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Comment by lloeki | Hacker News Reader

I've always been fascinated by Rodney Mullen, and only learned years later he was nicknamed the Godfather of skateboarding.

And with good reason! He rose in fame at a young age, pulling up insane freestyle tricks, yet started before street skateboarding was a thing, and was overnight rendered obsolete.

But he went on to reinvent himself and created so many tricks, some he's still the only one able to do, or do with anything close to that level of mastery.

He then suffered a medical issue where his hip joint fused... Wasn't supposed to skate ever again but came back from it, relearning everything with a different balance.

He's over 50 now, and skating with such style[0], pulling off one-handstand flips which is insane at any age.

I respect Tony Hawk, but Mullen is an alien alright, less popular but so much more fundamental for skateboarding.

https://youtu.be/xjMGAQCXppc

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I know relatively little about skateboarding, but there's a certain genius-from-restriction, literally tinkering-in-the-garage romance to Mullen's skateboarding journey that I really like. From Wikipedia [1]:

> When his family moved to a farm in a remote part of Florida, Mullen began perfecting his flatground techniques in the family garage; he has said that the isolation and lack of terrain naturally guided him towards freestyle skateboarding. Mullen cites July 1979–August 1980 as his "most creative time," a time when he was predominantly a loner who counted the cows of the family farm as his best friends....[i]n 1980, the 14-year-old Mullen entered the Oasis Pro competition, defeating the world champion, Steve Rocco.

Every now and then I think about trying skateboarding again, but I wince just thinking about all that force on early-30s knees.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Mullen

> Every now and then I think about trying skateboarding again, but I wince just thinking about all that force on early-30s knees.

Yeah, I think skateboarding is probably what KILLED my knees, and I cannot imagine how I would pick up anything BUT mini ramps and verts now, and even then, probably very little air, and just grinds, slides, and carves.

I was never a pretty skater, but my signature trick was a double kick indy on flat. It was ugly, it was way to fast, but it was something I could do that no one else around me could. Sure I couldn't nollie inward heel, or 360 flip, or tail slide, but I could double kick to indy. I'm still look back fondly on the sheer number of attempts before I could land it consistently forsaking learning all the other tricks everyone else was learning, just so I could do something stupid that no one else even wanted to.

>just so I could do something stupid that no one else even wanted to

this pretty much sums up the joys of skating

> Yeah, I think skateboarding is probably what KILLED my knees ...

Are stunt scooters safer in this regard? Asking because I just bought one for our 7-year-old son. I've been involved in jump-and-run sports all my life, but I do feel somewhat uneasy. This is Kids with Only Two Knees, Wrists and Ankles and Only One Skull meeting Really Hard Surfaces, hm.

Also, should I be worried that Bad Influences characteristic to the skateboard/scooter scene are going to turn my kid into a junkie?

BTW, in Early 1990s Estonia, during the strange mixture of post-communist socialism and predatory capitalism, essentially only one kind of skateboard was available. So this was pretty much all you could see; these were everywhere, and sold with a ridiculously low price: https://bit.ly/2SihYmd

As mentioned above I skated for more than 10 years and have perfectly fine knees (and all other joints as far as I can tell). And I did crazy stuff, like jumping down stairs higher than myself etc. My younger brother fucked up his knees by playing handball indoors (rapid changes of direction are bad).

So I think it really depends on the individual, and what they are doing. Some people destroy thwir knees by stepping out of bed the wrong way.

Make sure the kid warms up and does stretches before going for anything crazy, that helps a lot.

Scooters are probably a lower risk activity in some ways, but with that come some of the lack of positives you get in the nature of playing. In Skateboarding, you're constantly trying to figure out how to do stuff and how not to hurt yourself too badly doing it. While there are some scummy skaters out there, they aren't going to turn your kid into a junkie any more than anything else will, if you teach them appropriately, but certainly not at that young an age. Skateboarding has some risks, but is a great social activity, teaches perseverance, and is cool.

There's a kid (12) that comes to the park I skate at regularly with his mom (probably hovering a bit much, but she's alright) and has generally positive influences all around, while progressing very quickly.

> Are stunt scooters safer in this regard?

Nope (or barely so), impact is impact. See https://www.thedailypush.com/footprint-insoles

> Also, should I be worried that Bad Influences characteristic to the skateboard/scooter scene are going to turn my kid into a junkie?

You can't help a teenager having the rebellious feelings ;)

That said, if you're worrying about a cultural aspect being a bad influence, part of the skateboarding crowd is moving towards a healthier lifestyle, because it's the right thing to do if you love skateboarding for what it is (which means you want to skate forever).

The days of Dustin Dollin and Ali Boubala are by and large gone.

Look into Andrew Reynolds and Neen Williams, the latter of which turned his life around 180degs.

Every now and then I think about trying skateboarding again, but I wince just thinking about all that force on early-30s knees

Nah, go for it. I got my start last summer when my kids bought me a board for my 49th birthday.

Their mistake, since now I’m the one dragging them to the skatepark on sunny mornings to beat the hordes of scooter kids.

I skated from 10 to 20 and staeted again with 30. I never had a single issue with my knees. Usually I can feel my ankles after a long session, but that isn't really something.

If you are worried about your knees there are certainly low impact tricks (most of the freestyle stuff) that you could start with. This is also a great way to start, because you learn to control your board before actually trying stuff that might hurt your joints.

The thing I love about skateboarding is that you can do it everywhere, and you can do it alone. It never gets old and it changes the way you look at places in a good way.

Lifetime skater here. You hit the nail on the head with the 'genius-from-restriction'. I call it "the Mullen effect"

Every generation has a handful of those skaters that grew up in total isolation. Instagram and other social media has made it less likely that a skater stays fully separated, but those that do still stand out.

The big one of the last generation was Chris Cole, who grew up skating in his driveway with a little ledge he built himself. Similar to Mullen mastering flatground, Cole mastered every single ledge trick. The term "NBD" (Never Been Done) was coined to describe the tricks that only he is known to have done

> Every now and then I think about trying skateboarding again, but I wince just thinking about all that force on early-30s knees.

Warm up diligently, skate respectful of your body.

Lots of tips at https://www.thedailypush.com including a very recent post about impact.

Good posture, some workout, and proper insoles go a long way towards being able to skate forever.

I wouldn't say Mullen is less popular, at least amongst skaters.

I skateboarded in the mid to late 80s and had a Powell Peralta Mullen board (in addition to a normal street/vert board), so my memories of Mullen really were of this geeky kid in helmet and pads doing the impossible and rarely messing up. More than anyone else, I would watch Bones Brigade VHS tapes on slow motion to figure out just how the heck he pulled this stuff off.

I have a theory that freestyle never went anywhere because Mullen was just too good - no one watching him could ever think "yeah, I could do that".

That's not to take anything away from Tony Hawk, but for instance, he had contemporaries like Hosoi to keep him in check. Mullen was an island. So happy to find out years later he transitioned to being the king of street skating. Obviously many of the street tricks he invented were on that tiny freestyle board, so he deserves the title regardless, but it's just so cool to see he had a second career and has maintained relevance into advanced age like Tony.

I wouldn't say he's less popular. I like to think of both of them as the two sides of the same coin. Within the skating community there's probably not a single person not knowing both names and a great amount of detail about both of them. If anything I'd argue that if you adjust the publicity around both of them you'd see that they've dragged in similar proportions of people. But over time little to none stick with the ultimate goal to become their modern version. I suppose it has something to do with what is popular as a whole. What is interesting is that overall skateboarding is a subset of rebellion or at least it's viewed as such and back in the day that was considered a good thing within the community. I'm not sure what's the situation now. The point is that at least during the 2000's neither Hawk or Mullen were representing that rebellious spirit all that much which is why people were going in other directions. Now that I think of it, there's the Thrasher Skater of the year award[1] which accurately captures every era over the last 30 years. Public competitions, to street skate-rats, to the "we're in a videogame, let's throw ourselves down the biggest set of stairs we can find" to... Uugh.. As I said I have no idea what is happening now.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrasher_(magazine)#Skater_of_...

Maybe "popular" isn't the correct word, maybe "mainstream" is?

To illustrate, people far removed from the skateboarding crowd see me with a skateboard and jokingly refer to me as either "Tony Hawk" or "Marty McFly", not because of any resemblance in skill mind you (I'm not even doing vert, and even then, I can barely heelflip) but because these are the people that conjure images of skateboarding to them, whereas they of course have no idea who Mullen is.

In that sense Tony Hawk has entered pop culture like no other skateboarder has.

> As I said I have no idea what is happening now.

There's another revival in progress. The scene is getting incredibly more diverse. See Killian Martin's videos by Bret Novak, very dance like, awesome filming and storytelling. There are more women that ever, which is way overdue. There are old skaters still skating. There are both old and new skaters aiming for a healthy lifestyle. The "old, rebellious way" is still there, it's just not the only way to be a skateboarder anymore.

Rodney Mullen is an interesting guy. I highly recommend his autobiography if you haven't read it. When he was entering freestyle competitions early on it was never a question of who would win but rather who would come in second behind Rodney. Nobody could compete with him because he was inventing new tricks (many of which are still staples of street skating) at such a rapid pace. His commitment was otherworldly. When he was in his teens he would get home from school and skateboard until it was time to go to bed. Every day.

This video (and their others) seems heavily inspired by Olivier Gondry's music video for Tiga.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-v-rBCFuAk

I grew up watching Tony Hawk take the world by storm, but Mullen was the guy that could do all the tricks you dismiss as impossible to pull off when BSing with buddies about what-ifs. His control of a skateboard is legendary.

He invented the ollie which enabled most other skating tricks.

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