Skateboarding Has Its Benefits
Skateboarding is gaining popularity in many places around the world. Children, teens, and young adults alike are all becoming fascinated with the sport. Skateboarding parks are being built in many cities and towns around the world and kids are trading traditional sports like baseball or soccer for time spent enjoying the extreme activist of skateboarding.
Most people have a picture in their minds of the kinds of people that enjoy skateboarding, and their pictures are not always pleasant. Skateboarding is usually reserved for teens and young adults that haven’t quite connected with other people or activities and who are looking for a place of identity. And while in some ways this is true for people who love skateboarding, isn’t this what we love about so many of the sports and activities we choose to participate in? We love to try new and sometimes extreme things and we love to be identified with a group of people who all enjoy similar things.
Skateboarding, like many other sports and activities, has its benefits. For starters, skateboarding gets people off the couch and outside being active. We all know that inactivity is one of the most dangerous lifestyles to adopt. I’d suggest that a teen or young adult who spends hour after hour doing hobbies that are inactive is actually in more danger than a teen or young adult doing an extreme activity like skateboarding. Children who begin skateboarding at an early age learn to love physical activity and will often enjoy the health benefits of that activity for years to come.
Skateboarding is also a great way for kids and teens to make friends and connect with people with similar interests. Everyone knows that a good friend isn’t easy to come by, and that is why it is great for kids to enjoy a safe and healthy activity like skateboarding because it helps them improve social and relational skills greatly. Not every kid is cut out to play the sports that our mainstream culture glorifies, and choosing skateboarding instead can be a great alternative for many kids.
For the most part, skateboarding is an inexpensive hobby to enjoy. Beginners usually can start with an inexpensive and simple board to learn skateboarding. Grabbing a skateboard> and a few pads is really all a kid needs to begin learning skateboarding. Parents will love that their children can get involved in something fun and active that doesn’t cost tons of money.
So forget the picture of skateboarding you’ve always had and allow your children to get involved in an activity that will promote health, friendships, and identity. And plus, the more time your children are outside practicing skateboarding the more quiet time you can enjoy without them!
Skate Bored?
Though skateboards were around in the early 50’s and 60’s and actually very widely used back then they weren’t well made and so eventually died out. The early ones were basically just milk crates with roller skate wheels and maybe a handle. More like a scooter. The wheels were the big problem, being mostly of clay, and resulted in lots of accidents from slipping or breaking and causing a fall. Even with better boards the wheels still created difficulty, and the sport pretty well died out in the mid-60’s.
It wasn’t until the 1970’s that Frank Nasworthy, a surfer, developed a wheel made from urethane and then added precision bearings, and bolted them to a good quality board. The sport took off again.
The first skateboard parks from that time were mainly empty pools but lots of great moves and jumps were developed during that time, including the famous “ollie”, a no hands aerial. Accidents and then the ever-increasing liability insurance killed the sport a second time and by the 1980’s most of the parks had closed down.
In the 1990’s the sport regained popularity and though it has had some fluctuations since it has mainly grown and developed over the past few decades.
Over the years I’ve often heard it said that this sport wouldn’t last. It was just a fad. But it has developed from an activity into a relevant sport and now is widely followed around the world. The focus on tricks and jumps, great artwork on boards, clothing lines, shoes, skateboard posters, and even music has enhanced the image.
Throughout these years there have been increases in the quality of boards and wheels but mainly the concept didn’t change much, until now. Coming up are some radical new designs. The S-Board is a board that twists in the middle and has only a single front and single rear wheel. The ride is apparently very much like snowboarding.
Then there’s the Australian Bushpig, motorized skateboard (sort of), that does 20mph. Gotta get me one of those.
And the ultimate so far? That has to be Danny Way and his jump over the Great Wall of China. I wonder if his jump could be seen from space? hmmmm.