What is Skateboarding?

Here’s a simple question that can be challenging and difficult to answer: what is skateboarding? Now we know what a skateboard is and what skateboarding is like. For those who don’t know, a skateboard is a flat piece of wood with wheels attached to its bottom and the skateboard is the act of moving by moving your body on top of the skateboard deck. Now that of course is a very rudimentary definition of the entire skate package, but hopefully you’ll at least get it.

In fact, skateboarding can be many different things. It all depends on how and what you intend to use your skateboard or longboard for. For many skateboard professionals and enthusiasts, the act and use of a skateboard can have many different variables. Let’s take a look at some of the different ways that people use a skateboard:

1. As a means of transportation: This makes perfect sense, since a skateboard is designed to allow people the freedom to move quickly. Many young people are realizing that skateboarding is a great way to navigate an urban center without worrying about gas prices, locating parking spots, and releasing harmful toxins into the environment. Just as more and more people are cycling to work, many people now also skateboard to their workplaces, or wherever they need to go.

2. Skateboarding as an activity: Some people run, some people swim, some people climb mountains, and other people decide and choose to skateboard for fun and recreation. Skateboarding is a great way to get in shape and improve your overall body balance, posture, and flexibility. Additionally, skateboarding as an activity is relatively inexpensive to start compared to other forms of sports, recreation, or hobbies.

3. The skateboard as an art form: If you’ve seen some of the tricks and moves that high-level skaters can perform on their decks, you would definitely agree that skateboarding is an art form. The sheer fluidity of the way the board moves to the gravity-defying heights that internals achieve in the twists and turns they can achieve while in the air really makes skateboarding a physical performance art form. Also, some of the designs on the skateboards themselves are true visual sights to behold.

4. As a profession: Yes, there are professional skaters who make their living participating in competitions all over the world. From tricks to jumping jacks to racing, more and more people with athletic inclinations are looking to skateboarding as a way to make money. An established part of the X-Games, skateboarding has taken over all corners of the world and people realize that skateboarding is indeed a profitable and fun way to earn a living. In fact, it could be argued that it is only a matter of time before skating reaches the Olympics.

So the next time you look at a skateboard, don’t just see it as a piece of wood with wheels attached or glued on. Consider all its possible definitions and possibilities, and how people use the skateboard in their everyday lives, both personally as a source of fun and enjoyment, and professionally as a source of income. Since its development in the 1940s, skateboarding has exploded like few cultural pursuits before or since.