“I told five people, all non skaters, non skateboarders the name ‘freestyle rolling’ they thought that was worse than rollerblading and I presented the question in a non biased way” Same thing happened to me with 2 people. It reminded them about artistic rollerskating.

respect for all bladers, style or level aside

Rollerblading has and needs many faces. When one of its faces decides to say this is the new style of rollerblading and produces an edit which predominantly showcases a particular style which seems so closely linked to the genre of music known as hip hop its going to aggravate other people who don’t view rollerblading in the same way.

Whatever your preference that was really, really poor. It was poorly made and did not show anything new. Rollerblading can look good regardless of your clothing or musical choices and different styles complement each other.

What spoils this is when there is so much infighting about how people skate and really this just highlights how immature we still are. By insulting other people because of what they like to wear, listen to, you also alienate those who currently are not part of rollerblading or perhaps just starting out.

Also by judging a rollerblader on the tricks they can do you critique them to the point where they may feel unsuccessful and then loose interest. This Hammertime culture CAN create a situation where by if you can’t skate at the same level as everybody else or as you were once able to then perhaps rollerblading is not for you.

Encouragement is the answer, something that is often much harder to do than criticise and again the ability to do this no matter your preferences comes with maturity.

And to those who say oh just skate it doesn’t matter, it does! We are not growing up at the same time as skateboarding and the world is now a much more image conscious place. Whether you care about this or not is irrelevant but we need to be careful how we show ourselves to the outside world. Our media should show a range of styles and ages and must be made in a way that portrays how fun rollerblading is not something made in the style of another culture.

I’m not criticising the style but this edit is extremely embarrassing solely because of how ignorant it is to rollerblading’s bigger picture. By re-branding a certain side of rollerblading you will not achieve any lasting success it needs everyone on board. Barely Dead was heading in the right direction. I’m not hating on any rollerblader but this is definitely not the right direction forward.

P.S. Where’s the vert skating. People keep talking about Tony Hawk- money but he skates vert which initially has more of a visual impact. That edit was mainly tech tricks on small boxes. There’s a reason why the little kid asks you “can you do a backflip”. The general public will never appreciated the technical aspect of most of our tricks until they have experienced it for themselves. Tricks need to look good show creativity and we must look like were having fun!

Flash news : Gap enters the sport and sponsors a team ! Great ! Levi’s does too and create a L5 special brand for rollerblading ! Great ! As you say : “watch rollerblading get big” …

…But where are they now ? Where are they when our shops are struggling and not a single “pro” can be paid a decent salary ?

Dipskate, i wish you the best… Hope you’re still here when you realize there’s no “Tony Hawk money” in this industry. Cause you surely won’t.