Lawn Surfing: Why Autumn’s Obsession with Rolling on Turf?It is...
Lawn Surfing: Why Autumn’s Obsession with Rolling on Turf?
It is perhaps not too unusual to see the occasional clip of a skateboarder rolling on grass or dirt. Typically after landing a trick they might roll out onto concrete and then some grass. Yet, over the last few weeks the number of clips in which grassland has actually become the focus of the trick seems to have swelled. Indeed, Autumn’s video offerings see a remarkable inclusion in the number of clips where lawn is the chosen terrain. Why?
Firstly let’s look at the evidence. I have screen capped a collection of videos. In each case the grass either provides the landing or the roll in for a trick. The most obvious culprit is the October FA offering ‘Dancing on Thin Ice’ where we see three solid clips in which lawn is used counterintuitively. Aidan Mackey’s manual to lawn manual is a prime example of my topic. So too is Kevin Rodrigues’s tree root nose grind. Then in Franky Villani’s ‘One Big Mess’ part we see a feeble grind to a lawn landing. Also check Daewon’s dirt lawn roll up, kickflip, lawn landing. I also spotted other lawn rolls in the Glue skateboards video, and an unnecessary dirt carve in the Lottie’s video.
First off, the lawn trick is far from new. The Worble and their rewilding ethic have made the use of organic material feature in their videos a staple. Rocks, trees, and dirt have all appeared as novelty obstacles in their videos and others. Even special skits about rain, and all terrain skateboarding are nothing new. Yet, this nestling of clips, at this particular time, from the videos released by these brands has set me pondering.
Possibly Autumn’s rise in lawn clips can be attributed to Covid-19 and the necessity to be more creative with terrain. Lack of travel may have encouraged people to see spots and home grown possibilities anew. There was certainly no lawn clips in the Berrics recent Shanghai based video ‘Diplomatic Immunity’. The Covid factor, should not be dismissed as one facet of Autumn lawn clip. Another contributing factor, slowly gathering momentum over the years is the perfection of skateparks. The love hate relationship with the often perfect, too often simply pre-crafted, and dare I say sterile, terrain of skateparks might be making skateboarders even more ‘all-terrain.’ Brian Glenney and I wrote a paper on the hybrid nature of skateparks. We argued that whatever skateboarders skate in the wild of the city, becomes incorporated into the skatepark. Take the Pole Jam as an example. Skateparks aren’t static, they develop with skateboarding preferences. Might we therefore see at some point in the future skateparks with skatestoppers, boulders, and in light of recent findings, a lawn?
Yet, more sensibly the Autumn lawn clip is probably just an abberation. It will likely be less common and obvious in the following months. So enjoy this harvest of clips and be watchful of future additions.
