Skate Rats on the Streets

Skateboarding is one of the attractive and extreme hobbies which teenagers are doing right now. It takes a lot of courage to take a flight with a skateboard. However, group of skaters are seen visibly on the streets doing their thing and showing to the people that they have the guts and courage to take the risks. Skaters can be called as “fighters” because they have the spirits of fighting the pain they experienced just to stay in the game of life, falling and getting up from that failure. They survived from skateboarding and even become the best skateboarders with their attitude of learning from that mistakes in every tricks. Its not about failure but it’s about the things you learned in order to be the best.

Skateboarding is an expression of oneself, a pastime, a lifestyle and a sport. Skateboarding is so simple to look at. At first glance, you can easily imagine yourself riding and outdo the tricks.I, myself is a skateboarder too. And yes, you can actually say that it’s too easy playing with your skateboard,but once you’ve tried it, then you would surely say “It’s not that simple”. I really had a hard time to learn skateboarding. I’ve practiced a lot just to know how to stay on balance on top of the skateboard but what’s the most important in skateboarding is the passion to learn. A good skateboarder should have the great courage in order to surpassed the fears inside. This is very significant in learning the game of skateboarding because fears would trigger you from lost of concentration and control and this would lead to falling.

A typical skateboard, as developed by the mid-1970s, covers three main elements: deck, two trucks and four wheels. The riding surface, or deck, is usually made out of wood, covered with high-friction grip tape similar to sandpaper. Two trucks provide the suspension and turning mechanism, usually by a ‘double-action’ mechanism consisting of a metal hanger and split axle pivoting around two rubber or urethane bushings on a central king-pin. Turning circle and stability are adjusted by tightening the bushing compression. The truck assembly is cast from an aluminum alloy (originally steel) with steel axles and bolted to the deck via the metal base plate; a 5–15 mm ‘riser pad’ may be added between base plate and deck to increase wheel clearance and riding height. Wheels, once metal or ‘clay’, are now exclusively made from molded polyurethane. Each wheel measures 40–70 mm in diameter and 25–45 mm in width, and contains two sealed bearings held apart by a short metal spacer. This standard skateboard-device specification was not immediately arrived at, however, but developed over twenty or more years, and it is worth recalling this evolution before turning to more overt considerations of space in skateboarding. The top brands for skateboards:oard deck are:

Zero

Habitat

Plan B

Element

Powell

Blind

Birdhouse and Blitz

Girl and Chocolate

Toy Machine

LIB Technologies

Alien workshop

You wanna learn how to play skateboarding? First you must choose what foot you’re comfortable placing in front of the board for maintaining the balance and the other foot for kicking . It is important that you must first choose the correct positioning of your foot according to your comfort, because this is the key to stay in balance. There are actually two stances, these are regular and goofy. Regular with the left foot in front and goofy with the right foot in front. Well, I am a goofy-skater,how about you? After learning the stance, the next thing you need to know is how to stay in balance and how to steer the board. After pushing the board with your foot, riding in the board with both feet is the next step to do. Bending your knees forward and putting your weight forward would help you to maintain the balance as you go on with the ride. If you’d wanted to stop, just push the backside of the board downward. After learning the basics in skateboarding, the next step is to learn the different skateboarding trickss like the most popular Ollie, Kick turns, 50-50 Grinds, Board slides, Rock N’ Rolls, Truck Stands, Manuals, Kick flips.  If you have learned all these things then you are now ready to be a Skate Rat on the Streets.