Julian Gioffre

Mr. Hayes

English 100

1/28/13

Word Count: 916

Writers Outline for Essay 1

Skateboarding as a Sport Today

“Dude, I just don’t understand why you find skateboarding so interesting.” says my friend Chris on our way to school. “It’s probably not even a real sport, just some stupid stunts that kids try to do instead of doing something productive with their lives.” I thought for a moment to myself and realized how ignorant and stupid Chris sounded. I just could not believe that he really thinks that skateboarding is nothing more than child’s play. Actually now that I think about it, if I were to go up to random strangers and ask what they thought about skateboarding I probably would have gotten the same opinions.

In reality, skateboarding actually has nothing to do with kids performing stupids stunts to impress their friends. There's more to it then trying to throw yourself down huge stair sets, off rooftops, or even dropping into a twenty foot tall half pipe in your next door neighbors back yard. Skateboarding is a world wide sport and a form of art.

So I ask Chris why he thinks that skateboarding revolves around little kids and stupid stunts. He says to me “Because everyday I always see kids riding around on their boards looking for spots to skate; whenever I go on youtube I always see similar kids who are falling off their boards and end up almost dying trying to do tricks down stairs.” After hearing this, I remembered watching videos of kids breaking bones or ending up in the hospital from a near death accident  not because of the actual skateboarding, but because of the amount of stupid things some of those kids were doing. Something you’ll see a lot thats often portrayed about skateboarding is in cartoons. Cartoons make the biggest stereotypes when it comes to putting an image about the sport to little kids and young audiences.

A big issue that I have with people who criticize skateboarding is that they seem to lack a lot of knowledge about what is actually being performed in the sport. A lot of what they believe comes from cartoons or TV shows that present extremely fake and unrealistic scenarios to their audiences. They make up a lot tricks that are physically impossible to do and make skateboarders look bad and appeal to the public as “cocky” or “stuck up.” Most of the time skateboarders don’t even go around bothering people or even act stuck up to other skaters. A lot of what happens out there is that when skateboarders are going around doing their own thing, people feel the need to go out of there way and tell them to stop skateboarding or even go as far as to grab them and try to take matters into their own hands.

Aside from the stereotypes and common misconceptions made about skateboarding and skateboarders, having a basic understanding about the mechanics of the sport can help increase people's interest towards it. I feel like people need some sort of a list or a simple breakdown of the sport so that people can have a better sense of what is actually going on in the sport. I am going to provide a small informative breakdown so that this could possibly help strengthen people’s idea of skateboarding.

Street Skating: When it comes to street skating, there are no rules to what can or cannot be done. There are a lot of dangers that the skater needs to be aware of when skating because his or her life is being put on the line. In street skating, the skater performs his or her tricks over stair sets, onto handrails, or even landmarks. They can vary anywhere from grinding, airing, sliding, or even manualing (when a skater balances his board while moving) on top of benches in parks or public schools.

Vert Skating: Unlike street skating, vert skating takes place at a skatepark. Vert skating is all about doing huge grabs and doing tricks high above the ground on half pipes and vert ramps. Vert can be a seriously scary thing to try at first because it requires you to be comfortable with throwing yourself high above the ramp, possibly up to ten or more feet in the air. Although this may sound a scary and more dangerous than street skating, if you're wearing the proper protection (helmet, knee pads, and elbow pads) then you could be putting yourself at less of a risk then street skating.

Contests: Contests are very similar to vert and street skating. The major difference between them is that they have rules, and a set time limit. They require a huge amount of skill and tons of practicing prior to the events. The contest can either be street, vert, or in some cases, both categories. Contests often hold lots of benefits and can bring you huge success in your skating career if you place with the top competitors or simply win first place to win huge prizes and sponsorship possibilities.

Street Skateboarding Vs. Vert Skateboarding: We have gone over the types of skateboarding out there that makes up the modern sport today. A lot of people have their own personal preference as what style of skateboarding they prefer, but that doesn’t mean that one style is better than the other. Each style has its own benefits and its own dangers that people learn how to adapt to over time.