way became the first to do a Kickflip into an Indy, he simply called it a Kickflip Indy rather than come up with a completely new name. Most other combinations of tricks follow suit, though occasionally very complicated tricks prove to be too much of a mouthful and are thus given a unique name. For example, Andy MacDonald made up a trick that could be accurately called a Nollie Heelflip Varial Body Varial Slob Air, but he called it a Salad Shooter. The Caballerial, named after Steve Caballero, is a combination of two tricks, the Fakie Ollie and the 360.
Similarly, when a new trick is invented by changing an element of existing trick rather than adding to it, skaters often simply put the names together. For example, Tony Hawk did the first 720 from fakie grabbing Mute, but he didn't bother to use the terms "fakie" or "Mute". He simply called it a 720. However, when he tried something new by grabbing with the other hand, he called it an "Indy 720" because the trick combined the elements of an Indy and a 720 together, changing the original meaning of 720 in the process. This is a source of confusion among skateboarders, as it often becomes difficult to remember which variation of a trick was done first and exactly how it was performed.
Another source of debate is the varying styles of performance of a trick and whether variations of style warrant giving a trick a new name. Skaters can be seen engaging in heated debates on internet forums over what exactly constitutes giving a certain trick a certain name, or whether it should be called something else entirely. Other skaters simply don't care, and ignore such debates.
In any event, skateboarding has a large dictionary of terms, and there is no one place to find them all defined accurately. As stated above, the definitions are often subjective. For new skateboarders, the large amount of new words to learn can be daunting, and it can be argued that this is part of a new skateboarder's initiation in to skateboarding's unique culture.
[edit] Stances
In modern skateboarding there are two types of stances; one of which is naturally adopted by the skater. These two stances are "Goofy", and "Regular". Goofy refers to standing on the board with the right foot forwards, while Regular refers to standing on the board with the left foot forwards.
These stances have an inverse relationship in the direction of both the flip, and the spin, with which tricks are performed. It is important to note that tricks are named differently depending on the stance of the skater. As mentioned above, an inverse of a trick in "goofy" would be the same as the trick done in the "regular" stance. When a skater skates in the opposite stance to which they are naturally adapted, this is called "switch stance" or more simply "switch". "Fakie" refers to when a skater is moving in the opposite direction, but maintaining their natural stance, and "nollie" refers to when a skater is in their natural stance, but their footing is positioned so that their front kick on the nose of the board, and the back foot is near the back bolts.
The term "Mongo", refers to a stance in which a skater keeps their back foot on the board while pushing with their front foot. It is considered by some to be bad form, but is nevertheless widely practiced.
[edit] External links
Insane Skateboard Trick Tips
The Skate Page
Bob's Trick Tips
Skateboarding Tricktionary
Skateboard City
Silverfish Longboarding (Longboard Skateboarding Tips)
Heyday Trick Tips
Skateboard Video Clips
How2skate - skateboard trick tips
Kickflip and Ollie Videos
Skateboard Trick Tips with picture and video
Street skateboarding is the act of riding a skateboard on paved surface, whether that surface is found at a public school, a shopping mall, or somewhere else. This is in contrast with a related, but much different subsection, vert skateboarding, which refers to riding a skateboard up and down a vert ramp or half-pipe. The third type of skateboarding is known as freestyle skateboarding. Street skating, as it is most commonly known among skaters, may include skate tricks such as ollies, or ollie variations, but often it is simply the act of skateboarding on the pavement itself. Whatever the case may be, the act of street skating requires the rider to utilize objects which are found in urbanized settings, such as curbs, ledges, handrails, stairs, and other difficult obstacles
A skateboard is a four wheeled platform, of which the wood base is called a deck, used for the activity of skateboarding. Decks are covered with grip tape, to prevent slippage while riding. Wheels used on skateboards today are made out of an oil-based plastic, while in the 1960's, they were made out of clay. A Skateboard is propelled by pushing with one foot while the other remains on the board, or by pumping in structures such as a half-pipe or bowl (types of ramps) . A skateboard can also be used by simply standing on the deck while on a downward slope and allowing gravity to propel the board and rider. That being said, the skateboard is not easily defined. Unlike most other sports, there is no governing body which declares any regulations on what constitutes a skateboard or the parts from which it is assembled, thereby skateboarding to some is more like an art than a proper sport. For example, longboards are a type of skateboard with a longer wheelbase, and are typically composed of larger and softer wheels. Thus, the definition of a skateboard can vary in both appearance and performance as well as size. Skateboards today, as well as "old-school" boards of the 1980's, are made from various layers of laminated woods. [edit] Rails
Narrow strips of plastic that are fastened under the deck lengthwise along the edges. They are used for additional grip for grabs, and to enhance sliding while protecting the deck's graphics at the same time. These are seldom used in modern skateboarding.
[edit] Lappers
A lapper is a plastic cover that is fastened to the rear truck and serves to protect the kingpin when grinding. It also prevents hang-ups by providing a smoother transition for the truck when it hits an obstacle or a metal pipe or bar used to grind.These are non existent in modern skateboarding.
[edit] Nose guard
A plastic bumper used to protect the tip of a skateboard. These are rare in modern skateboarding.
[edit] Tail guard
A tail guard is a plastic skid plate used to prevent wearing of the tail; they can also be used as a means to stop the board. The tail guard is not commonly used in skateboards today.
[edit] Risers
Riser or riser pads are made of plastic or rubber and go between the truck and the board to provide additional clearance for the wheels to prevent wheel-bite (when the truck turns to a degree where the wheel will contact with the deck and stop spinning). They usually range in height from ⅛″ to ˝″. Shock pads are a variation of risers that are usually made of rubber or neoprene. They absorb impact and reduce vibration, which in turn helps prevent hardware from loosening and they can also prevent pressure cracks from forming.http://www.lukehadley.com DVLH Skateboarding is the act of riding on or performing tricks with a skateboard. A person who skateboards is ref...all »http://www.lukehadley.com DVLH Skateboarding is the act of riding on or performing tricks with a skateboard. A person who skateboards is referred to as a skateboarder or skater. Skateboarding is a recreational activity, a job, or a method of transportation.[1] Skateboarding has been shaped and influenced by many skateboarders throughout the years. A 2002 report by American Sports Data found that there were 18.5 million skateboarders in the world. Eighty-five percent of skateboarders polled who had used a board in the last year were under the age of 18, and 74 percent were male.[2]
Skateboarding is relatively modern. A key skateboarding trick, the ollie, was only developed in the late 1970s. A decade later, freestyle skateboarder Rodney Mullen invented the kickflip. Predating the first skateboard, the New York Times reported on May 21, 1893 in an article entitled: "DANGEROUS SPORT IN BROOKLYN: Coasting on Lincoln Place May Sometime Lead to Loss of Life".
Lincoln sometimes {Park Slope} Brooklyn, smoothly paved with asphalt from the Prospect Park (Brooklyn) Circle to Fifth Avenue and has a slope about 15 degrees. During the past few weeks small boys from all parts of the neighborhood have gathered on Lincoln Place with little four wheeled carts, on which they have coasted down the middle of the Street…
The great amount of asphalt and vitrified brick pavement that is replacing the noisy and miserably laid cobblestones, and even granite block... {would create} roads the smoothest in the country and as noiseless as can be provided for by the very latest scientific pavement…
[citation needed]
The first skateboard
It wasn't until 1958 that a variation of the skateboard as we know it was made. It was built in a California surf shop. It was something for surfers to do when the ocean was flat. The shop owner, Bill Richards, made a deal with the Chicago Roller Skate Company to produce sets of skate wheels. Then they attached them to square wooden boards. 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. [4]
A number of surfing manufacturers such as Makaha started building skateboards that resembled small surfboards and assembling teams to promote their products. The popularity of skateboarding at this time spawned a national magazine, Skateboarder Magazine and the 1965 international championships were broadcast on national television. The growth of skateboarding at this time can also be seen in Makaha's sales figures which quoted $4 million worth of board sales between 1963 and 1965 (Weyland, 2002:28). Yet by 1966 sales had dropped significantly (ibid) and Skateboarder Magazine had stopped publication. Skateboarding's popularity dropped and remained low until the early 1970s. [4][5]
Second generation
In the early 1970s, Frank Nasworthy started to develop a skateboard wheel made of polyurethane,calling it the 'Cadillac' as he hoped this would convey the smooth ride it afforded the rider.[4] The improvement in traction and performance was so immense that from the wheel's release in 1974 the popularity of skateboarding started to rise rapidly again, and companies wanted to invest more in product development. Many companies started to manufacture trucks (axles) especially designed for skateboarding, and the modern design was reached in 1976 by Tracker Trucks. As the equipment became more maneuverable, the decks started to get wider, reaching widths of 10 inches (250 mm) and over in the end, thus giving the skateboarder even more control. Banana board is a term used to describe skateboards made of polypropylene that were skinny, flexible, with ribs on the underside for structural support and very popular during the mid-1970s. They were available in myriad colors, bright yellow probably being the most memorable, hence the name.
Manufacturers started to experiment with more exotic composites and metals, 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 Ty Page, Bruce Logan, Bobby Piercy, Jared Phillips, Kevin Reed, and 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, vert skaters could skate faster and perform more dangerous tricks, such as slash grinds and frontside/backside airs. This caused liability concerns and increased insurance costs to skatepark owners, and the development (first by Norcon,then more successfully by Rector) of improved knee pads that had a hard sliding cap and strong strapping proved to be too-little-too-late. During this era, the "freestyle" movement in skateboarding began to splinter off and develop into a much more specialized discipline, characterized by the development of a wide assortment of high flat-ground tricks.
Skateparks increasingly contend with high-liability costs that led to many parks closing. Vert skaters therefore started making their own ramps and freestylers didn't need skateparks. Thus by the beginning of the 1980s, skateboarding had died again. [5]
Skateboarder Brandon Cardone does a cliff hanger pivot to fakie (a lip trick) at the former East Coast Terminal Skateboard Park in Johnson City, NY.
Third generation
The third skateboard generation, from the early/mid eighties to early nineties, was fueled by skateboard companies that were run by skateboarders. The focus was initially on vert ramp skateboarding. The invention of the no-hands aerial (later known as the ollie) by Alan Gelfand in Florida in 1976[6] and the almost parallel development of the grabbed aerial by George Orton and Tony Alva in California had made it possible for skaters to perform airs on vertical ramps. While this wave of skateboarding was sparked by commercialized vert ramp skating, a majority of people who skateboarded during this period never rode vert ramps. Because most people couldn't afford to build vert ramps or didn't have access to nearby ramps, street skating gained popularity. Freestyle skating remained healthy throughout this period with pioneers such as Rodney Mullen inventing the basics of modern street skating; the flatground ollie, the ollie kickflip, the heelflip, and the 360 flip, to name a few. The influence freestyle had on street skating became apparent during the mid-eighties, but street skating was still performed on wide vert boards with short noses, slide rails, and large soft wheels. Skateboarding, however, evolved quickly in the late 1980s to accommodate the street skater. Since few skateparks were available to skaters at this time, street skating pushed skaters to seek out shopping centres and public and private property as their "spot" to skate. Public opposition, and the threat of lawsuits, forced businesses and property owners to ban skateboarding on their property. By 1992, only a small fraction of skateboarders remained as a highly technical version of street skating, combined with the decline of vert skating, produced a sport that lacked the mainstream appeal to attract new skaters.
Trick skating
See Skateboarding trick for detailed description of trick skating maneuvers
A skater performs a kickflip.With the evolution of skateparks and ramp riding, the skateboard began to change. Early skate tricks had consisted mainly of two-dimensional manoeuvres (e.g. riding on only two wheels (wheelie, a.k.a. manual), spinning like an ice skater on the back wheels (a 360 pivot), high jumping over a bar (nowadays called a "Hippie Jump"), long jumping from one board to another (often over a line of small barrels or fearless teenagers lying on their backs), and slalom.
In 1976, skateboarding was transformed by the invention of the first modern skateboarding trick by Alan "Ollie" Gelfand, the Ollie (skateboarding trick). It remained largely a unique Florida trick from 1976 until the summer of 1978, when Gelfand made his first visit to California. Gelfand and his revolutionary maneuver caught the attention of the West Coast skaters and the media where it began to spread worldwide.
The ollie was reinvented by Rodney Mullen in 1982, who adapted it to freestyle skating by ollieing on flat ground rather than out of a vert ramp. Mullen also invented the ollie kickflip, which, at the time of its invention, was dubbed the "magic flip." The flat ground ollie allowed skateboarders to perform tricks in mid-air without any more equipment than the skateboard itself. The development of these complex tricks by Rodney Mullen and others transformed skateboarding. Skateboarders began performing their tricks down stair sets and on other urban obstacles - they were no longer confined to empty pools and expensive wooden ramps.
Rodney Mullen is seen as one of the main founding fathers of modern skateboarding, inventing most of the tricks used today. He invented over 30 tricks, such as the kickflip, heelflip, 360 flip and ollie impossible.
The act of "ollieing" onto an obstacle 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 trucks while grinding a rail), the 5-0 grind (balancing on only the back truck while grinding a rail) the nose grind (balancing on only the front truck while grinding a rail), and the crooked grind (balancing on the front truck at an angle with nose touching while grinding) among many others. 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 ollied. 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. Slides such as boardslides, lipslides, noseslides, and tailslides are on the wooden deck of the skateboard, rather than on the trucks. One trick that doesn't fit these categories is the Darkslide (Invented by Rodney Mullen) which consists of sliding on the top (griptape side) of the board. The bluntslide, when performed on a ledge, which basically means the wheels are sliding. Another slide/grind trick that does not conform to the ordinary categories is the primo slide, invented by Primo Desidero; it consists of sliding on the board (albiet a flat surface rather than a ledge, rail or lip) while it is on its side, sliding on the ends of the axle bolts and the thin dimension of the board, pointing and moving the same way as one would ride it.
Wess Romero is the best skater in the world.
Culture
See also: Skate punk
See also: Punk fashion
Skateboarding was, at first, tied to the culture of surfing. As skateboarding spread across the United States to places unfamiliar with surfing or surfing culture, it developed an image of its own. For example, the classic film short Video Days (1991)[7] portrayed skateboarders as reckless rebels.
The image of the skateboarder as a rebellious, non-conforming youth has faded in recent years. The rift between the old image of skateboarding and a newer one is quite visible: magazines such as Thrasher portray skateboarding as dirty, rebellious, and still firmly tied to punk, while other publications, Transworld Skateboarding as an example, paint a more modern, diverse, and controlled picture of skateboarding stars. Furthermore, as more professional skaters use hip hop music accompaniment in their videos, many urban youths and hip-hop fans are drawn to skateboarding, further diluting the sport's punk image.[8]
Films such as Dishdogz (2005)[9] have helped improve the reputation of skateboarding youth, depicting individuals of this subculture as having a positive outlook on life, prone to poking harmless fun at each other, and engaging in healthy sportsman's competition. According to the film, lack of respect, egotism and hostility towards fellow skateboarders is generally frowned upon, albeit each of the characters (and as such, proxies of the "stereotypical" skateboarder) have a firm disrespect for authority and for rules in general. Group spirit is supposed to heavily influence the members of this community. In presentations of this sort, showcasing of criminal tendencies is absent, and no attempt is made to tie extreme sports to any kind of illegal activity.
Go Skateboarding Day was created in 2004 by a group of skateboarding companies to promote skateboarding and help make it more noticeable to the world.
Female skateboarders
Keeani LeiA survey in 2002 estimated that only 26 percent of skateboarders are female.[10]
In the early years of the sport, few female skaters gained widespread visibility; Peggy Oki, Ellen O'Neal, and Ellen Berryman were a few who achieved fame in the 1970s. The skateboarding boom in the 1990s, coupled with an overall advancement in women's sports, produced more female skaters than in previous decades. Skaters such as Elissa Steamer and Cara-Beth Burnside elevated women's skateboarding to a new level. This trend continued into the new millennium with Amy Caron, Vanessa Torres, and Lyn-z Adams Hawkins. Presently, skateboarding competitions for women can be seen at all major skateboarding events, such as the X-games, the Gravity Games, and the Slam City Jam.
There are many female-only skate companies, sessions, and camps to help advance the female skateboarding movement. An alliance of professional female skaters has also been established.[11] There have been two major skate films focusing on female skaters - Getting Nowhere Faster and AKA: Girl Skater.[12][13]
Skateboarding as a form of transportation
The use of skateboards solely as a form of transportation is primarily associated with the longboard. Depending on local laws, using skateboards as a form of transportation outside residential areas may or may not be legal. In this aspect, San Francisco has been described as having the most restrictive codes against skateboarding.[14] Nevertheless, the use of skateboards as transportation in San Francisco remains rampant. Backers cite portability, exercise, and environmental friendliness as some of the benefits of skateboarding as an alternative to automobiles.
Miscellaneous
A member of Charlie Company 1st Battalion 5th Marines carries a skateboard during military exercise Urban Warrior '99
Skateboard ban in Norway
The only country ever to ban skateboards was Norway, in the period between 1978 and 1989. The use, ownership and sale of skateboards were forbidden. The ban was said to be due to the perceived high amount of injuries caused by boards. The ban led skateboarders to construct ramps in the forest and other secluded areas to avoid the police.[15]
Military experimentation in the United States
It has been publicly reported that the United States Marine Corps tested the usefulness of commercial off-the-shelf skateboards during urban combat military exercises in the late 1990s. Their special purpose has been described as "for maneuvering inside buildings in order to detect tripwires and sniper fire".[16][17]
Novice and amateur skate teams
Many novice and amateur skateboarding teams have emerged in the last ten years consisting of groups of talented skateboarders. Amateur skateboarding competitions such as the Free Flow tour among many others allows such teams to compete with each other even though they may not be pro.[18]
Skateboarding in the Olympics
It has been proposed that Skateboarding be included in the 2012 London Olympics, however, a large portion of professional and amateur skateboarders are against the sport being entered. If it were to appear, it would be placed in with cycling.[19][20][21]
Further reading and information
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
SkateboardingLook up Skateboarding in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.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.
Brooke, Michael (1999) The Concrete Wave - the History of Skateboarding. Warwick Publishing
Mullen, Rodney and Mortimer, Sean (2003). The Mutt
Skateboard Kings, a 1978 documentary on skateboarding
SkateSpotter, a directory of skate spots A skateboarding trick, or simply a trick is a maneuver performed on a skateboard while skateboarding. Learning and perfecting new tricks is the major goal of many skateboarders, for whom most of the time spent skateboarding is spent on tricks. Nearly everything one can do on a skateboard outside of normal riding falls in to the following five categories:
Freestyle tricks involve balancing on some other part of the board than all four wheels, such as two wheels or one wheel, the tail of the board, or the edges on either side. Various ways to flip and manipulate the board in and out of these stances were invented in the earliest years of skateboarding and these form the basis of freestyle skateboarding.
Aerials involve floating in the air while using a hand to hold the board on his or her feet or by keeping constant and careful pressure on the board with the feet to keep it from floating away. This class of tricks was first popularized when Tony Alva became famous for his Frontside Airs in empty swimming pools in the late 1970s and has expanded to include the bulk of skateboarding tricks to this day, including the Ollie and all of its variations.
Flip tricks are a subset of aerials which are all based on the Ollie. The first such trick was the Kickflip. You can spin the board around many different axis, and even combine several rotations in to one trick. These tricks are arguably most popular among street skateboarding purists, although skaters with other styles perform them as well.
Slides and Grinds involve getting the board up on some type of edge, rail, or coping and sliding or grinding along the trucks or board. When it is primarily the board which is contacting the edge, it's called a slide; when it's the truck, it is a grind. Grinding and sliding skateboards started with sliding the board on parking blocks and curbs, then extended to using the coping on swimming pools, then stairway handrails, and has now been expanded to include almost every possible type of edge.
Finally, lip tricks are done on the coping of a pool or skateboard ramp. Most grinds can be done on the coping of a ramp or pool as well, but there are some coping tricks which require the momentum and vertical attitude that can only be attained on a transitioned riding surface. These include Inverts and their variations as well as some dedicated air-to-lip combinations.
Many types of tricks can be combined together, and finding new combinations and variations is often stated as the reason that skateboarding keeps its appeal amongst its followers.
Competitive skateboarding is primarily judged on the difficulty and success of such tricks.
[edit] Naming conventions
As with all recreational activities, skateboarding has its own vernacular and slang. Most of the names of standard tricks were made up by the person that invented them, and to some extent they reflect what the person was thinking about the trick at the time. The names range from descriptive (kickflip) to silly (Ho-Ho plant) to intentionally provocative (shove-it, sex change). The earliest tricks were often named after the person that invented them (Andrecht after Dave Andrecht; Ollie after Alan "Ollie" Gelfand; Elguerial after Eddie Elguera). The origins of some trick names are obscure, either because the inventor didn't name the trick or intentionally gave it an obtuse meaning based on an inside joke that was never shared. Some tricks have more than one name, likely because several people independently invented the same trick around the same time and gave it different names, or because the original name was lost.
Most newer tricks are invented by combining existing tricks together rather than creating something completely new, and the naming reflects that. For example, when Danny Way became the first to do a Kickflip into an Indy, he simply called it a Kickflip Indy rather than come up with a completely new name. Most other combinations of tricks follow suit, though occasionally very complicated tricks prove to be too much of a mouthful and are thus given a unique name. For example, Andy MacDonald made up a trick that could be accurately called a Nollie Heelflip Varial Body Varial Slob Air, but he called it a Salad Shooter. The Caballerial, named after Steve Caballero, is a combination of two tricks, the Fakie Ollie and the 360.
Similarly, when a new trick is invented by changing an element of existing trick rather than adding to it, skaters often simply put the names together. For example, Tony Hawk did the first 720 from fakie grabbing Mute, but he didn't bother to use the terms "fakie" or "Mute". He simply called it a 720. However, when he tried something new by grabbing with the other hand, he called it an "Indy 720" because the trick combined the elements of an Indy and a 720 together, changing the original meaning of 720 in the process. This is a source of confusion among skateboarders, as it often becomes difficult to remember which variation of a trick was done first and exactly how it was performed.
Another source of debate is the varying styles of performance of a trick and whether variations of style warrant giving a trick a new name. Skaters can be seen engaging in heated debates on internet forums over what exactly constitutes giving a certain trick a certain name, or whether it should be called something else entirely. Other skaters simply don't care, and ignore such debates.
In any event, skateboarding has a large dictionary of terms, and there is no one place to find them all defined accurately. As stated above, the definitions are often subjective. For new skateboarders, the large amount of new words to learn can be daunting, and it can be argued that this is part of a new skateboarder's initiation in to skateboarding's unique culture.
[edit] Stances
In modern skateboarding there are two types of stances; one of which is naturally adopted by the skater. These two stances are "Goofy", and "Regular". Goofy refers to standing on the board with the right foot forwards, while Regular refers to standing on the board with the left foot forwards.
These stances have an inverse relationship in the direction of both the flip, and the spin, with which tricks are performed. It is important to note that tricks are named differently depending on the stance of the skater. As mentioned above, an inverse of a trick in "goofy" would be the same as the trick done in the "regular" stance. When a skater skates in the opposite stance to which they are naturally adapted, this is called "switch stance" or more simply "switch". "Fakie" refers to when a skater is moving in the opposite direction, but maintaining their natural stance, and "nollie" refers to when a skater is in their natural stance, but their footing is positioned so that their front kick on the nose of the board, and the back foot is near the back bolts.
The term "Mongo", refers to a stance in which a skater keeps their back foot on the board while pushing with their front foot. It is considered by some to be bad form, but is nevertheless widely practiced.
[edit] External links
Insane Skateboard Trick Tips
The Skate Page
Bob's Trick Tips
Skateboarding Tricktionary
Skateboard City
Silverfish Longboarding (Longboard Skateboarding Tips)
Heyday Trick Tips
Skateboard Video Clips
How2skate - skateboard trick tips
Kickflip and Ollie Videos
Skateboard Trick Tips with picture and video
Street skateboarding is the act of riding a skateboard on paved surface, whether that surface is found at a public school, a shopping mall, or somewhere else. This is in contrast with a related, but much different subsection, vert skateboarding, which refers to riding a skateboard up and down a vert ramp or half-pipe. The third type of skateboarding is known as freestyle skateboarding. Street skating, as it is most commonly known among skaters, may include skate tricks such as ollies, or ollie variations, but often it is simply the act of skateboarding on the pavement itself. Whatever the case may be, the act of street skating requires the rider to utilize objects which are found in urbanized settings, such as curbs, ledges, handrails, stairs, and other difficult obstacles
A skateboard is a four wheeled platform, of which the wood base is called a deck, used for the activity of skateboarding. Decks are covered with grip tape, to prevent slippage while riding. Wheels used on skateboards today are made out of an oil-based plastic, while in the 1960's, they were made out of clay. A Skateboard is propelled by pushing with one foot while the other remains on the board, or by pumping in structures such as a half-pipe or bowl (types of ramps) . A skateboard can also be used by simply standing on the deck while on a downward slope and allowing gravity to propel the board and rider. That being said, the skateboard is not easily defined. Unlike most other sports, there is no governing body which declares any regulations on what constitutes a skateboard or the parts from which it is assembled, thereby skateboarding to some is more like an art than a proper sport. For example, longboards are a type of skateboard with a longer wheelbase, and are typically composed of larger and softer wheels. Thus, the definition of a skateboard can vary in both appearance and performance as well as size. Skateboards today, as well as "old-school" boards of the 1980's, are made from various layers of laminated woods. [edit] Rails
Narrow strips of plastic that are fastened under the deck lengthwise along the edges. They are used for additional grip for grabs, and to enhance sliding while protecting the deck's graphics at the same time. These are seldom used in modern skateboarding.
[edit] Lappers
A lapper is a plastic cover that is fastened to the rear truck and serves to protect the kingpin when grinding. It also prevents hang-ups by providing a smoother transition for the truck when it hits an obstacle or a metal pipe or bar used to grind.These are non existent in modern skateboarding.
[edit] Nose guard
A plastic bumper used to protect the tip of a skateboard. These are rare in modern skateboarding.
[edit] Tail guard
A tail guard is a plastic skid plate used to prevent wearing of the tail; they can also be used as a means to stop the board. The tail guard is not commonly used in skateboards today.
[edit] Risers
Riser or riser pads are made of plastic or rubber and go between the truck and the board to provide additional clearance for the wheels to prevent wheel-bite (when the truck turns to a degree where the wheel will contact with the deck and stop spinning). They usually range in height from ⅛″ to ˝″. Shock pads are a variation of risers that are usually made of rubber or neoprene. They absorb impact and reduce vibration, which in turn helps prevent hardware from loosening and they can also prevent pressure cracks from forming.«
Download is starting. Save file to your computer. If the download does not start automatically, right-click this link and choose "Save As". How to get videos onto the iPod or PSP.
