Vert Skateboarding

What does 'skating vert' mean?

It means skating up a vertical wall. Vert is just short for vertical which is anytime there is a transition. No matter how crappy it is, it's something where you can go from flat to the vert. That's vert skating. Whether it be at a mall where the walls are just carved or at skate parks always have a little vert in them usually for the vert skaters. My favorite kind of vert has always been empty swimming pools. Like in LA there's a lot of them. You just gotta to know how to find them and how to search them out.

Is vert skateboarding difficult to learn?

It's probably the hardest thing ever because you got to fall and when you're going to try to learn how to skate vert, you're going to fall more than you're going to ride away. And if you can survive that to the point where you can start to get your technique down and land everything and skate away without falling, then you've paid your dues and that's the point where you start to reap the rewards for it. But first you're going to fall a lot and hopefully not get seriously hurt.

What tricks are done in vert skateboarding?

Usually they're lip tricks, which are right on the edge where there's usually coping which is usually metal or concrete. We ride on the lip and do different type of manoeuvres to where we're sliding or grinding on the top or from the lip up, which is in the air - so any type of aerial manoeuvre - anything where you get thrown up into the air and you actually execute some sort of manoeuvre above the lip and come back down onto the wall - onto the transition.

How has vert skateboarding evolved?

Tony Alva, a professional skateboarder brief discussion about skateboading tell the story of how "Vert Skateboarding has evolved from jumps skateboarders' use to do on the street to jumps where they do in professional arena's that some times be as high as 60 to 70 feet. Tony also talks about Vert Skateboarding Mega Jump which was an event the "X" Games event and he places a lot of emphasis on the steepness of the slopes and the thrill of flying a huge gap.