1: The Birth of Skateboarding

Welcome to Week 1 of our Winter League.

This week our skaters are learning where this sport came from;

surfers.

In the late 1940s and 1950s, surfers in California wanted something to do when wave condition weren't on their side, so they clamped roller-skate wheels onto wooden boards and went "sidewalk surfing."

By the early 1960s, surf shops were selling the first commercial

skateboards, and the very first skateboarding competition was held in California in 1963.

The boards of that era rode on narrow steel or clay wheels; bumpy,

slippery, and hard to control. The first skateboard craze ended almost

as fast as it started due to the amount of injuries and municipalities banning the sport.

Then came the moment that changed everything: in 1972, Frank Nasworthy introduced soft urethane wheels (Cadillac Wheels). They gripped the pavement, rolled smoothly, and suddenly skateboarding was suddenly fun again and had a new rebirth.

A few years later, a legendary group of young skaters from Venice and Santa Monica area arose: the Zephyr team. The team was put together by the local Surf shop "Jeff Ho Surfboards"

Known as the Z-Boys they shocked everyone at the 1975 Del Mar

contest with a low, aggressive, surf-inspired style nobody had ever seen. When a California drought emptied backyard swimming pools in the mid-70s, those empty pools became the world's most famous skate spots, and vertical skateboarding was born. This is why we have bowls that directly resemble pools at our local skatepark like the big bowl at the Gellert Skatepark.

(Heads Up)

There are movies and videos online about the Z-Boys and their impact on the sport but they may contain innapropriate language + violence. " Lords of Dogtown" is a great movie but I wouldn't recommend to show this to the kids, the documentaries are a safer bet if you want to check them out!

Find attached videos below + skate homework for this week :)

SKATE PRACTICE CHALLENGE: Choose any trick, see if you can land it 10 times in a row.

Printable homework due next week: