The
Coelecanth Effect
by Kyle Duvall
Art by Keith Shore
40 years ago a fishermen trawling the waters off the coast of
Madagascar pulled up a strange specimen in their nets. It was
not a particularly pretty or majestic form of sea life. In fact
it was rather ugly, with coarse brown scales and thick awkward
looking fins. Later, when scientists examined this bizarre catch,
they confirmed that it was, to the shock of the world, a fish
called a Coelecanth, a prehistoric remnant that had, up until
then, been considered extinct for millions of years. Today,
in the waters near Madagascar, the Coelecanth is thriving once
more, eons after its alleged disappearance from the face of
the earth. Like
the humble Coelecanth, some skateboard tricks disappear only
to be re-discovered in a later age by new explorers. Anyone
who has logged over a decade of skateboarding is familiar with
this phenomenon. Tricks, like fashion and skateboarding’s
relative popularity, are cyclic.
There are many notable examples. Some younger skaters may be
surprised to hear that some of today’s basic tricks were
once rare, even non-existent. One trick that immediately springs
to mind: The wall ride. From its invention (most say by Jesse
Martinez) in the 80s up until about 1990, wallrides were an
integral part of skating’s street repertoire. It was another
example of urban adaptation, a defiance of the laws of gravity
that redefined where a skateboard could go. But like so many
other tricks, the wall ride was done-in by small wheel tech
skating in the early 90s. By ‘92 a wall ride was as rare
as a pair of Vision punkskull shorts or a Skull Skates dead
guys board.
Today, the wall ride is back, largely due to today’s east
coast pioneers like Ricky Oyola and Matt Reason, who resurrected
the wall jam by using cellar doors as makeshift banks-to-wall
on the gritty streets of New York and Philadelphia. New variations
on the wall ride are being created constantly, and now it’s
hard to believe they ever went out of style.
Tech skating killed a lot of tricks. It almost wiped out vert
skating. At one time something as basic and integral as the
kickflip was passé. Around ‘92, pro’s were
doing heelflips, nollie flips, switch flips and all kinds of
other tech maneuvers, and it seemed like a good clean single
kickflip wasn’t good enough. Count the number of kickflips
in a mag today. The trick is a no-brainer. Like Q-Tip said,
things go in cycles.
Did Peralta or Alva ever imagine a day when skating pools wasn’t
a major part of pro skateboarding? When pool skating went deep
underground in the early 90s, did they ever imagine a time would
come again when pool skating would not only regain its place
in our art, but a time when it would grow important enough to
be featured in a nationally televised contest like the recent
Soul Bowl Masters event?
Whole genres of skating have died and risen from the grave.
Vert skating was struggling throughout the first half of the
last decade. Vert skating for Christ’s sake! Can you imagine
skating without vert? Concrete parks, and the unique style that
comes form working them, faded with the extinction of places
like Del Mar and The Upland Pipeline. Look around today. Can
anyone say “Combi-Pool?” Even launch ramps are viable
again. Klein and Kirchart literally set the world on fire by
resurrecting the launch ramp and taking it to the next level.
Nowadays, some skaters are like conservation officers, working
their hardest to keep their favorite tricks from silent extinction.
Ed Templeton is the most notable example of this. Ed won’t
let the ollie impossible fade into oblivion, and he shouldn’t;
it’s a rad trick, a trick that was a standard, the holy
grail of street tricks not too long ago. Ed was also a pioneer
of the noseblunt slide, and its re-emergence on the streets
owes a lot to his persistence. Mike Vallely is the same way.
As long as Vallely is pushing, the no-comply and the boneless
will live in the protected environment of Mike V’s unique
style. What about Jamie Thomas, he’s probably done more
to preserve the ollie-grab on street than anyone else in this
sport.
Of course, not all tricks are so fortunate, some die for the
good of skating, like the pressure flip. How many of us remember
when the pressure flip was the trick? The pressure flip died
because it had no versatility. You could take it to grind or
tailslide on a low ledge, if you were really the shit you could
take it over 9 stairs, tops, but it didn’t have much of
a function otherwise. I can’t really see the pressure flip
emerging again.
Some tricks die and then re-emerge by switching terrain. The
front-foot impossible, also known as the chainsaw, is one of
these evolvers. When Damian Carbajal busted this one out in
This is Not the New H-street Video, skaters wore out their thumbs
clicking the rewind button to check if what they had just seen
was real. It was a rad trick, but once again, no versatility.
You can’t take the chainsaw anywhere. But now even the
chainsaw is coming back, making a new existence on vert, where
ramp innovator Mathias Ringstrom has pulled it from the bag
and brought it into a whole new level.
Of course, evolution has also killed many a trick. Why do a
noseslide when you can do a crooked grind? Why do a backside
fingerflip air when you could do a backside kickflip? Why do
a slappie when you can ollie to 50-50?
The interesting part of this whole train of thought is that
skateboarding actually has a heritage now and you can look back
through it and learn from it, revitalize the future with the
past. There’s a lot of Coelecanth tricks out there waiting
to be pulled back through the mists of time and brought into
the light once more. How about the late shove-it? People have
been furtively doing this one again. Unlike some of the other
tricks I mentioned, the late shove-it is super versatile. You
can do it high enough to go over big obstacles, you can do it
360, you can throw in a body varial and make it a big spin.
You can do it on transition, to grab, even throw in a late kickflip
like Kerry Getz. Back in the day Sheffey would bust late shove-it
variations over picnic tables. Think of what could be done today.
Does anybody remember the nose-bump? It’s a simple enough
concept. The nose bump was basically a quick nose manual. Take
something with a small surface, a bench set sideways, a toppled
trash can, anything, pop an ollie over it, nose down for a split
second and bump off of it with your front wheels. It’s
really a nose grind without a lip, and different from a nose
manual in both its execution and appearance. The nose bump was
around before switch skating, so there’s one new twist
already. Of course, in its heyday not only was every obstacle
imaginable nose-bumped, but it was also taken to 360 shove it
out, backside 180, it was half-cabbed, tail-grabbed, whatever.
Think of what today’s tech wizards could attempt. Nose-bump
to nollie flip? Switch nose bump to fakie kickflip? Maybe these
variations are impossible. Who knows until we try.
There are even more tricks like this: The one-footed ollie,
the back-foot kickflip, and all those crazy railslide/lipslide
to grind combo-tricks. What about the backside 360 ollie? The
list could go on and on.
The main point of this is not to promote trick trends, but rather
to open up possibilities; to urge people to dust off their old
videos and mags and broaden their horizons. That’s what
today’s best skaters are doing. It’s also to say this:
do the tricks you want, stick with your old favorites, not just
because they may come back to prominence, but because no one
has the right to tell you what is cool. So go to your local
ledge spot and do a boneless to tail. Bust out a chink-chink
at your next mini-ramp session, and take a little time to pour
some on the curb for the tricks that didn’t make it, the
ollie airwalks and ho-ho’s; the inward flips and bertleman
slappies; because maybe, just maybe, they’re not as dead
as you think.
Like
the humble Coelecanth, some skateboard tricks disappear only
to be re-discovered in a later age by new explorers. Anyone
who has logged over a decade of skateboarding is familiar with
this phenomenon. Tricks, like fashion and skateboarding’s
relative popularity, are cyclic.