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Rodney Mullen Skateboard Tricks
In the 1980’s where freestyle contests dominated the pro skateboarding circuit, Mullen entered his first contest at only eleven years old and won. He would go on to dominate the freestyle contests throughout the 80’s. It was during this time that he invented most of his tricks. When the 80’s came to a close and the 90’s began, freestyle skateboarding was going out of style and street skating was taking over. Mullen co-founded World Industries with fellow freestyle skateboarding pro Steve Rocco. Mullen was convinced by friends to ditch his old small freestyle deck and take to the larger street decks that everyone else was skating. He adapted all his freestyle tricks to street skating. While at World Industries, he also experimented with deck shapes of the boards they made, rounding the nose and tail and making them much higher and longer, with straight sides, making them essentially larger versions of the freestyle boards he used to skate. This basic shape is now the template for about 90% of today’s current decks. World Industries went on to become the top skateboard company in the world, having 80% of the market share, before they sold it. Mullen is the inventor of countless street skateboarding tricks, even the flatground ollie as we know it today. Alan Gelfand is credited with inventing the ollie, but he did it is pools, needing the speed of the vert to do it, and he never actually tapped the deck to the ground. Mullen w2as the first to discover that by hitting the tail to the ground for the pop, that it could be done on flat ground and ollies could be higher. Mullen was probably the first to ever ollie higher than six inches. If this was Mullen’s only contribution, he would still be a legend. But that is only the beginning. He also invented the kickflip & the 540 double kickflip, the heelflip & double heelflip, the impossible, the tre-flip (360 flip) as well as the 360 pressure Flip, the ollie fingerflip, airwalks, casper slides, darkslides, and 540 Shuvits. Here are just a few more: · Godzilla Rail Flip · 50-50 Saran Wrap · Helipops (360 Nollie) · Gazelles · No Handed 50-50 Kickflip · Sidewinders · Casper 360 Flip · 50-50 Sidewinders · One footed Ollie · Backside 180 Flip · Ollie Nosebones · Frontside Heelflip Shove-its · Switchstance 360 Flips · Helipop Heelflips · Kickflip Underflip · Caballerial impossible · Half-cab kickflip underflip · Handstand flips · Rusty slides A few more interesting Rodney Mullen factoids: Mullen won the very first freestyle competition he ever entered in 1977, not to mention winning almost every freestyle competition he entered thereafter. In fact, he only lost once in his entire life. When he came in second because he was sick. He is also not only the the co-founder of World Industries, but also the founder of Almost skateboard company. "Do what you love and try not to look at what other people occupy themselves with. Most people seem restless and bounce around too much to focus or even pay attention enough to themselves to figure out exactly what they really do love, as opposed to what the people that surround them are doing." - Rodney Mullen Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com Allan Clearpool is a skateboard blogger and lifelong skateboarder. For more on Rodney Mullen skateboard tricks, visit TipsForSkateboarding.com |
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