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As we see skateboarding today, it is made up of two main components: street and vert. Street would be the style of tricks on flatland while grinding and jumping things. Vert would be the style of doing tricks while being launched from a large ramp, either a half pipe or a quarter-pipe. However, if you rewind to the distant 1970s, this did not really exist. Skateboarding was an entirely different form of recreation. Lets look back at what this modern art was, decades before.

Skateboarding started in the 1940s. The movement began when surfers decided that they still wanted to surf when the sea was calm. So the origins of skateboarding began. It started with boxes on wheels (quite different from what we have now right?). Quickly, these "street surfers" as they were called, started to morph their boards so that they would use wooden planks or boards instead of simple boxes. Skateboarding soon became big. Really big. Companies started to create skateboards. These skateboards were flat and resembled our longboards very much. Skateboard Magazine also started and became largely popular. However, in the late 1960s, the skateboarding trend seemed to stop.

Then comes the focus decade, the 1970s. Skateboarding seemed to experience a renaissance during the start of the '70s. One reason for such involves the development of the polyurethane wheels. This improved the skateboarding experience much and the trend started to explode again. This rebirth of skateboarding was fueled by other developements such as custom trucks and a wider variety of boards.

Also, there was the start of vert. Vert started off from the simple walls of empty swimming pools. The popularity of vert increased and skateparks started. Skateparks were popular, but vert seemed quite unsafe so skateparks owners were forced to pay high prices for insurance. This caused a great dip in skateparks as many closed down.

Along with the start of vert skating, some skaters became what they called "freestyle". This is the humble beginnings of what we now call street. "Freestyle" was quite different and not that developed. There was no such thing as the ollie, for instance. Without the ollie, you can infer that many of the the tricks we now know to be common did not exist. Skateboarders "jumped" by executing a trick called the boneless. This trick involved the skateboarder kicking the board out while controling the board with their front foot. Then, the skateboarder would grab the board and bring it up so they could clear the object they were jumping. Then, the back foot would follow onto the board. Lastly, the skateboarder would land, just as we land tricks today.

Skateboarding would once again die down, but would be revolutionized with pioneers of this art. Such people included Alan Gelfand, who invented the ollie and Rodney Mullen, who invented the famous kickflip. These tricks started off the modern art of skateboarding.

This art has changed greatly from its early beginnings. However, skateboarding is becoming more and more popular with day. And it would not have been possible without many people and their ideas. Now this history is known, you can truly appreciate what skateboarding really is. Skate! ;)

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