By Andrew Tidwell
I would like to start this blog off by paying respect to one of the greats of skateboarding. Dylan Rieder died on October 12, 2016 from Leukemia. He was one of the greatest to ever ride a board. An influence to skaters on and off the board who pushed skateboarding to a new degree of style. Which brings me to the reason I’m writing this. When you hear style, often times you think of fashion choice, but in the world of skateboarding, style is more than just the clothes one wears. The world of skateboarding consists of more than 11 million enthusiasts, and an important part of the skateboarding world is style.
When it comes to skateboarding, the style a skater has when on a board can either make one keep watching or turning off a video. (I will be referring a lot to things called skate parts, which is a compilation of tricks that a skater will put into his or her video.) There are more than a few styles that skaters have, and you can honestly generalize a lot of the styles into categories. For the most part, everyone in the community has their own style and way they ride the board. Style in skateboarding comes down to a few things, like the pop, flick and catch of the board. These things have a lot to do with how a skater looks when he or she is riding away from the trick.
A perfect example of someone who makes the pop, flick and catch look too good is Dylan Rieder. He had an insane height on his tricks when he would pop up from flat ground. You could tell that his tricks were being flicked right, and he had enough time to catch the board for a smooth landing.
Popping the board is an important part to almost all tricks, as the pop is the initial part of any trick. (Popping the board refers to either the tail or nose of the board hitting the ground to initialize a trick.) Popping is important because a person will need to pop enough to make it where they want to be. This can be risky business. Take a stair for example. If you don’t have enough pop, you might end up eating one of the stairs. Popping too much can be a problem as well. If you pop too much, you most likely will make it to the target area, but the higher up you go, the more impact you take. This can be pretty risky to those knees. You can still land the trick with too much pop, but you will need to make sure to bend those knees. (This is a common joke in the community, but bending the knees can help take pressure off the skater.)
The flick in my opinion is the least important part. It is very important though because a bad flick can end up hurting someone. But a phrase in the skateboarding world is mobbed. Simply meaning, you definitely shouldn’t have landed that. Honestly though, when the flick is performed properly, it will add a different look to a trick.
The catch is an important part for a few reasons. One reason is obvious. If you don’t catch the trick, then it doesn’t count. But if you catch it too late, the odds of making the trick go down. This is because, when the board is caught, your body needs time to adjust to it while in the air. If caught too late, then it makes it hard to finish the trick when landing.
At this point in the blog, I will be talking about the styles in skateboarding. When talking about clean styles of skateboarding I always think of Shane O’Neill. His style is so technical and precise, it is almost like he is a robot. (This is also a joke in the skateboarding world. O’Neill’s style is so precise, it is like a robot.) Here is Shane O’Neill demonstrating his craft: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1sjuey25ug
Another skateboarder, nicknamed The Boss, is Andrew Reynolds. For two decades he has held it down as one of the best. And in the community, he is known to have one of the best frontside, and backside flips. (A frontside flip is a kickflip 180 with your body going out, while a backside flip is a kickflip 180 with your body turning in.) Here is Andrew Reynolds’ video part from the Emerica Stay Gold video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_8kCdhhBtg
The final skateboarder I will talk about was known as “Christ” around the skateboarding community. Christian Hosoi was considered a “skateboarding god” during his time in the ‘70s to the ‘90s. He had it all: long flowing hair, fashion, speed, style and an abundance of tricks. He was smooth with all his tricks, and at the time, winning many competitions. One of the reasons why he was called the “Christ of skateboarding” is because of his trick the Christ Air. Here is Christian Hosoi in his video part from 1989 Speed Freaks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovrV8BH2vhA
Skateboarding is a large community in this world and is always being pushed to the next level. Styles are only getting better. And again R.I.P. to Dylan Rieder and all of the other skateboarders who died and died young. Age 28 was too young, and Rieder will be someone the skateboarding community will not forget about. Here is Dylan Rieders’ skateboarding in the Supreme Cherry video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM9H0i1Vls4
I’m Andrew Tidwell, a 19 year old skateboarder out of Murfreesboro, TN. I have been skateboarding for going on 7 years now and have been a geek about skateboarding since I was a little kid.
No comments:
Post a Comment