Sport. Hobby. Source of income. Artform.

These are the many faces which have come to cover the facade of skateboarding. Many are into skateboarding for the sport value, the “passing the time” hobby value, the financial benefits potentially gained from it, and the artform that it actually is. But, influenced and shaped to the many active practitioners of the craft, skateboarding entails more than just actually handling a skateboard for those four mentioned faces.

Skateboarding calls for a state of mind, as skateboarding is a culture in itself.

The Skateboard from Whence it Came

Basically, skateboarding is relatively new as a sport, given the skateboards which we now have come to know. Its origins hail from the “sidewalk surfing” practice which was prevalent in 1950 California, USA. Predating this, wheeled carts were being used in 1893 in Brooklyn, which could be somewhat equated with as the “first generation” of skateboards.

Technically though, the first skateboards did hail from the 1950s in California, particularly during the time when surfing became a “smash hit”. Constructed using wooden planks and rigged with rollers, or roller-skate-like wheels, the design and construction aspect of skateboards then hasn’t exactly changed much. By the 1960s, skateboards became mainstream, leading to the manufacture of skateboards, feeding a starving market. At first, these manufactured skateboards bore shape elements similar to those of surfboards, in the hopes that their shape would be promotional materials in themselves.

The “shape strategy” worked, as by 1965, skateboarding became quite popular and skateboarding championships were already being broadcast on national TV. For some time after the 60s, the world’s interest with skateboarding faded down, but eventually came back, this time bearing with it more than just kids out skateboarding with their skateboards.

The Skateboarding Mind

Though the cultural mindset which gave birth to skateboarding was the same shared by those who practiced and advocated surfing, the mentality of skateboarding isn’t exactly the same with surfing. This is because, as skateboarding started getting more and more popular, it reached areas where surfing wasn’t the “thing”. Skateboarding basically grew its image, adding on elements and views from various sources.

In 1991, a short film titled Video Days featured the now de facto association with skateboarders, that being rebels, or reckless kids. Indeed the connotation that skateboarders are rebels has become a standard, even more enforced with various media like music and literature. In 2005, Dishdogz, a film with featured a more responsible angle to skateboarders, changed the stereotype non-conformist rebel association often made in connection with skateboarders.

Today, skateboarding highlights a culture in itself, with various sub-cultures sired or derived from them. The most “popular” of skateboarder mindsets involves the rebel aspect, perfectly illustrated by the type of musical genre skateboarders prefer to listen to. Giving it to “the man”, or “standing up” for what is right, skateboarding is now more than just simply using a skateboard.

Arenas where You’d Least Expect Skateboards

In the United States, the military are experimenting with the use of skateboards in various urban combat exercises. Manoeuvring inside buildings, used in the detection of tripwires, or isolating sniper locations, the application of skateboards in military operations has been about since the later quarter of the 1990s.

Another “arena” where you’d least to find skateboards would be in the Olympic Games, as Skateboarding is proposed to be included in the 2012 London Olympics. It is planned that it would be included along with cycling. Many amateur and professional skateboarders aren’t exactly thrilled with this, contrary to what one would imagine with such news.

From the simple walks of 1950 California, the cultural impact of skateboarding came to be, reaching into the hearts and minds of every adolescent rebel, off to make his or her point to the world.

Learning how to skate is simple the first phase of skateboarding. The later phase entails learning how to think the skateboarder way.