Under the Radar

“I don’t think most people understand what skateboarding really is. They think we just ride around,” says a local skateboarder whom I’ll call Sean.

“It’s unique activity and there’s not any other sport like it,” Sean continues. “It’s something you can do with friends. It’s always a challenge, you can always improve, kind of like why every sport is fun.”

Once you get your balance and you can ride around on the board, you begin to learn tricks. The first trick is the ollie—getting the board off the ground. To master an ollie, you don’t just hop. You push down on the back of the board, called the tail, and using momentum you slide your front foot along to lift the board up

“Then you plateau for a while,” explains Sean. “This is when a lot of kids say ‘I’m just going to play football.’”

Next comes the kick flip. The board flips up and rolls over in the air and you land back on.

Harder is the 360 shove. In this, the board lifts up, does a complete spin, and you land back on it.

Any decent skateboarder learns to grind. Grinding happens when the boarder jumps up and lands on the axles, called the trucks, of the board. To grind, a boarder needs an edge.

The pursuit of the perfect edge is integral to the challenge. Edges can be stairs, railings, curbs, park benches.

Stairs without railings are particularly good. A boarder can come at them from the side, grind along the edge with one or both axles, and land on the other side. Just like ice skating, how you land is important--heel side, toe side, facing forward, facing back.

The problem for Swampscott skateboarders is that what a skateboarder would call a great edge, the police call trespassing.

So while there are lots of places around town to practice, there’s a great gap--a drop off between one height and another—between the Black Cow and the Credit Union, for example, most of them are off limits.

“Storekeepers try to kick us out, and when that doesn’t work they call the police,” explains Sean. “But we usually leave before the police arrive.”

When asked if a local skate park would improve their situation, however, Sean is doubtful.

“The parks get boring because it’s repetitive,” he says. “It’s way more fun around town.” 

To see boarders in action, check out this YouTube post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP3Po0R0UCY

I also recommend the Stacy Peralta movie, Dogtown and Z-Boys, about the rogue beginnings of skateboarding in southern California.