Skateboarding is the act of rolling on or interacting
with a skateboard. Someone who skateboards is a skater
(or skateboarder or most fully skateboard rider), though
the shortest term may also refer to someone ice skating
or roller skating.
Like roller skating, skateboarding is often done for
recreation and as a sport, but, more often than ice
skating, it is a method of transportation. Skateboarding
has been thought of by many as part of the extreme
sports family. Skateboarding has been shaped and
influenced by great skaters such as Jay Adams, Rodney
Mullen and Tony Hawk.
The history of the art
of skateboarding goes hand in hand with the history of
the
skateboard. Improvements in skateboarding equipment
have spurred advancement in skateboarding techniques and
new techniques have required new equipment.
Skateboarding has its
origins in surfing, and was originally called "sidewalk
surfing". While surfing influenced skateboarding in its
early days, now the reverse is also true. Surfers are
adapting skateboarding tricks into surfing, and the
result is evolution in both sports.
The first commercial
skateboard was the Roller Derby
skateboard that was
introduced in 1959. Before this skateboards were home
made pieces of wooden planks with roller skates attached
to the bottom. At the time there was a rapidly growing
interest in skateboarding (sometimes referred to as
sidewalk surfing) and soon many other similar products
emerged. The boards were from 6 to 7 inches wide. At
first, wheels made of steel were used. They were not
very high in quality and would dent if they hit a
pebble. Then, clay wheels were made. They were a little
better, but they would fall apart over time, and
sometimes the bearings would come out, ejecting the
skater and putting the board to a stop. They had poor
traction and would come to a dead stop when rolling over
even small pebbles. This made skateboarding inherently a
dangerous art and after a few years many cities banned
skateboarding because of liability concerns. This
development caused the first skateboarding fad to die
completely in the fall of 1965. Many
skateboard
manufacturers went out of business because of losing
money on cancelled orders for the Christmas holiday
season.
The second generation
In 1970 Frank Nasworthy
started to develop a
skateboard wheel made of urethane.
The improvement in traction and performance was so
immense that popularity of skateboarding started to rise
rapidly again. With the growing interest companies
started to invest more in product development and 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 aluminium 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. With increased control skateboarders
could skate faster and perform more dangerous tricks.
This caused liability concerns and increased insurance
costs to skatepark owners. Many skateparks went out of
business and the parks were torn down or bulldozed. By
the end of 1980, skateboarding had died again.
The third generation
The third
skateboard
generation, from early eighties to early nineties, was
started by
skateboard companies that actively promoted
their art. The focus was initially on halfpipe and vert
ramp skateboarding. The invention of the
ollie in 1978 made it possible for skaters to
perform huge airs off vertical ramps. With vert skating
being dominant decks were initially very wide with large
and wide wheels, though as time progressed and
skateparks became fewer in number, street skating was
gaining popularity, causing a change in both deck shape
and wheel size. Manufacturers preferred maple plywood
over more exotic composite materials almost exclusively,
and concave decks became ubiquitous. The third
skateboarding generation was killed by the global
economical recession in the early 90s.
The current generation
The size and shape of
the fourth and current generation of skateboards is
dominated by one trick: the ollie. Most boards are about
7.75" wide and 31.5" long. The wheels have an extremely
hard durometer so that they will slide better during
grind and slide tricks. The wheel sizes are relatively
small so that the boards will rotate more easily during
flip tricks. In the early 1990s, the wheels were only
marginally larger than the bearings they encased to make
complicated flip tricks easier. A fad that lasted for a
short time before dying out in 1994. Today, modern
wheels are currently around 50 to 58mm in diameter and
advances in technology have made them extremely light
compared to the wheels of the '80s. The decks are still
almost always constructed out of Canadian Maple, with
7-plys being the industry standard for strength and
durability. Interest in high technology materials has
increased slightly, although the cost of manufacturing
them has dropped.
Trick skating
With the evolution of
skateboard parks (or skate parks) and ramp riding, the
skateboard began to change. Skating was originally
basically two-dimensional tricks (e.g. riding on only
the front wheels (nose manual), spinning like an ice
skater on the back wheels (a 360), high jumping over a
bar, long jumping from one board to another (often over
fearless teenagers lying on their backs), slalom, etc.)
Around 1978 or so, street riding became transformed by
the invention of the ollie, the first modern
skateboarding trick, by Alan "Ollie" Gelfand. At first,
none of his companions believed it was possible to
perform a feat like this, and they thought he was
attaching his feet to the board somehow. People would
actually steal his board and shoes to see if he was
using velcro or some kind of sticky glue. To ollie is to
fly off the ground (flat or a wall) with the board
without holding onto the board and land back on the
board. It requires using the feet to press against the
board in various complicated combinations, depending on
the trick to be performed. The trick was reinvented by
Rodney Mullen in the 80's, being transferred to the
horizontal plane and used as a trick for freestyle
skating (a style of skating popular in the 70's and 80's
based on stationary maneuvers). No longer is the trick
to fly from one place to another. On the way the board
can twist and flip, as can the rider, then to be united
before hitting ground. The development of these complex
tricks went from the street to the vertical tops of the
half pipes (and other terrains).
Skateboarders that sell out often become famous through
sponsorship and endorsements. Tony Hawk has recently
appeared in the MTV music video awards. Danny Way is
considered by some to be one of the most innovative and
daring skaters, flying across the "DC Megaramps" and The
Great Wall of China, and rumored to be planning on
jumping the Grand Canyon. Many styles today are mimics
of Tom Penny a pioneer of street skateboarding and in
the early 1990s were the first skaters to catch their
flip tricks in mid-air. Many innovations in
skateboard
design and specialty pads for tricks were made by Tom
Miller and David Midthunder.
All this from an object that was never designed to lock
into grinds, flip in the air or do the tricks performed
by today's skateboarders. Throwing themselves down large
stairs and handrails only ups the ante in the modern
skateboarding world. Today's skateboarders not only
differ greatly from those only 10 years ago in terms of
tricks and consistency, but also style, which is a very
important aspect in the way skateboarders are marketed
by skateboarding companies.
Skaters and Social Groups
As of the late 90's a significant amount of
skateboarders, or the more commonly used "skaters", have
been catagorized into their own social group. Though
they have always existed, it wasn't until recently that
skaters broke free of the common "metal-head" or
"preppy" stereotypes. The increasing popularity of
skater shoes and clothing has also led to an increase of
so called "poseurs" in the skating world. Poseurs are
people who feel the need to wear
skateboard clothes in
order to be "cool". More often than not they even buy
skateboards, but solely for the image, not to actually
skate. Also
see:
Famous Skateboarders |
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