April 2017

I recently started listening to podcasts on my long commute to work. One of the best discoveries so far has been the “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…).

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 be calling it skating.

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 jumping ramps on these. Age? Around 4 or 5. The only thing I can remember is buying them. Another memory is being told by a 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.

We then moved to New Zealand and back to the Netherlands.

There may have been a first pair inline skates I can't remember, but my next memory is around the age of 8 doing crossovers in a big circle on the school playground.

We moved back to NZ again and I don't really know how much I skated. Definitely remember a few skates along the board walk, as well as bombing hills on a skateboard.

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 therefore 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.

A bit later I got my first pair of aggressive skates! 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 skatepark there were pretty much just skateboarders. There was another older kid who turned up a handful of times, would wax every coping and do a buch of backsides. I 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 podcast 186 (check number) there is a conversation about how people past the initial boom got into skating (and a number of “sick edits” were mentioned).