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I like boats.

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my-history-of-skating [2017/04/10 06:01]
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my-history-of-skating [2017/04/16 20:44] (current)
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 //April 2017// //April 2017//
  
-I recently started listening to podcasts on my long commute to work. One of the best discoveries so far has been the "[[http://​mushroomblading.com/​podcasts.php?​id=main|how to be unpopular]]" ​podcast. This podcast ​really ​dives deep into the rollerblading culture. Despite having skated for over 10 years, this is something I really knew nothing about. I'​ve ​started ​to think a lot more about my own experience of skating, and thought this might be of interest to some people (a very minute ​number of people, but still...).+I recently started listening to podcasts on my long commute to work. One of the best discoveries so far has been the [[http://​mushroomblading.com/​podcasts.php?​id=main|How to be Unpopular]] podcast. This podcast dives deep into the rollerblading culture. Despite having skated for most of my life, this is something I really knew nothing about. I started ​thinking ​more about my own experience of skating, and thought this might be of interest to some people (a very minuscule ​number of people, but still...). ​
  
-This is supposed to be a small history of the sport of "​aggressive inline skating",​ as experienced by me.+This is supposed to be a small history of the sport of "​aggressive inline skating",​ as experienced by me. For lack of a universal name for this sport, I will mostly be calling it skating.
  
-For lack of a universal name for this sport, I will be calling ​it +My first pair of skates were actually roller skates. Pink roller skates. The only ones left in my size but I didn't care! Allegedly it didn't take too long before I was playing on little homemade ramps on these. Age? Around 4 or 5. One memory is being told by neighbourhood kid that I was using them incorrectly. Apparently you are supposed to keep both feet planted firmly on the ground and shuffle them forward and back. 
 + 
 +{{ :​my-history-of-skating:​20170414_202422.jpg?​nolink |My first roller skates}} 
 + 
 +Fast forward through the next years where we emigrated to New Zealand and back twice. Throughout this time I pretty much always had a pair of skates I think. After moving back to NL around age 12 for some reason I got really into skating again. I used to be a real bookworm, and at some point I found a book on inline skating. This my have been my inspiration for going onto the "​aggressive"​ path. There was a whole chapter outlining all these different grinds you could do. 
 + 
 +I vaguely remember at some point seeing another kid bring his skates to school which had the middle wheels taken out. At some point I did the same and on a little homemade grind rail learnt FS and BS. Over time I got a bunch of other kids skating and we'd go all over the place, especially to playgrounds and skate down the slide. I also learnt soul grinds around ​this time. Still on rec skates - they were some kind of shoe looking soft boot skate, and had a pretty flat sole. I was taking my skates to school, and started skating to the skatepark pretty much every day after school. Eat dinner with my skates on and do some more skating later. 
 + 
 +{{ :​my-history-of-skating:​20170414_195506.jpg?​nolink |I learnt my first grinds on these}} 
 + 
 +A bit later I got my first pair of aggressive skates, pre-UFS Roces Majestic 12, many sizes too big (but the right width!). The sport goods store was holding a massive skate clearance so everything was going cheap! 
 + 
 +At the local skatepark there were pretty much just skateboarders. There was another older kid who turned up a handful of timeswould wax every coping and do a buch of backsides. ​also had one street session when I ran into a bunch of "​really old" skaters who were grinding a little brick wall in front of the mall I used to skate through. 
 + 
 +In 2005 when we moved back to NZ again I thought I was possibly the only inline skater in NZ for a long time. I still went to the skatepark pretty regularly, but really didn't improve my trick vocabulary much. It's not very motivating always being by yourself. Here's a little edit I made in 2010: 
 + 
 +{{ youtube>​U_MQN1V2Cik?​medium }} 
 + 
 +Over time my wheels wore down to the core and I bought some new wheels online, also marking my switch to antirocker. At some point I also modified my skates by screwing a little piece of plastic from the bottom of a walking frame onto the heel area of the soul, which before that was just the stock boot. 
 + 
 +{{ :​my-history-of-skating:​dscf5180.jpg?​nolink&​500 |My first aggressive skates}} 
 + 
 + 
 +{{ :​my-history-of-skating:​dscf5185.jpg?​nolink&​400 |Blade tech}} 
 + 
 +A few years later I entered the modern skate era with a new pair of skates bought online, Razors Genesys! I also started looking for skate videos from NZ, and eventually discovered the [[https://​www.facebook.com/​groups/​342542682506644/​|NZ Rolling]] Facebook page. Turns out even in NZ skating used to be a thing. 
 + 
 + 
 +In [[http://​mushroomblading.com/​podcasts.php?​id=137|How to Be Unpopular #138]] there is a conversation about how people past the initial boom got into skating. A number of "sick edits" were mentioned which would have drawn in the new generation. Well, for me it was just a library book! It makes me wonder how many others like me learnt to skate completely outside "the culture"​. 
 + 
 +~~DISQUS~~