From Water to Land: Surfing the Concrete Wave

As early as the 1500s, the sport of surfing was being practiced by royalty (kings and dukes) on the islands of Hawaii. Since then, surfing—riding the ocean's waves on a board—has grown into an international sport, an activity used as much for recreation and exercise as it is beloved as a lifestyle and meditation. For a surfer to harness the Earth's natural energies of wind and water, he or she must possess an incredible amount of strength, balance, and agility, and must learn to understand and feel the rhythm of waves.

But there aren't always waves to ride. Sometimes the ocean is calm and flat, making surfing impossible. In the late 1950s, America's coastal youth used these situations to harness another of the Earth's energies: gravity. They attached four wheels to wooden boards and rode these boards on streets as skateboarders.

Surfing's influence on the sport of skateboarding is so significant that any history of skateboarding would show surfing as its father and as its greatest stylistic inspiration. In the past 50 years, the two sports have grown to mirror one another in technique, athleticism, and culture. Through professional sponsorships, hundreds of annual competitions, and clothing and product lines, surfing and skateboarding have become the most popular extreme sports worldwide.

In the beginning, it was surfboard manufacturers that started producing and selling skateboards. The California-based surfboard companies Hobie and Makaha—owned by the publisher of Surf Guide magazine—were among the first designers and distributors of professional skateboards, and in 1963 Makaha formed the first professional skateboard team. By 1964, skateboarding contests were gaining popularity throughout California, as skaters used surfing maneuvers like carving (turning quickly) on the pavement. Soon, skateboarding was called "sidewalk surfing," and some of the earliest skaters even skateboarded barefoot (without anything on their feet), as their relationship to the water and the concrete was so similar. But one year later, the short-lived sport all but disappeared. Production of skateboards ended, and it became impossible to find boards to purchase in stores.

Meanwhile, in the beach communities of south Santa Monica and Venice, California, a revolution in skateboarding was taking place. Named "Dogtown" by the locals, these neighborhoods were plagued by poverty, crime, street gangs, and drugs. But being on the beachfront, Dogtown also had waves to surf. The tough atmosphere in Venice bred a group of very aggressive surfers and skaters who created a style of skateboarding that was like nothing the world had seen before. Their surf-based street skating was so unconventional that it revived the sport in the mid-1970s and was the beginning of the modern skateboarding movement.

Inspired by the new surfing styles of the time, the surfers of Dogtown started incorporating a low, pivotal style to their skateboarding, crouching down on their boards and carving on the pavement like they did in the ocean waves. They saw surfers touching the waves with their hands as they rode on surfboards, so they began touching the ground with their hands as they made turns on skateboards. It wasn't long before Dogtown formed its own surfing and skateboarding teams, called the Zephyr teams, which began to enter surfing and skateboarding contests throughout California.

Two of the most talented and innovative members of the Zephyr Skate Team were Jay Adams and Tony Alva. These young athletes were the first to skateboard in empty swimming pools, a style of skating most like surfing in its form. The sloping concrete walls of pools are shaped like the inside of ocean waves, so riding up and down these walls requires the same balance and coordination as surfing.

"Skating was what you did when the waves weren't good," says Jay Adams in Dogtown and Z-boys, a documentary film about the Zephyr Team's enormous contribution to the skateboarding world. Adams's teammate, Tony Alva, echoes this thought in The Concrete Wave: The History of Skateboarding when he says, "It was all about taking the moves we were doing in the water, surfing, and putting them on concrete." In 1975, when the Zephyr Skate Team participated in the first national skateboarding competition since the death of skateboarding 10 years earlier, they exhibited their revolutionary style of surf-inspired skating and reintroduced the sport to the world in a brand new style.

In the years since the Zephyr Team amazed skateboarding fans with their originality, skateboarding has gained credibility as a sport. Like surfing, it has become very commercially successful, thanks to professional competitions and sponsorships and to its appeal as an exercise in athletic and stylistic innovation. Professional skateboarders like the brilliant Rodney Mullen have invented skateboarding tricks, such as the 360 kickflip, that display incredible physical strength and grace.

Also akin to surfing are the differences between skateboard lengths and shapes. When a surfer wants to ride smaller waves in a more relaxed style, he or she will often ride a longboard, which is long and wide. These boards allow for better balance, but they allow less mobility in the water. Likewise, longer, wider skateboards are used for a more relaxed style of skateboarding, better for skating downhill or traveling farther distances. On the other hand, surfers and skateboarders who want to perform tricks and maneuvers that require a lot of movement will use shorter, narrower boards, which allow the rider to move more quickly and freely.

With the rise of skateboarding as a professional sport, many magazines, videos, and competitions have brought its riders international fame and have spread its appeal all over the world. In countries such as Japan, Brazil, and Australia, where surfing is a major sport, skateboarding continues to succeed. In 1990, an Australian postage stamp even featured a professional skateboarder. Skateboarding still struggles to gain worldwide acceptance as a sport, but as more and more people recognize skateboarding as a legitimate athletic activity, the riders of concrete waves will remember their sport's greatest influence—the surfers of wind and water.