First Generation Skateboarding
How did skateboarding originate?
The origination of actual modern skateboarding came from the cross training of surfers using it to sidewalk surf on the streets near the beach and stuff -- practicing their footworks and just bombing hills and doing stuff correlated with what they were doing out on the water, which was surfing.
What were the original styles of skateboarding?
Freestyle was like flatland, just footwork freestyle tricks and stuff like that in contests, using obstacles. Doing 360s, nose-wheelies, handstands, stuff like that. And then there was slalom where they'd skate through the gates, kind of like what they do with skiing. And downhill, just bombing hills as fast as you could. And then eventually it got to the point where it was like skating in skate parks or obstacle courses, or like skating banks at a bank slalom.
What were the first skateboards made of?
They were made out of a rollerskate truck cut in half with the rollerskate wheels on a piece of wood, not even a shaped piece of wood, like a 2 x 4. They were nailed on, they weren't even screwed on. They didn't have any grip tape. We used to use bathroom tiles and stuff that you'd put on the stairs of apartment buildings. We'd strip that stuff off and glue it on our boards and stuff like that. We'd use bathroom tiles like the little flowers from the sixties, the little non-slip or surf wax because we didn't even wear shoes at first when we skateboarded. We'd just go barefoot, but that was pretty rough on the feet after a while so we started wearing bands. We started wearing the little duck shoes that the surfers wore.
What was the image of skateboarding in the beginning?
The original image of skateboards was the same as surfers and stuff. It was really rogue, hardcore looking biker meets low rider meets beach bum, kind of just hardcore, crusty kind of guys. And then I think it just went through different phases where it kind of affiliated itself with rock and roll, rock and roll and surfing, then punk rock, kind of punk rock looking skate boarders. Then kind of went from there to almost kind of like new wave.
