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Look up roller skating or blading in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

People roller skating

Roller skating is the traveling on smooth surfaces with roller skates. It is a form of recreation as well as a sport, and can also be a form of transportation. Skates generally come in two basic varieties: quad roller skates and inline skates or blades, though some have experimented with a single-wheeled “quintessence skate” or other variations on the basic skate design. The hobby became more popular than ever in the 1970’s and the 1990’s.^[where?]

History

Young man on The Edvard Petrini’s pedaled roller skates,^[1] known as sv:Takypod in Sweden, circa 1910

• 1743

First recorded use of roller skates, in a London stage performance. The inventor of this skate is lost to history.

• 1760

First recorded skate invention, by John Joseph Merlin, who demonstrated a primitive inline skate with metal wheels.

• 1819

First patented roller skate design, in France by M. Petitbled. These early skates were similar to today’s inline skates, but they were not very maneuverable; it was very difficult with these skates to do anything but move in a straight line and perhaps make wide sweeping turns.

• Rest of the 19th century: inventors continued to work on improving skate design.

An advert for an early 20th century model which fit over ordinary shoes

• 1863

The four-wheeled turning roller skate, or quad skate, with four wheels set in two side-by-side pairs, was first designed, in New York City by James Leonard Plimpton in an attempt to improve upon previous designs, The skate contained a pivoting action using a rubber cushion that allowed the skater to skate a curve just by leaning to one side. It was a huge success, so much that the first public skating rink was opened in 1866 in Newport, Rhode Island with the support of Plimpton. The design of the quad skate allowed easier turns and maneuverability, and the quad skate came to dominate the industry for more than a century.

• 1876

William Brown in Birmingham, England patented a design for the wheels of roller skates. Brown’s design embodied his effort to keep the two bearing surfaces of an axle, fixed and moving, apart. Bown worked closely with Joseph Henry Hughes, who drew up the patent for a ball or roller bearing race for bicycle and carriage wheels in 1877. Hughes’ patent included all the elements of an adjustable system. These two men are thus responsible for modern day roller skate and skateboard wheels, as well as the ball bearing race inclusion in velocipedes — later to become motorbikes and automobiles. This was arguably, the most important advance in the realistic use of roller skates as a pleasurable pastime.

• 1876

The toe stop was first patented. This provided skaters with the ability to stop promptly upon tipping the skate onto the toe. Toe stops are still used today on most quad skates and on some types of inline skates.

Stopless quad skate plates

• 1880s: Roller skates were being mass produced in America from then. This was the sport’s first of several boom periods. Micajah C. Henley of Richmond, Indiana produced thousands of skates every week during peak sales. Henley skates were the first skate with adjustable tension via a screw, the ancestor of the kingbolt mechanism on modern quad skates.
• 1884

Levant M. Richardson received a patent for the use of steel ball bearings in skate wheels to reduce friction, allowing skaters to increase speed with minimum effort.

• 1898

Richardson started the Richardson Ball Bearing and Skate Company, which provided skates to most professional skate racers of the time, including Harley Davidson (no relation to the Harley-Davidson motorcycle brand). (Turner and Zaidman, 1997).

• The design of the quad skate has remained essentially unchanged since then, and remained as the dominant roller skate design until nearly the end of the 20th century. The quad skate has begun to make a comeback recently due to the popularity of roller derby and jam skating.

• 1979

Scott Olson and Brennan Olson of Minneapolis, Minnesota came across a pair of inline skates created in the 1960s by the Chicago Roller Skate Company and, seeing the potential for off-ice hockey training, set about redesigning the skates using modern materials and attaching ice hockey boots. A few years later Scott Olson began heavily promoting the skates and launched the company Rollerblade, Inc..

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Rollerblade-branded skates became so successful that they inspired many other companies to create similar inline skates, and the inline design became more popular than the traditional quads. The Rollerblade skates became synonymous in the minds of many with “inline skates” and skating, so much so that many people came to call any form of skating “Rollerblading,” thus becoming a genericized trademark.

For much of the 1980s and into the 1990s, inline skate models typically sold for general public use employed a hard plastic boot, similar to ski boots. In or about 1995, “soft boot” designs were introduced to the market, primarily by the sporting goods firm K2 Inc., and promoted for use as fitness skates. Other companies quickly followed, and by the early 2000s the use of hard shell skates became primarily limited to the Aggressive inline skating discipline.

The single-wheel “quintessence skate” [1] was made in 1988 by Miyshael F. Gailson of Caples Lake Resort, California, for the purpose of cross-country ski skating and telemark skiing training. Other skate designs have been experimented with over the years, including two wheeled (heel and toe) inline skates, but the vast majority of skates on the market today are either quad or standard inline design.

Artistic roller skating

Artistic roller skating is a sport which consists of a number of events. These are usually accomplished on quad skates, but inline skates may be used for some events. Various flights of events are organized by age and ability/experience. In the US, local competitions lead to 9 regional competitions which lead to the National Championships and World Championships.

2008 US National Championships were held in Lincoln, NE. 2008 World Championships were held in Hong Kong China.

See [2] for more information.

Figures

Skaters skate around a series of circles or ovals to show control and accuracy.

^[2]

Dance

Skaters, either solo or a team of two, dance with standardized choreography to music. They are judged on their adherence to the choreography, skill, and style.

Skaters are judged by the accuracy of steps that they skate when performing a particular dance. In addition to being judged on their edges and turns, skaters must carry themselves in an elegant manner while paying careful attention to the rhythm and timing of the music.

Freestyle

An individual event where creativity is emphasized. Includes jumps, spins and choreographed movements to music (no vocals).

Precision teams

A team of skaters (usually counted in multiples of 4) creates various patterns and movements to music. Often used elements include skating in a line, skating in a box, ’splicing’ (subgroups skating towards each other such that they do not contact each other), and skating in a circle. The team is judged on its choreography and the ability to skate together precisely.

Singles/pairs

A single skater or a pair of skaters present routines to music. They are judged on skating ability and creativity. Jumps are expected in these events.

Roller hockey (quad)

Roller hockey is the overarching name for a rollersport that existed long before inline skates were invented. Roller hockey has been played on quad skates in many countries worldwide and so has many names worldwide. Roller hockey at the 1992 Summer Olympics was a demonstration rollersport in the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.

Inline skating

Inline speed skates

Inline skates usually have 3 (if using 100mm or 110mm), 4, or 5 (80mm) wheels, arranged in a single line. Most commonly, if they have a stop, it is a heel stop. Inline skating is often done on the road, sidewalk, skate park various street furnishings like fences and steps, and on special tracks and areas. Some inline skaters compete in artistic skating events, though quads are still more typical for that use. Inline skates for artistic use tend to be designed more as an analog of the ice skate or artistic quad skate design, with a toe stop and rockered wheels.

Aggressive skating

In addition to speed, fitness, artistic, or recreational skating, some skaters prefer aggressive skating. Aggressive skating is also often referred to by participants as rollerblading, blading or rolling and includes a variety of grinds, airs, slides and other advanced skating maneuvers. It also includes “vert”, “park” and “street skating” which refer to tricks performed on almost any obstacle. Street skating specifically refers to tricks performed on non-allocated obstacles (i.e. not skate parks). There are three major types of aggressive inline skates: hard boots, soft boots, and skeletal skates (e.g. Xsjado, pronounced “shadow”). Hard boots are very rigid and often heavy compared to speed skates and recreational skates. Soft boots offer more flexibility than hard boots, but are normally just as heavy.

Aggressive inline skates could also be fitted with small hard rubber or plastic wheels, used in place of the two middle wheels. These small wheels or “anti-rockers” are used to help lock onto a ledge or rail when performing. Anti rockers enable the skater attempting the trick to stay on a rail for a longer time without the frames of the skates slipping off the ledge.

Aggressive inline saw a sharp decline in the late 1990s, but during 2000-2003 found a major resurgence for the sport when street skating became increasingly popular. At this time professional skaters including Brian Shima, Jeff Stockwell, Chris Haffey, Aaron Feinberg, and Alex Broskow among others were pushing unseen boundaries in performing seemingly impossible and dangerous stunts in mostly street settings. In addition, the IMYTA (I Match Your Trick Association) provided a venue for skaters to demonstrate these tricks. The IMYTA held contests at a street location and the skaters would have to match each trick in the first round of skating or be eliminated. The progression continued with the pool of skaters dwindling and more dangerous and difficult tricks would then be performed and a winner declared. Competitions such as the IMYTA encouraged skaters from many different countries to set up their own local real street competitions.

Some Aggressive inline brand names are as follows: Valo, Remz, Razor, USD, Nimh, Xsjado, Roces, Deshi (merged with USD, ^[3]) and Rollerblade.

Free skating

Free skating

A skating category that lies somewhere between aggressive and recreational skating, free skating, also known as urban skating or free riding, includes many tricks such as jumps, slides, and grinds. The emphasis of free skating is getting from A to B by the fastest possible route, by skating quickly through city streets and negotiating all obstacles. The boots on skates suitable for free skating tend to be more rigid for better leg support, like the aggressive skate, whilst the wheels tend to be rather big, like those found on recreational skates, and the frames short, like those found on hockey skates.

Freestyle skating

Freestyle skating refers collectively to the disciplines for which competitions are organized by the International Freestyle Skaters Association. [3] Currently the IFSA has defined three disciplines which must be offered by any competition they sanction: freestyle slalom, speed slalom, and free jump. Two optional disciplines, high jump and jam, are also defined, but are at present considered optional.

Slalom skating

Freestyle slalom

In freestyle slalom, skaters are judged on their artistic ability and skill as they navigate three lines of cones, with each line of cones having a different interval. They have ninety seconds and their performance is set to music.

Speed slalom

In speed slalom, a skater is judged on how fast they navigate a single line of cones on a single foot.

Jam

Jam is a team version of freestyle slalom.

Jump skating

In both jumping disciplines, the contest is conducted similarly to the running high jump of track and field, except that the skater is required to land cleanly on his skates for the jump to count. The difference between the two disciplines is that in the free jump, the skater skates on level ground before the jump, but in the high jump, the skater is allowed the use of a jump board to gain extra height.

Slide skating

This is a skating category where skaters do “slides”. “Sliding” is often done on smooth flat surfaces. It involves placing one or both feet in perpendicular direction to which they are currently moving. E.g. skater is moving North, however, one or both of his feet may be facing East or West, taking reference from the direction from which the heel to the toes face for the feet direction. Consequently, the skater slows down. However, the rate at which he or she slows down largely depends on how much pressure is being applied to the foot/feet that are “sliding”. It is a form of stylistic skating where attention is paid to the footwork. There are fewer slides than tricks in “sliding” compared to aggressive skating but they often share the same names as they are done similarly to grinds in aggressive skating.

Group skating

Inline roller skater on a slalom course

Among skaters not committed to a particular discipline, a popular social activity is the group skate or street skate, in which large groups of skaters regularly meet to skate together, usually on city streets. Although such touring existed among quad roller skate clubs in the 1970s and 1980s, it made the jump to inline skates in 1990 with groups in large cities throughout the United States. In some cases, hundreds of skaters would regularly participate, resembling a rolling party. In the late 1990s, the group skate phenomenon spread to Europe and east Asia. The weekly Friday night skate in Paris, France (called Pari Roller) is believed to be one of the largest repeating group skates in the world. At times, it has had as many as 35,000 skaters participating on a single night. The Sunday Skate Night in Berlin also attracts over 10,000 skaters during the summer, and Copenhagen, Munich, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Buenos Aires, London, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Tokyo host other popular events. Charity skates in Paris have attracted 50,000 participants (the yearly Paris-Versailles skate).

Skating federations

In the United States, the controlling organization is USA Roller Sports, headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska, also home of the [National Museum of Roller Skating][4]. Nationals are held each summer with skaters required to qualify through regional competitions.

Other groups include:

• International Freestyle Skating Association (IFSA) [5]
• Federation Internationale de Roller-Skating, the international organization for competitive roller sports
• British Federation of Roller Skating
• Canadian Skating Association
• International Inline Stunt Federation (IISF) [6], an international organization devoted to the growth and promotion of street and vert inline skating.

In popular culture

• 1998 - In the Disney Channel Original Movie Brink!, in-line skating is presented as an extreme competition for teens in California.
• 2005 - The plot of the film Roll Bounce centered around a group of teenagers who compete in a rollerskating competition in the late 1970’s.
• 2006 - In the movie ATL, set in Atlanta, the protaganist – rapper, T.I. – and his friends had a great love for skating.
• 2009 - The movie Whip It, starring Ellen Page and Drew Barrymore – who also directed – centers around a small-town girl who joins a hard core all-girl roller derby team.

See also

References

Notes

Bibliography

• Turner, James, in collaboration with Zaidman, Michael (1997). The History of Roller Skating. National Museum of Roller Skating. ISBN 0-9658192-0-5. 
• National Museum of Roller Skating: Homework Page
• United States Amateur Confederation of Roller Skating (1980). American Roller Skate Dancing Part I Bronze and Silver Dances Edition X. An Official USAC/RS Publication. 

External links

• Media related to Roller skating at Wikimedia Commons

Aggressive inline skating is an extreme sport, performed on specially designed inline skates with a focus on tricks, stunts and style. The sport mainly consists of a wide variety of grinds, aerial tricks, slides and other advanced skating maneuvers. Participants often refer to the activity as “rollerblading“, “blading” or “rolling“. The sport is divided into “vert” (vertical), park, and street skating, referring to the environment in which the activity occurs. Different environments lend themselves to different tricks, thus the distinction.

History

Inline skates, skates designed to work like ice skates during periods of warm weather, were invented by Louis Legrange of France in 1849.^[1] Legrange designed the skates for an opera where a character was to appear to be skating on ice.^[1] The skates were problematic and unsuccessful as the wearer could not turn nor could they stop.^[1]

In 1980 a group of ice hockey players in Minnesota were looking for a way to practice during the summer.^[1] Scott and Brennan Olson formed the company Rollerblade, Inc., to sell skates with four polyurethane wheels arranged in a straight line on the bottom of a padded boot.^[1] In 1988, Rollerblade introduced the first aggressive inline skate, the Rollerblade Lightning TRS. Aggressive inline skating finally developed as an organized sport in the early 1990s.^[2] The Aggressive Skaters Association (ASA) was formed by a number of aggressive inline skaters in 1994 as a forum to develop rules governing competitions and equipment. ^[2] The sport was included in the first X-Games in 1995 and included vertical ramp and street event competitions.^[3] Aggressive inline skating was removed from the ESPN X-Games in 2005 although it is still included in the Asian X Games, LG Action Sports Competitions, Montpellier Fise, and many other large competitions.^[4]

General description

Tricks in aggressive skating can be performed on street obstacles or on ramps. Street skaters perform more grinds and slides, where as ramp skaters have more air-time and therefore can perform other tricks. Aggressive skaters can perform grinds by using the frames and plastic plates on the bottom of the skate. Grinds are usually done on rails and ledges although they can be performed on any obstacle which slides.

Types

Trick being performed in a half-pipe.

Street

In street skating, also known as freestyle skating, the skater performs tricks by utilizing features existing in a common, everyday environment.^[5] This involves skaters grinding hand rails and concrete ledges, jumping stairs, ramping off of embankments and generally turning anything on the regular street into an obstacle, ramp, or grind rail.^[5]

Park

Park skating refers to skating that occurs in various private and community skateparks. This style differs from street skating due to the specific nature of skate parks, which are designed for skaters to do tricks on eg on the top of the ramp (coping). Park skating often emphasizes the technical side of aggressive inline, focusing on the variety of tricks a skater can do and encouraging skaters to connect tricks. Skate parks often feature quarter pipes and half-pipes, curved ramps and other features that are not usually found in a regular urban setting is fun fun fun.

Vert

Vert, short for vertical, skating is a style of skating performed within a half-pipe.^[6] It focuses on complicated aerial maneuvers, such as spins and flips. The intent of the skater is to build speed until they are of sufficient height above the edge of the ramp to perform various aerial acrobatics.^[5] They may also grind the lip of the half-pipe sliding their skates from one point of the lip to another. In competitions skaters have limited time, often less than a minute, to impress the judges by landing numerous and difficult tricks.^[5]

Skate description

a pair of Edwards Chocolate aggressive inline skates

Aggressive inline skates are specially designed to be tougher and stronger than normal inline skates, due to the high levels of stress placed on the skate by the stunts and tricks a skater performs. A typical skate consists of the;

Typically each part is replaceable, and certain manufacturers provided parts that have been divided into individual sections, so a skater can replace specific worn areas.

Frames

The chassis of the skate, called the frame, bolts to the bottom of the skate. Skaters grind on the frames, which are designed for this purpose.

There are several different variations on frame design. Originally a skate had four wheels on each skate, with a gap between the middle wheel where a plastic insert called an H-block was used for grinding. Each wheel was the same size; all wheels touched the ground and rolled. This is referred to as flat set up. As the sport evolved, skate companies started manufacturing wheels that were intentionally undersized, in order to facilitate grinding. The undersized wheels are called anti-rockers. Since some skaters skate with only two wheels on each skate, some frames are designed to match this (a variant called a freestyle frame).

In the late 1990s, the Universal Frame System (UFS) was introduced by frame manufacturers to allow the user to easily customize their skates.^[7] This led to increased customization of skates within the sport by allowing the user interchangeability between different company’s frames.^[7] Today, all major frame and skate manufacturers support UFS.

Wheels

Modern skate wheels have undergone many years of development and iteration. The development of the main material, polyurethane, has been dependent on advancements in the polymer industry. The balance between hardness and grip is the key to an optimum skate wheel. Aggressive skate wheels are usually between 50 and 60mm, while anti-rocker wheels are between 35 and 45mm.

Notes

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Aggressive inline skating

1. ^ ^{a b c d e} McKenna p. 11
2. ^ ^{a b} McKenna p. 15
3. ^ McKenna p. 23
4. ^ “Inline No Longer X Games Competition”. March 8, 2005. http://espn.go.com/action/news/story?page=EXPN.no_xg_inline. 
5. ^ ^{a b c d} Murdico p. 37
6. ^ Weil p. 11
7. ^ ^{a b} Weil p. 12

References

Look up skate in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

A skate is a kind of fish belonging to the family Rajidae.

Skate may also refer to:

• Skating, a term for several athletic activities and their equipment:
  • Ice skate
  • Inline skates
  • Roller skates
  • Skateboard
• Skate, one of the units of gear making up a setline, especially in Pacific coast fisheries, consisting of several hundred fathoms of groundline with gangions and hooks attached
• “Skate”, code name for the Bombing of Braunschweig in World War II
• Skate-skiing, a cross-country skiing technique
• skate. (video game), developed by Electronic Arts and released on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3
• HMS Skate (1895), a Victorian era destroyer of the United Kingdom
• USS Skate, several submarines of the US Navy
• Sk8 (TV series), a 2001 NBC show
• SK8-TV, a 1990 Nickelodeon show

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. It needs additional references or sources for verification. Tagged since March 2009. It is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. Tagged since March 2009. It needs to be expanded. Tagged since March 2009.

Skate punk (sometimes called skate core or skate rock) is a sub genre of punk rock, originally a derivative of the west coast (USA) hardcore punk scene, that is named after its popularity and association with skateboarders.^[1] Skate punk most commonly describes the sound of melodic hardcore bands from the 1990s with an aggressive sound, and similar sounding modern bands. Skate videos have traditionally featured this aggressive style of punk rock to parallel the feel of skateboarding. This played a big part in the coining of the term “skate punk”. However, some bands who are commonly referred to as skate punk do not embrace the label because they do not necessarily associate with skateboarding culture despite what the label would imply. Skate punk has gained popularity all around the world, including the Nardcore punk scene out of Oxnard, California.

Musical style

The musical style of skate punk combines the intensity of hardcore punk and thrashcore with more melodic songwriting. However, the earliest skate punk bands had a more raw sound which generally became more melodic over time. Skate punk is often more technical than other forms of punk, commonly featuring lead guitar riffs, solos, and vocal harmonies. The drums beats are often extremely fast, borrowing from the hardcore punk and thrashcore tradition. There is a considerable amount of overlap between the sound of skate punk and other forms of punk, so many bands classified as skate punk also fit into genres such as pop punk, melodic hardcore, and thrashcore. Members of skate punk bands are often skateboarders themselves. Some bands occasionally focus on or at least reference skateboarding culture in their lyrics, in addition to other lyrical themes common to punk.

History

Skate punk started in mid 1980’s California, where skateboarding was growing in popularity and was considered a form of rebellion. Bands that influenced the genre include Black Flag, JFA, Agent Orange and Minor Threat. The Big Boys from Texas and JFA from Arizona are widely considered to be the first skate punk bands. Both bands were made up entirely of skateboarders and played loud and fast music designed to match the intensity of skateboarding. Bands such as RKL, NOFX, Stalag 13, and Suicidal Tendencies were also among the first wave of skate punk bands. The 1990s saw a rise in the popularity of skate punk as it evolved to be more melodic. During this time skate punk bands experienced a fair amount of commercial success and were featured in events such as the Warped Tour and the X-games.^[2] Several bands with a skate punk sound enjoyed popular interest during this period, such as Pennywise, NOFX, Millencolin, Pulley, Guttermouth and most notably The Offspring, who eventually signed to a major label. Also the band Rancid had a skate punk sound on the track Maxwell Murder from their landmark album, …And Out Come the Wolves. Since the 1990s, skate punk has slowly grown in popularity outside of the United States), especially in Europe, Japan, and South America. In the 2000s, skate punk became considerably less popular, although bands such as Much The Same, Rufio, Belvedere, Forus, The Fullblast, Play Attenchon, Slick Shoes and High Five Drive enjoyed a modest amount of success. Recently, DC Jam-Records has re-released or recorded new music by many of the classic skate rock bands, including Agression, Government Issue, JFA, Minus One, TSOL, and Painted Willie. An annual Skate Rock Festival called the American Skate Fest which features some of the biggest names in skate punk takes place in Rutland, Ohio.^[3]. Skate punk is also somewhat popular in Brazil, with bands such as The Grinders.

Record labels associated with skate punk

Epitaph Records
Fat Wreck Chords
Nitro Records
Mystic Records
Hopeless Records
Fearless Records
DC-Jam Records

References

This article is missing citations or needs footnotes. Please help add inline citations to guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (January 2010)

A girl holding a skateboard.

A skateboard is typically a specially designed plywood board combined with a quad wheeled, dual “truck” eight bearing system designed for both movement and stunts, used primarily for the activity of skateboarding. The modern skateboard originated in California in the late 1970s. In time, it became a half time for surfers when the waves were lax. By the mid 1980s they were mass produced and sold throughout the United States.

A skateboard is propelled by pushing with one foot while the other remains on the board, or by pumping one’s legs in structures such as a pool or half pipe. 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. if you ride with your right foot forward, you ride “goofy”. if you ride with your left foot forward, you ride regular.

There is no governing body that declares any regulations on what constitutes a skateboard or the parts from which it is assembled. Historically, the skateboard has conformed both to contemporary trends and to the ever evolving array of stunts performed by riders/users, who require a certain functionality from the board. Of course, the board shape depends largely upon its desired function. Longboards are a type of skateboard with a longer wheelbase and larger, softer wheels.

History

There is no definitive origin or inventor of the skateboard. One proposed origin is that skateboards arose in the 1930s and 1940s, when children would participate in soapbox races, using soap-boxes attached to wooden planks on rollerskate wheels. When the soap-box became detached from the plank, children would ride these primitive “skateboards”. However, there are arguments that this origin is not accurate, and that it has simply been taken from the film Back to the Future. Another suggests that the skateboard was created directly from the adaptation of a single roller skate taken apart and nailed to a 2×4, without the soapbox at all. Surfers would skate when the waves were flat and began skating to recreate surfing on land, some surfers began to do tricks on the land such as Bert slides and Power slides. Another theory about the origin of skateboards claims that third and fourth grade children in the Los Angeles South Bay Area developed skateboards in the spring of 1952 or 1953, after having received roller skates as the “Christmas gift of choice.” The young children who developed skate boards in 1952 and/or 1953 did not do this quite so much as an outright imitation of surfing, but rather, simply because the skates they had received for Christmas eventually fell apart under hard use, and they found that they could continue and enhance the skating experience by nailing skate halves to 3-to-4 foot long boards, and then by learning to balance themselves on the boards while rolling down hills.

In 1972, the first Urethane wheels came into production which made these tricks possible. Some of the most well known early skaters, the “Z-boys” named after the Zephyr surf shop, used a more fluid motion than most skaters at the time and styled themselves after a famous surfer.^{[citation needed]} The skaters brought back the trend from its slump in 1975 during the Del Mar competition where they wowed audiences with their close to ground maneuvers and fluid movements. The main types of skating during this time were slalom, long jump, free style, and downhill racing.^{[citation needed]} Later during the drought of California the Z-boys and other skaters started to skate empty pools thus creating vert skating. One of the group’s members, Tony Alva, would perform the world’s first Aerial in a swimming pool.^{[citation needed]}

Retail skateboards were first marketed in 1958 by Bill and Mark Richard of Dana Point, California. They attached roller skate wheels from the Chicago Roller Skate Company to a plank of wood and sold them in their Val Surf Shops.^[1] As skateboarding became more popular, Larry Stevenson created the “kick tail” on a skateboard which led to the design of the trick board.^{[citation needed]} The sport of skating was considered to be an outcast sport because of its strong ties to the punk and hardcore scene during the 80s.^{[citation needed]} It wasn’t until the 2000s X Games that skateboarding made a new name for itself as an official sport.

Parts

Descriptions of the following skateboard parts are the ones most prevalent in popular, modern forms of skateboarding. Many niche disciplines exist with exotic or alternative constructions and designs that fall outside of much of the descriptions listed. The usual parts to design a complete skateboard are the deck, trucks, wheels, bearings, hardware, and griptape.

Deck

The underside of a skateboard. In this photo the deck, trucks and wheels can be seen.

Most decks are constructed with a six to seven-ply cross-laminated layup of Canadian maple. Other materials used in deck construction, such as fiberglass, bamboo, resin, Kevlar, carbon fiber, aluminum, and plastic, lighten the board or increase its strength or rigidity. Some decks made from maple ply are dyed to create various different coloured ply. Modern decks vary in size, but most are 7 to 10.5 inches wide. Wider decks can be used for greater stability when transition or ramp skating. Skateboard decks are usually between 28 and 33 inches long. The underside of the deck can be printed with a design by the manufacturer, blank, or decorated by any other means. On early year 2010 an European Company Gravitis introduced the proprietary asymmetric shape, with decentered twin tips to enhance the rider’s stance.^{[citation needed]}

The longboard, a common variant of the skateboard, has a longer deck. This is mostly ridden down hills or by the beach. This was created by two surfers; Ben Whatson and Jonny Drapper. One of the first deck companies was called “Drapped” taken from Jonny’s second name. “Old school” boards (those made in the 1970s–80s or modern boards that mimic their shape) are generally wider and often have only one kicktail. Variants of the 1970s often have little or no concavity, whereas 1980s models have deeper concavities and steeper kicktails.

Grip tape, when applied to the top surface of a skateboard, gives a skater’s feet grip on the deck. It is most often black but can come in a variety of colors including clear, allowing the top of the deck to be decorated. It has an adhesive back and a sandpaper like top.

Trucks

An Independent brand skateboard truck

Attached to the deck are two metal (usually aluminum alloy) trucks, which connect to the wheels and deck. The trucks are further composed of two parts. The top part of the truck is screwed to the deck and is called the baseplate, and beneath it is the hanger. The axle runs through the hanger. Between the baseplate and the hanger are bushings, also rubbers or grommets, that provide the cushion mechanism for turning the skateboard. The bushings cushion the truck when it turns. The stiffer the bushings, the more resistant the skateboard is to turning. The softer the bushings, the easier it is to turn. A bolt called a kingpin holds these parts together and fits inside the bushings. Thus by tightening or loosening the kingpin nut, the trucks can be adjusted loosely for better turning and tighter for more stability.

Skateboard trucks are manufactured in a number of different axle widths. In general an axle width should be chosen that is close to the width of the deck it will be used with^[2]. For example, a 7.75″ wide deck will usually be fitted with trucks that have axles between 7.5″ wide and 8.0″ wide. Trucks that are too wide can make doing tricks difficult and can cause the wheels to get in the way when the skateboard is being ridden. Trucks that are too small can be hard to maintain stability and can cause wheel bite to occur when turning.

Longboard specific trucks are a more recent development. A longboard truck has the king pin laid at a more acute angle (usually between 38 and 50 degrees^[3]) to the deck, this gives a lesser degree of turning for the same tilt of the deck. This allows riders to go much faster while still maintaining stability and control.

Wheels

The wheels of a skateboard, usually made of polyurethane, come in many different sizes and shapes to suit different types of skating. Larger sizes like 54–85 mm roll faster, and also move more easily over cracks in pavement. Smaller sizes like 48–54 mm keep the board closer to the ground, require less force to accelerate and produce a lower center of gravity, but also make for a slower top speed. Wheels also are available in a variety of hardnesses usually measured on the Shore durometer “A” scale. Wheels range from the very soft (about Shore A 75) to the very hard (about Shore A 101). As the A scale stops at 100, any wheels labeled 101A or higher are harder, but do not use the appropriate durometer scale. Some wheel manufacturers now use the “B” or “D” scales, which have a larger and more accurate range of hardness.

Modern street skaters prefer smaller wheels (usually 51–54 mm), as small wheels with lighter trucks can make tricks like kickflips and other flip tricks easier by keeping the center of gravity of the skateboard closer to the deck, thus making the deck easier to spin. Street wheels are often quite hard as this allows the wheels to slide easier on waxed surfaces for bluntslides and nose/tailslides. Vertical ramp or “vert” skating requires larger wheels (usually 55–65 mm), as it involves higher speeds. Vert wheels are also usually softer, allowing them to maintain high speed on ramps without sliding. Slalom skating requires even larger wheels (60–75 mm) to sustain the highest speeds possible. They also need to be soft and have better grip to make the tight and frequent turns in slalom racing. Even larger wheels are used in longboarding and downhill skateboarding. Sizes range from 65 mm to 100 mm. These extreme sizes of wheels almost always have cores of hard plastic that can be made thinner and lighter than a solid polyurethane wheel. They are often used by skateboard videographers as well, as the large soft wheels allow for smooth and easy movement over any terrain.

An Animation of the working principle for a ball bearing. N.B. The diagram shows an 8-balled-bearing whereas a skateboard bearing only has 7

Bearings

Each skateboard wheel is mounted on its axle via two bearings. With few exceptions, the bearings are the industrial standard “608″ size, with a bore of 8 mm, an outer diameter of 22 mm, and a width of 7 mm. These are usually made of steel, though silicon nitride, a high-tech ceramic, is sometimes used. Many skateboard bearings are graded according to the ABEC scale. The scale starts with ABEC1 as the lowest, 3, 5, 7, 9. It is a common misconception that the higher ABECs are better for skateboarding, as the ABEC rating only measures tolerances, which do not necessarily apply to skateboards. The ABEC rating does not determine how fast or how durable a bearing used for skateboarding will be.^[4] In particular, the ABEC rating says nothing about how well a bearing handles axial (side-to-side) loads, which are severe in most skateboard applications. Many companies do not show the ABEC rating, such as Bones Bearings, which makes bearings specifically for skateboarding, often marketed as “Skate Rated”. These bearings are usually called Swiss (made in Switzerland), ceramic or both and are better for skateboarding. Each bearing usually contains 7 steel or ceramic ball bearings, although other configurations are used as well.

Hardware

Mounting hardware is a set of eight 10-32 UNC bolts, usually an Allen or Phillips head, and matching nylon locknuts. They are used to attach the trucks to the board. Some have a different colored bolt to show which side is the nose of the skateboard.

Optional components

Risers/wedges

Risers increase the space between the truck and the deck. This allows the truck to turn further without causing wheel bite (when the wheel touches the deck and stops rotating). Wedges can be used to change the turning characteristics of a truck.^[5]

Rails/ribs

Narrow strips of plastic or metal that are attached 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. Although rarely used anymore, they are useful for experienced skaters that are capable of grabs.

Grip tape

Grip tape is a sheet paper or fabric with adhesive on one side and a surface similar to fine sand paper on the other. Grip tape is applied to the top surface of a board to allow the rider’s feet to grip the surface and help the skater stay on the board while doing tricks. Grip tape is usually black, however it is also available in other colors such as red, blue, navy blue, neon green, hi-liter pink, or transparent.

Slip tape

Slip tape is a clear piece of self adhesive plastic that sticks to the underside of a deck. It helps protect the board’s graphics and allows the board to slide easier. Another name for this is everslick.

Lapper

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 round bar.

Nose guard

A plastic bumper used to protect the front of a skateboard. Used in old school boards.

Tail guard

Is a plastic cover that protects the tail end of the skateboard

Copers

Plastic half tubing that protected the axles of the trucks. In the 1980-85 period, stolen shopping cart handles were cut by some to fit as a makeshift coper.^{[citation needed]}

References

Look up skateboard in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Skateboard

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2008)

Skateboarders in Beijing, China.

Skateboarder in Wellington, New Zealand.

Skateboarding is the act of riding and performing tricks using a skateboard. A person who skateboards is most often referred to as a skateboarder, or colloquially within the skateboarding community, a skater.

Skateboarding can be a recreational activity, an artform, 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. 85 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 maneuver, the ollie, was developed in the late 1970s by Alan “Ollie” Gelfand as a half-pipe maneuver. Freestyle skateboarder Rodney Mullen was the first to take it to flat ground and later invented the kickflip and its variations. ^[3]

History

The 1940s-1960s

Skateboarding was probably born sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s when surfers in California wanted something to surf when the waves were flat. No one knows who made the first board, rather, it seems that several people came up with similar ideas at around the same time. These first skateboarders started with wooden boxes or boards with roller skate wheels attached to the bottom. The boxes turned into planks, and eventually companies were producing decks of pressed layers of wood — similar to the skateboard decks of today. During this time, skateboarding was seen as something to do for fun besides surfing, and was therefore often referred to as “Sidewalk Surfing”.

A skateboarder in Tallahassee, Florida.

The first manufactured skateboards were ordered by a Los Angeles, California surf shop, meant to be used by surfers in their downtime. The shop owner, Bill Richard, made a deal with the Chicago Roller Skate Company to produce sets of skate wheels, which they attached to square wooden boards. Accordingly, skateboarding was originally denoted “sidewalk surfing” and early skaters emulated surfing style and maneuvers. Crate scooters preceded skateboards, and were borne of a similar concept, with the exception of having a wooden crate attached to the nose (front of the board), 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 the sport during this period can also be seen in sales figures for Makaha, which quoted $10 million worth of board sales between 1963 and 1965 (Weyland, 2002:28). Yet by 1966 the sales had dropped significantly (ibid) and Skateboarder Magazine had stopped publication. The popularity of skateboarding dropped and remained low until the early 1970s. ^[4][5]

The 1970s

In the early 1970s, Frank Nasworthy started to develop a skateboard wheel made of polyurethane, calling his company Cadillac Wheels.^[4] The improvement in traction and performance was so immense that from the wheel’s release in 1972 the popularity of skateboarding started to rise rapidly again, causing companies to invest more in product development. Nasworthy commissioned artist Jim Evans to do a series of paintings promoting Cadillac Wheels, they were featured as ads and posters in the resurrected Skateborder magazine, and proved immensely popular in promoting the new style of skateboarding. Many companies started to manufacture trucks (axles) specially designed for skateboarding, 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, 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 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 Ty Page, Bruce Logan, Bobby Piercy, Kevin Reed, and the Z-Boys (so-called because of their local Zephyr surf shop) 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 flat-ground tricks.

As a result of the “vert” skating movement, skate parks had to contend with high-liability costs that led to many park closures. In response, vert skaters started making their own ramps, while freestyle skaters continued to evolve their flatland style. Thus by the beginning of the 1980s, skateboarding had once again declined in popularity. ^[5]

The 1980s

A skateboarder “Ollies” over a garbage bin.

This period 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 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 could not afford to build vert ramps or did not have access to nearby ramps, street skating gained popularity. Freestyle skating remained healthy throughout this period with pioneers such as Rodney Mullen inventing many of the basic tricks of modern street skating such as the Impossible and the kickflip. 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 centers 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.^{[citation needed]} 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.

The 1990s to the present

The current generation of skateboards is dominated by street skateboarding. Most boards are about 7¼ to 8 inches wide and 30 to 32 inches long. The wheels are made of an extremely hard polyurethane, with hardness(durometer) approximately 99a. The wheel sizes are relatively small so that the boards are lighter, and the wheel’s inertia is overcome quicker, thus making tricks more manageable. Board styles have changed dramatically since the 1970s but have remained mostly alike since the mid 1990s. The contemporary shape of the skateboard is derived from the freestyle boards of the 1980s with a largely symmetrical shape and relatively narrow width. This form had become standard by the mid ’90s.

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. It is celebrated every year on June 21st.

Trick skating

See Skateboarding trick for detailed descriptions of maneuvers

A skater performs a switch kickflip off a stairset.

With the evolution of skateparks and ramp skating, the skateboard began to change. Early skate tricks had consisted mainly of two-dimensional maneuvers like riding on only two wheels (”wheelie” or “manual”), spinning only on the back wheels (a “pivot”), high jumping over a bar and landing on the board again, also known as a “hippie jump”, long jumping from one board to another (often over small barrels or fearless teenagers) or slalom.

In 1976, skateboarding was transformed by the invention of the ollie by Alan “Ollie” Gelfand. It remained largely a unique Florida trick until the summer of 1978, when Gelfand made his first visit to California. Gelfand and his revolutionary maneuvers caught the attention of the West Coast skaters and the media where it began to spread worldwide. The ollie was adapted to flat ground by Rodney Mullen in 1982. Mullen also invented the “Magic Flip”, which was later renamed the Kickflip, as well many other tricks including, the 360 Kickflip, which is a 360 pop shove it and a kickflip in the same motion. The flat ground ollie allowed skateboarders to perform tricks in mid-air without any more equipment than the skateboard itself, it has formed the basis of many street skating tricks.

Culture

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) portrayed skateboarders as reckless rebels.

The image of the skateboarder as a rebellious, non-conforming youth has faded in recent years^{[citation needed]}. Certain cities still oppose the building of skateparks in their neighborhoods, for fear of increased crime and drugs in the area. 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 diverse and controlled picture of skateboarding. Furthermore, as more professional skaters use hip hop, reggae, or hard rock music accompaniment in their videos, many urban youths, hip-hop fans, reggae fans, and hard rock fans are also drawn to skateboarding, further diluting the sport’s punk image.^[7][8]

Films such as Grind and Lords Of Dogtown, have helped improve the reputation of skateboarding youth^{[citation needed]}, 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^{[citation needed]}.

Gleaming the Cube, a 1989 movie starring Christian Slater as a skateboarding teen investigating the death of his adopted Vietnamese brother was somewhat of an iconic landmark to the skateboarding genre of the era^{[citation needed]}. Many well-known skaters had cameos in the film, including Tony Hawk.

Skateboarding video games have also become very popular in skateboarding culture^{[citation needed]}. Some of the most popular are the Tony Hawk series, and Skate series for various consoles (Including hand-held) and personal computer.

Skateboarding as a form of transportation

The use of skateboards solely as a form of transportation is often associated with the longboard^{[citation needed]}. Depending on local laws, using skateboards as a form of transportation outside residential areas may or may not be legal. Backers cite portability, exercise, and environmental friendliness as some of the benefits of skateboarding as an alternative to automobiles.

Skateboards, along with other small-wheeled transportation such as in-line skates and scooters, suffer a safety caveat where riders may easily be thrown from small cracks and outcroppings in pavement, especially where the cracks run perpendicular to the direction of travel. However, high average travel speeds help mitigate this; injuries are more likely to be minor^{[citation needed]}, although very uncommon, head injuries still pose a major health risk.

Miscellaneous

LCPL Chad Codwell of Charlie Company 1st Battalion 5th Marines carries a skateboard during military exercise Urban Warrior ‘99

Skateboard ban in Norway

The use, ownership and sale of skateboards were forbidden in Norway, during the period between 1978 and 1989. The ban was said to be due to the perceived high number of injuries caused by boards. The ban led skateboarders to construct ramps in the forest and other secluded areas to avoid the police.^[9]

Military experimentation in the United States

The United States Marine Corps tested the usefulness of commercial off-the-shelf skateboards during urban combat military exercises in the late 1990s in a program called Urban Warrior ‘99. Their special purpose was “for maneuvering inside buildings in order to detect tripwires and sniper fire”.^[10][11]

Trampboarding

Trampboarding is a variant of skateboarding that uses a board without the trucks and the wheels on a trampoline. Using the bounce of the trampoline gives height to perform a tricks, whereas in skateboarding you need to make the height by performing an ollie. Trampboarding is seen on YouTube in numerous videos.^{[citation needed]}

Swing boarding

Swing boarding is the activity where a skateboard deck is suspended from a pivot point above the rider which allows the rider to swing about that pivot point. The board swings in an arc which is a similar movement to riding a half pipe. The incorporation of a harness and frame allows the rider to perform turns spins all while flying though the air.

See also

• Street skateboarding
• Boardsports
• Skateboarding in China
• Street sports

Notes

Further reading and information

• 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

External links

• Skateboarding links at the Open Directory Project

Find more about Skateboarding on Wikipedia’s sister projects:
	Definitions from Wiktionary
	Textbooks from Wikibooks
	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource
	Images and media from Commons
	News stories from Wikinews
	Learning resources from Wikiversity

Look up Skateboarding in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

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.

Types of tricks

Skateboarding tricks can be grouped into the following seven 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 or flatground skateboarding. It is your own tricks

• Aerials involve floating in the air while using a hand to hold the board on his or her feet or by not 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 Nollie 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 undoubtedly most popular among street skateboarding purists, although skaters with other styles perform them as well the average skateboarder rarely lands these tricks.

• Boardslides and Grinds involve getting the board up on some type of ledge, rail, or coping and sliding or grinding along the board or trucks, respectively. 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.

• 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.

• Pressure tricks are performed differently than normal flip tricks in that the board flips using pressure technique in areas of the tail/nose with the foot you pop with.

• Manual tricks are performed by balancing the board while riding on either the two front or rear wheels, suspending the opposing wheels in the air.

Competitive skateboarding is primarily judged on the difficulty and success of such tricks.

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 (sac-tap, 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 inadequate.

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.

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.

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 into skateboarding’s unique culture.

Stances

In modern skateboarding (and actually in all modern boardsports, including surfing and snowboarding) there are two basic ways to stand on the board, one of which will instinctively be preferred by the rider. This instinctive preference for one stance over the other is called footedness, and the two possibilities are called “regularfoot” and “goofyfoot”. Regularfoot (or simply “regular”) refers to standing on the board with your left foot forward, while goofyfoot (or simply “goofy”) refers to standing on the board with your right foot forward. As with handedness (right-handed versus left-handed), almost all riders will find that they have a natural, instinctive preference for one stance over the other. Across all boardsports, it seems that most riders (65-75%) are regularfooters, and a smaller number (25-35%) are goofyfooters. In this way, being a regularfoot is analogous to being a right-hander, and being a goofyfoot is analogous to being a left-hander… but otherwise “footedness” and “handedness” are not directly related. In other words, a left-hander can find that he or she is a regularfoot, and a right-hander can find that he or she is a goofyfoot. Lastly, just as it is possible but extremely rare for a person to be naturally ambidextrous (equally dominant with both the left hand and the right hand), it is also possible but extremely rare for a boardrider to be naturally “ambi-footed” (equally comfortable in either the regularfoot stance or the goofyfoot stance). This is called being a “switch-foot”. Also, just as it is difficult but not impossible to teach oneself to become ambidextrous, it is also difficult but not impossible to teach onself to become a switchfoot.

The regularfoot stance and the goofyfoot stance have an inverse relationship in terms of 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”. This should not be confused with “Fakie”, which refers to riding the board in the skater’s natural stance while rolling backwards, or to a trick done while the skater is rolling backwards.

The term “Nollie” originally referred to an Ollie done by popping off the nose of the board rather than the tail (Nose + Ollie = Nollie). The term is added to a trick name to describe any trick based on the Nollie- such as the Nollie Kickflip, Backside Nollie 180, et cetera.

The term “mongo” refers to a method of pushing 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, and makes riding harder, but is nevertheless stubbornly and widely practiced.

The terminology of “frontside” or “backside”(also referred to as “blindside”) is vitally important when discussing skateboarding maneuvers in direct relation to the position of attack on any given obstacle that a skateboarder is negotiating. Frontside is related to having your front side (i.e. face, chest, etc.) facing towards the lip, rail, or curb that the trick is being performed on. Backside denotes the inverse of frontside, meaning the back of the body is facing the object the trick is being performed on.

There is also variations to stance such as cross-foot, or caster footed, or double caster footed. (see caster flip)

There are many other subtleties and nuances within skateboarding trick terminology. Terms may be combined with others (the alley-oop, the shuffle, the revert, etc.) that are performed when either entering or exiting (or both) a skateboard trick.

References

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (April 2009)

• Brooke, Michael (1999). Concrete Wave: The History Of Skateboarding. ISBN 1-894020-54-5.

External links

• Skateboard Trick Tips
• Skateboarding Tricktionary
• Heyday Trick Tips
• How2skate - skateboard trick tips