Skateboarding is an influential action sport involving riding the skateboard and performing tricks. As an art form, a recreational activity, and a transportation’s method, it has caused the big influence on tons of worldwide skateboarders for years.
However, you might be wondering…
What is skateboarding history, style, and benefits? How did this entertainment activity do that? Let’s relieve the secret!
The Entire History of the Skateboarding Community
To achieve the obvious success as seen today, skateboarding can’t deny the essential period below. This will successfully answer for the question namely ‘What is skateboarding?’ best.
Here’s the best part:
The 1940s – 1960s
This is a quite historical period of time that stepped further in the development of the total skateboarding world. How did this happen? Let’s follow our details synthesized below.
1940s – 1950s
The first skateboards who are surfers in California began their first ride with boards attached with roller skate wheels in the bottom. The first skateboards were manufactured by a surf shop in Los Angeles, California.
Skateboarding was only “sidewalk surfing” at that time. And then, skaters turned to perform barefoot.
1960 – 1965
The world saw the rapid growth in the production of surfing manufacturers with limitless promotion. Particularly, Makaha with their small surfboards in Southern California for their products. Some skateboarders were featured on TV.
Makaha reached the unbelievable sales figures quoted about $10 million of the total board sales.
1966 – 1970
The sales of skateboards had decreased significantly as a clear result of the dropped popularity of skateboarding. That still remained quite low until the early 1970s.
The 1970s
Surprisingly, new material was found to produce excellent skateboards for skateboarders to ride their boards in urban places. Until 1972, skateboarding started to receive the popularity rapidly again.
1973-1976
Many companies produced specially designed trucks for skateboarding which were extremely popular through the mid-1970s. One of the biggest skateboarding competitions namely the Del Mar National Championships attracted 500 competitors.
In March 1976, California opened two first skate parks. The “vert” skating made skate parks contend with their very high liability costs. And, vert skaters started creating their personal ramps.
The 1980s
In the early 1980s, skateboarding had continued declining in its popularity. Endless skateboard companies were run by skateboarders. However, in the mid-1980s, freestyle clearly exerted street skating.
The 1990s
Street skating became dominated during the 1990s. The skateboard styles have also changed considerably since the mid-1980s.
2000–present
2001-2006
Skateboarding was especially attractive to skaters under 18 since 2001. Moreover, skateparks were used in academic lessons at various schools. By 2003, Go Skateboarding Day was first started in southern California.
In 2006, about 2.400 skate-parks were founded worldwide.
2009 -2010s
The Skateboarding Hall of Fame & Skateboard Museum was opened by Skate lab in 2009. This brought a revival to barefoot skating. Until the 2010s, electric skateboards were quite popular among the skateboarding lover.
Types of Skateboarding
Skateboarding occurs in plenty of skating styles. However, this pretty solid list will show all evolving skating methods today. They are Slalom, Downhill, Freestyle, Street, Vert, Pool, Park, Cruising, and Off-Road skating.
How Skateboarding Benefits People?
What is skateboarding to us? What are the benefits of skateboarding? Besides the happiness brought, skateboarding also benefits all skaters in an unexpected way. Therefore, this comprehensive guide is for the main advantages of this interesting sport.
Wondering if skateboarding is beneficial for you or not? This part is for you.
High Independence
As you previously knew, most popular sports require teams while playing. On the contrary, skateboarding is completely an individual sport which provides riders with a separate social environment.
Individual dependence is totally welcome for exciting sports including skateboarding, BMX, snowboarding. This particular advantage can also found in non-extreme sports.
Healthier Metabolism
Is skateboarding a good form of exercise? Skateboarding offers us a totally unique exercise which your body unusually gets frequency with. The reason is that the legs and feet of skaters constantly perform various tasks in all varying postures for all individual trick.
Therefore, your muscles will experience the natural work-out. This movement is different from that of running or cycling. Your body does not use all the same muscles all the time.
Coordination
Basically, coordination is required as the essential skill or talent for the achievement in sports activities. That is definitely shown in professionals. Even what an intermediate skateboarder does at any local skate park is amazing.
Perseverance
Skateboarding is outstanding thanks to a massive number of stunts and tricks to know with a skateboard. Some are similar; however, all require the whole skateboarders to apply their motions, scoops, kicks and shoves down with their feet and legs.
Those are needed for all flat ground tricks. Also, skaters also need to add stair gaps, grinds, and even halfpipe tricks.
Reflexes
This is great as an expected benefit for the community because good reflexes will probably protect us from getting hurt while skateboarding. The pain related to skateboarding experience helps improve reflexes.
Honestly, no one would like to be painful. Therefore, skateboarders certainly learn the tricks more quickly to avoid the unwanted stuff. As a result, their reflexes gradually become better when time flies.
See Also: Step by Step Guide Skateboard for Beginners.
Pain Tolerance
Is skateboarding dangerous? Whenever first starting skateboarding, people also have a fear of accidents. However, they all go away with time. The biggest beatings are for the knees, shins, wrists, palms, and elbows.
The injuries in the heads, ankles, and groins will cause more pain. The constant bruises, scratches, and cuts will essentially support all skateboarders to ride a skateboard with the building of their pain tolerance well.
Fearlessness
If you don’t dare to do any trick, you will surely never land it. Thus, skaters must continuously train himself for overcoming their fears. The basic quote is known as “screw it, I can do this.”
Ignore your fear and admit to performing a difficult task. This action can easily apply in several real-life situations. People may have a clearer and more focused mind in even emergency situations.
Stress Relief
While you’re actually skateboarding, basically, you’ll have no selection except for blocking everything out on your great mind. Focus only on what to do and forget your stressful thoughts.
Remove all the negative thoughts from your mind. You can’t do extremely well or even just add more stress to your life. Make things easier!
Higher Concentration
Concentration keeps the mind of any skater getting more focused and throwing away unrelaxing thoughts. Simple tricks can be done by advanced skateboarder with little to even no concentration. That is how they enhance their concentration skills for years.
Think of all new trick clearly during the execution. To perform any brand-new skill, concentrating on their initial footing, speed, execution, and the landing is basically the key element for succeeding.
Self-Confidence
We can feel much more self-confidence from a seasoned skateboarder in his daily lifestyle. That can’t be discovered in those who have not ever once skateboarded. Novice skaters only practice as if they believed in themselves.
Or, the faith of possibly landing the hoped trick is strong enough to attempt. By that time, success may seem significantly easier. And, this pros translates into many non skateboarding environments and cases with good self-confidence.
Better Balance
As a beginner, all skateboarders always continue to practice every day. So, their bodies will commonly be improved with better balance. Their core muscles may gain strength from the daily positions and unusual work-out compared with other activities.
Riding your nice skateboard on the flat ground also takes a great amount of body balance. However, remember to consider skateboarding on an incline, at a higher speed, or over the sidewalk cracks.
Skateboarding Events
There are actually thousands of epic skateboarding contests and events taken place annually and new ones founded every year. Those events are all difficult to keep track of.
Lucky for you, we’ve finished this heavy lifting with a quite comprehensive list to look at for expecting from the year ahead.
Here’s the kicker:
X-games
By 1995, ESPN started launching the “Extreme Games” in their big effort for attracting all young audiences who were not little interested in most traditional sports. Certainly, the main components contained the skateboarding competition.
Extreme Games is entirely considered as an instant achievement. Then, it was quickly renamed as “X-Games” that became enormously well-known, particularly for young skaters.
The event serves as the very first competition for legalizing skateboarding passion. And, it helped introduce the incredible talent of the international skateboarding world.
Wanna know ‘Is skateboarding illegal or not?’?
Here you go.
Skateboarding is basically legal; however, it may be limited in certain areas and for certain ages in public. For some towns, it is banned as ‘’off limits on commercial property’’.
Go Skateboarding Day
Go Skateboarding Day or GSD is popularly known as an official holiday annually conceived by the International Association of Skateboard Companies ( aka IASC) for promoting skateboarding.
In California, this special holiday was originally launched by Don Brown. Every year, on June 21, the longest summer day, the event was uniquely held.
Dew Tour
Although the Dew Tour is currently in the ninth year, it still covers an enormous impact on the skateboarding lover prime. This includes free four-day action along with lifestyle festival during three different events in the year.
Each part focuses on varied kinds of extreme sports such as snowboarding or skateboarding. In the summer series, professional BMX riders and skateboarders will gather together for shredding up the competition.
Fans can enjoy an eventful MTV television broadcast and live music acts. Experience the whole interactive feeling with pro athletes. Meet the greats and sponsored freebies there. And, the lucky opportunity for riding the skateboard and BMX courses are there.
Mystic Sk8 Cup
Recognized as the best skateboarding competition in Europe, the Mystic Sk8 Cup absolutely differs from any other ones. It is because of its special $40,000 prize packet. This also provides both men and woman with rounds.
What turns the Mystic Sk8 Cup one-of-a-kind is that the organizers each year will build a completely new skate park for catching up with the latest trends. This guides the interest for competitors to utilize their expectation.
Furthermore, they are undeniably inspired to come to perform their most excellent skills with ground-breaking tricks. The whole contests have street competitions for both men and women with appealing prizes for best trick.
In early July The Mystic Sk8 Cup is annually organized in Prague, Czech.
The Tampa Pro
Every year, the host as Tampa, Florida will arrange one of the most massively broadcaster skateboarding competitions worldwide- the Tampa Pro. Like the Mystic Sk8 Cup, this competition often occurs at the Tampa’s skate park.
Each new course will be designed yearly for keeping the contestants all well on their toes. There you have it, four great skateboard championships to add to this year’s calendar. Interested in taking up skateboarding?
Never get your first board poorly designed from any local department store. Ensure to have a good-quality skateboard from some reputable brands to simply master awesome tricks every time you want.
For simpler choices, read more: How to Choose a Best Skateboard for Beginners.
How about the Skateboarding Culture
So, what keeps skateboarding remarkable from all sports types. Explore the secret world now with us! Here are all things skateboarding lifestyles.
Let’s check out the deal.
Not all Skaters Do The Same Things
Skateboarding styles depend on what skaters wish to perform. There are categorically three major categories of skateboarding. For street skateboarding, most riders love doing this.
The transition is occasionally misnamed as Vert. Last but not least, longboarding is also likely to be chosen by many. Any skateboard culture shows his own.
Each type also has its many variations as much as how your imagination can reach. Imagine how amazing kids can finish the tricks well.
Focus on Tricks
Skateboarding is alive mostly depend on the skaters’ tricks. For street skating, the major trick is beyond doubt the jump or Ollie. This trick allows you to do hundreds of slides, spins, and flips.
Various tricks are possible to be fulfilled on certain terrain. Find the ramps and rails in any nearby skate parks. Personalities also affect skateboarding a lot. Patient people mostly succeed in learning great tricks quickly.
The Surprising Boom of Skateboarding
The world has witnessed the boom of equipment and special events for skateboarding since its first launch. There are tons of brands or companies of skateboards’ manufacturers and skateboard-related items all over the world.
With the inspiring popularization of skateboarding, this rapidly came as the monetization along with the financial aspect of the unlimited sport. Without a doubt, numerous skating contests or events appeared in an uncountable amount recently.
As a result, abundant skateboarding magazines, skateboard fashion, and clothing companies set up their business. Some of these worth-mentioning companies include the Baker Skateboards, Sector 9 skateboards, and the classic Powell skateboards, etc.
Usually, each of skateboard brands has a professional team of their sponsored professional skateboarders to represent those people at skateboarding events.
All Things Skateboarding are Brilliant
In point of fact, skateboarding is downright an utterly unlike sport as no other. Skateboarding culture has excellently influenced our ways of life in a positive way. When you skate well, you win your fear and yourself! Never lose your hope or belief!
Never ask once again ‘What is skateboarding?’ with our specific instruction.
