Skateboarding

Skateboarding started when people would ride scooters with broken handle bars. Then in 1960 the first skateboard was made by Makaha (A successful skateboard company). Before that, skateboards were homemade. People would call it “Street Surfing” because surfers would skateboard to practice surfing on the street. Then skateboarders would skate empty pools. Now skateboarding has gone to the next level. People are able to do tricks on a skateboard, and you can choose the style you want to skate. Vert, street, freestyle, flatland, and slalom.

Skaters sometimes play S-K-A-T-E to see if they are able to do more tricks then other skaters. Skateboarders normally mess up handrails, stairs, and curbs because they will grind or do a trick on objects like those. That is why communities are trying to build skateparks, so properties don’t get damaged. Skateparks consist of stairs, rails, ramps and pools. Normally skateparks are free but some require you to pay for using the park. Often when you pay to enter a skatepark you are also required to wear specific protection gear.

A skateboard is made of seven layers of Canadian Maple wood. Many companies tried to use different substances like plastic, fiberglass, and metal. Wood had beaten all those because it was lighter and more durable. A normal skateboard consists of a seven layer wood piece that is 79 cm long and 20 cm wide has four wheels, two trucks, and the deck. Trucks are the metal part on the bottom of the board that holds the wheels. The wheels are 1.9-2.5 inches in diameter; the trucks are 13-15 inches apart underneath the board. Each truck has two wheels on each side with a bearing inside the wheel to help it roll faster.

To ride a skateboard you place both feet on the board, you can choose which foot you want to be in the front. Keep your front foot on the board and with your back foot you push off the ground to start going forward. If you want to turn you can shift your weight to one side and the board will turn. Keep pushing yourself with your back foot to gain speed. To stop carefully push your back foot down; this will make the front rise.

Skateboarding can be very fun for everyone. It’s not a sport for only guys. Girls can join the sport too. Some skateboarders become professionals (pros), not all but some. If you practice you will be able to land more tricks. And being able to land difficult tricks can get you sponsored by a skate company. Normally when you get sponsored the sponsor will give you free skateboards or free clothing. It depends on the sponsor. The first trick most people land is the ollie which was invented by Alan Gelfand in 1978. This trick was the beginning of many others like the kickflip. The heelflip and the varial. If you’ve seen a skate movie most of the skaters perform very difficult tricks but they all need to learn the ollie before they do anything else.

The ollie is when you stand on a skateboard and you are riding it, then you push your back foot down and kick you front foot to the front. Thus making the skateboard go into the air for a short period of time. A kickflip involves the same movements but when you kick your foot forward, you kick it to the right making it spin. The direction depends on how you ride the skateboard. Goofy or regular, if you’re goofy you kick the skateboard to the right, if your regular you kick the skateboard to the left. Goofy is when you have your right foot in the front of the skateboard and you peddle with you left foot. Regular is the opposite, when you have your left foot in the front and peddle with your right foot. The heelflip is the same thing as a kickflip but the spins the opposite way. You don’t kick the board with your front foot you use your heel. And again depending on how you ride a skateboard the direction will be different.

Surfing was a very popular sport back in the 1950’s-1960’s and no one knows for sure but someone thought up the idea of surfing on the street. Many people have claimed to have started this sport but they don’t have evidence to prove that they did. Skating was popular for the first couple of years then people started loosing interest in most people and skateboard companies shut down. Still people skated and skateboards were homemade. They didn’t have the proper equipment to build a skateboard so most of the time people would get hurt. The wheels were made of clay and they were very hard to control and very dangerous. Until Frank Nasworthy invented urethane wheels in 1972. These were durable, easier to control and were safer then clay wheels.

Vert skating is when you ride a skateboard in a halfpipe or on some ramps and do tricks while in the air or on the ramp. Street skating is when you just go out into a normal town and skate anything like rails curbs and stairs. Freestyle skating is when you skate on flat surfaces, without any obstacles. You perform tricks and stunts using only the skateboard. Slalom skating is typically a race down a hill. Your goal is to get to the bottom of the hill before the other competitor gets there and within the time limit. Out of all these types of skating, vert skating is considered the most radical type of skating. Generally because of the stunts people do in the air.

Skateboarding was considered a white sport when it first started because most of the skaters were white. Three shows on MTV feature professional skaters; Rob & Big, Viva La Bam, and Life of Ryan. The stars of Rob & Big are Robert Dyrdek, and Christopher “Big Black” Boykin. The show is about the famous skater and his security guard who has become his best friend and their adventures. Viva La Bam is the same thing but it stars another famous skater named Bam Margera. Life of Ryan features Ryan Sheckler. A young skater who became pro when he was 14 years old. Skateboarding has been in the media for a long time now, not just movies and interviews in magazines but games too. Tony Hawk’s video game series has been sold and have totaled over one billion dollars!

Normally people join skateboarding because it’s a trend nowadays. People will wear DC shirts, skinny jeans and chains and will be called poseurs (DC is a very successful skate company that sells skate clothing). They will wear a skateboard as an accessory. Holding it in a way some skaters will call the “Mall Grab”. Or they like the clothes that skaters wear, and the shoes. Tony Hawk started a fundraiser to construct skatepark in low-income areas. Skateparks are used more then any basketball court, tennis court, and baseball fields! Hartford, Connecticut has been considered “Skateboarding Heaven” because on Sundays in the afternoon the city gets all quiet and most people like to skate there because of its awesome skate spots like stairs and rails in front of office buildings. Most of the cities people and cops don’t care if people skate except when they are in an alley and the echoes of the wheels are loud. Or if skaters are on private property and they are damaging the curbs or stairs.

“As soon as the town shuts down we all come in like it’s a skatepark.” Said Dan J. Dziuban, he said “Everyone makes it a Saturday or Sunday trip and you skate all day.” “You can’t have a pro career in a skatepark.” says Matt Thompson, 17, quoting Mark Appleyard (a famous skater). “For the most part we don’t have any real issues with the skateboarders.” said Hartford Police Captain Micheal J. Fallon. When the Black Label team visited Hartford in the summer of 2003 for a couple of days, Mr. Lucero spent $500 a day feeding and housing the team. Mr. Rodriguez (owner of a restaurant) said the team of 15 spent at least $1,000 a day during the two major tours. “If they’re not damaging property and spending money in our community, that’s what it’s all about, we’re a friendly accommodating city.” said H. Scott Phelps, president of the greater Hartford Convention and Visitors Bureau.

So as you can see a lot has happened in the sport of skating in the past 50 years. Who knows what’s going to happen next? Skating keeps evolving and changing because people think of ways to make it more fun and difficult at the same time.