Skateboarding History

With the evolution of skate parks and ramp riding, the skateboard began to change. Early skate tricks consisted mainly of two-dimensional maneuvers (i.e., riding on only the front wheels (nose manual), spinning like an ice skater on the back wheels (a 360 pivot), high jumping over a bar (sometimes called a “Hippie Jump”), long jumping from one board to another (often over fearless teenagers lying on their backs), and slalom. In 1976, skateboarding was transformed by the invention of the first modern skateboarding trick by Alan “Ollie” Gelfand. It remained largely a unique Florida trick form 1976 until the summer of 1978, when Gelfand made his first visit to California. Galfand and his revolutionary maneuver caught attention of the West Coast skaters and the media where it began to spread worldwide. An Ollie is performed by popping the tail of the skateboard, sliding the front foot towards the nose, and lifting up the back foot to level the skateboard out. This results in the skateboarder, along with his or her skateboard, lifting into the air without the aid of foot straps or the skateboarder’s hands. The Ollie was reinvented by Rodney Mullen in 1981, who adapted it to freestyle skating by “Ollieing” on flat ground rather than out of a vertical ramp. Mullen also invented the Ollie kick flip, which, at the
The act of “Ollieing” onto an obstacle and sliding along it on the trucks of the board is known as grinding, and has become a mainstay of modern skateboarding. Types of grinds include the “50-50 grind” (balancing on the front and back trucks while grinding a rail), the “5-0 grind” (balancing on only the back trucks while grinding a rail), the nose grind (balancing on only the front truck while grinding a rail), and the “crooked grind” (balancing on only the front truck at an angle while