Trick Skating

With the evolution of skateboard parks (or skateparks) and ramp riding, the skateboard began to change. Skating was originally basically two-dimensional tricks, for example:

• 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,
• slalom.

Around 1978 or so, street riding became transformed by the invention of the ollie, the first modern skateboarding trick, by Alan "Ollie" Gelfand. 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 safely. It requires using your feet to press against the board in various complicated combinations, depending on the trick to be performed. 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.

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 manoeuvres). 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).

Very skillful skateboarders often become famous through sponsorship and endorsements. Examples include Tony Hawk (who has a series of video games in his name), Bob Burnquist, Rodney Mullen, Mike Vallely, Steve Caballero, Bam Margera, and Josh Kalis (who has appeared in numerous television advertisements for DC Shoes). Hawk has recently appeared in the MTV music video awards.

In the vert world, some are surpassing the skills of Tony Hawk. Recently his signature trick, the "900," was performed by the Italian skater Georgio Zattoni and a Brazillian skater by the name of Sandro Dias. Also, 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 reportedly planning on jumping the Grand Canyon. Many styles today are a mimic of Tom Penny, a pioneer of street skateboarding and in the early 1990s was the first skater to catch his flip tricks in mid air.

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. 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.