Those who underestimate it think it's just a game, skateboarding.
Without a doubt it's fun and people often start trying it at a very young age but many don't abandon it in the attic during pre-adolescence.
Children and adults are 'bewitched' by the table with wheels which in Italy turns 40 in 2024.
Not just a simple hobby or pastime but a passion and a lifestyle, a sport (Olympic from 2021) but above all the emblem of a inclusive, aggregating and 'rebellious' way whose rule is 'no rules'.
There are no instructors, everyone teaches and everyone learns by training with each other.
While waiting for the World Skate Games which will take place in September in Italy (in various cities, led by the skateboarding parks of Rome, info on worldskate.org/wsg2024), on the roller board you go along the street, swaying or taking advantage of differences in height such as walls , benches and steps for doing flying acrobatics, in the city skate parks and in the bowls (once dry swimming pools with rounded edges, today mega 'bowls' equipped with ramps to 'drop' and gain speed for the perfect trick, even by falling very very much).
Skateboard and scooter, what is the relationship?
Different from the means of mobility loved by teenagers and GenZ - the 'rigid' scooter with handlebars with which you can move comfortably through city streets (especially in the electric version) - the
skate is a scooter without handlebars
, much more versatile and equipped with flexible wheels.
To move freely on this scooter requires experience.
Rather, it
is more similar to its 'cousin' snowboarding
, which in fact many skaters practice on the snowy peaks by jumping and sliding from bump to bump. However, skating remains a much more democratic and less elite 'toy' (with monoskis, boots, mask, back protector, the costs of the ski facilities and the mountain holiday must be added).
Skateboarding can be practiced by anyone and at almost no cost.
However, it is not a vehicle used by the masses and not only because you have to learn to use it to skillfully navigate the roads or in equipped parks, it has always been deeply linked to the community of enthusiasts and to continuous cultural contaminations in a lifestyle way.
Skateboarding embodies a way of moving, thinking and acting
even though since the 2000s it has been at the center of the economic interests of big brands, in particular the world of fashion, which have made it much more mainstream and trendy.
"Streetwear born among youth subcultures and inspired by the street, a phenomenon that began in the Seventies and Eighties, with the advent of the internet has become '
skate fashion
', radically overturning the cards on the table, making skateboarding go from a phenomenon of marginalized and rebels to something cool, cool and popular, - explains Lele Lutteri in the volume.
How did the skate craze start?
How did the skate craze start?
The expert Lele Lutteri, illustrator and graphic designer renowned for skate art (he paints skulls on rigorously broken boards), explains its origins, contaminations and developments to date in the new, timely and interesting book 'No rules.
40 years of skateboarding in Italy', Alcatraz Agency editions.
The idea, recalls Lutteri, comes from California in the 1960s as an activity to be practiced with a special tool, the skateboard
, to allow surfers to train even in the absence of rough seas
.
It all happened in 1976 when the drought left Los Angeles without water with thousands of swimming pools left dry and which became the best scenario for pirouetting on the board recreating the typical movements on the waves.
Even today on Venice beach in Los Angeles there is a skate rink that attracts dozens of enthusiasts every day.
The love for skateboarding then followed various waves in our country: in the 1980s it became easier to purchase it, in the 1990s the first self-built ramps were born, thanks to the attitude borrowed from punk and the 'Do It Yourself' social centres.
At the end of the 1990s the phenomenon was full-blown: competitions, magazines, crews, equipped skate parks and dedicated shops popped up all over northern Italy.
Photography, music, videos, graphics, magazines are interested in it and skateboarding in Italy becomes a lifestyle.
“The square in front of the Milan Central station, thanks to an unconscious restyling, becomes the most popular spot to meet and train, - explains the author.
- Of course all this has often been seen as something transgressive and non-conformist, which is why the scene we are talking about has always been rather cohesive and libertarian".
In the early 2000s, the first all-girl crews were born.
In 2021, between those for and against, skateboarding will become an
Olympic sport
: instructors, schools and official federations will establish themselves."
Skateboarding unites enthusiasts in search of the perfect trick in a continuous attempt, falling and getting up to try again, as happens in life.
“Thus a unique world is born, the result of
contamination between cultures born on the road
, jealously guarded and defended, but inevitably projected towards ever greater fruition, taking care, however, to keep its roots still firmly rooted in the origins,” explains the author.
- There have never been rules:
skateboarding was born like this, without anyone to tell you what was okay and what wasn't.
And if over the years it has grown to become the phenomenon that many know today, it is above all thanks to the efforts, passion and initiative of the skaters who over the decades have personally contributed to its evolution, through the creation of events , competitions, federations, brands and so on”.
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