Skateboards were probably the first vehicles that allowed humans to experience the action of "riding a board and sliding sideways" on land. I think the experience of "sliding sideways" was so refreshing and fun, like the first time a child rode a swing or slipped on a slide for the first time.

Below, I'd like to explore the skateboard itself and the unspeakable "language" that has been deposited there.

One proof that people are finding enjoyment in sideways skateboarding is that from the 1960's to the present, there are people all over the world who have been riding skateboards from children to adults - people of all ages. Also, considering that adults enjoy roller coasters as an extension of children's enjoyment of slides, it is a matter of the "degree of stimulation" given to them, rather than the type of "movement" that humans feel pleasure in depending on their age.

Skateboarding is not just about "riding the board and skating sideways," it is also about discovering new ways to play in the name of "freedom" with a variety of creative ideas. That's what makes skateboarding so appealing to so many people.

In the early days of skateboarding, skateboarders were roughly divided into three types. I'm a "surfer", one who does "freestyle" tricks, slaloms, etc., and a "beginner who just wants to ride. In the "freestyle" they competed for tricks like how many rotations they could do on the flats, and in the slalom they competed for times. And the "beginner who just rides" felt that fresh experience with his whole body and genuinely enjoyed just riding. Only the "surfer" had already experienced "skating sideways" in the sea, so he superimposed surfing and skateboarding and reacquainted himself with the feeling on land. To explore the history of skateboarding in its current form, it is necessary to first consider surfing as an axis.

That's because it's so important for surfers to reflect and develop their sense of wave riding into skateboarding. The "freestyle" flat trick also contributed to the development of skateboarding, but it's not the same style that the "surfer" has developed. There is a big difference between "freestyle" and "street" and "R (pool/ramp/vertical)" (I'm not going to separate "street" and "R", but I'm going to do so here for convenience).

Freestyle and otherwise have gone down very different paths, but once approached and influenced, they've developed. The difference between the two is whether or not you've ever connected it to anything other than a skateboard. Skateboarding has gotten a lot out of connecting with other things. In other words, when a surfer rides a skateboard with the image of surfing, he is reaffirming two memories: his physical memory, which is a mechanism of movement, and his mental memory, which is an image.

When skateboarding first spread around the world in the 1960's, surfing was changing from longboarding, which had been the mainstream until then, to shortboarding, which took off in Australia and spread worldwide. At that time, there was a trend that shortboards were not allowed, but Hiroshi Unno's book describes how he was able to change that situation.

In his book about California's physical culture, Mr. Unno mentions skateboarding only in one line, "If it wasn't for the shortboard fad, skateboarding wouldn't have been born", but the reason why he thought that way is probably because of the ease of handling and rotation of shortboards. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of fine-tuning the surfboard and doing tricks on the longboard. I guess the sense of control over the shortboard led to the will to control the skateboard on land, and I was able to accept the small size without feeling too uncomfortable.

Surfers have been riding skateboards for some time now, but until then, surfing was the only way for humans to "skate sideways on a board". Because of their special movements, surfing and skateboarding were strongly linked, and surfers became hooked on skateboarding because it gave them a feeling similar to surfing. Even if I didn't go into the sea or stand on my skateboard at night, I could feel like I was riding a wave. I felt the identification of my reaction to skateboarding with surfing.

Surfers had conceptualized the action of "riding a board and moving sideways" by repeatedly experiencing the action of riding a surfboard and gliding sideways. For example, a child who starts using scissors for the first time does not know how to use them and does not know how many fingers to put through the hole, but if the usage is conceptualized, it can be used unconsciously without thinking that the fingers to put through the hole are thumb and middle finger. Having already conceptualized the "sideways motion on the board", I was able to immediately sense the similarity of skateboarding to surfing and apply the motion. When you ride a skateboard, you don't have to put up with the problem of surfing, such as the lack of waves or the sea being too slow to enter. At the very least, if it doesn't rain, that's all that matters.

Surfers wanted to skate greedily, so that when they were done surfing, the next time they would ride their skateboards in the beach parking lot.