Connect Skate

Game of SKATE!! @antiqueskate

1:59 pm • 25 May 2013

Come out on Saturday to this big game of SKATE! Some of our dudes are skating and some are judging…but we’re all gonna have fun weeeeee! @connectluc @bradfordfoto @hazeyg @haydenar

11:17 am • 21 May 2013 • 1 note

Editorial: Street League

By Luc Nakashoji

Started in 2010, Street League was started by Rob Dyrdek. Now, everyone has their opinion on Dyrdek and whether he’s still legit or not, but we’ll leave that out in this article. It was supposed to “revolutionize skate competition”, implementing an instant scoring system where you would know your score as soon as you landed your trick. At the time, I think many were intrigued. Maybe an actual skateboarder could shake things up. Street League’s competitors are 24 “elite” professional skateboarders, at first controversially on contract to only skate one competition outside of SL per year. This has since become less talked about, assumedly because this restriction has been relaxed.

What happened was this opened up the X-Games to other pros who weren’t the “usual winners” and I actually think this made the X-Games more interesting. But now SL has joined the X-Games, going on a world tour of sorts. The first event of the season took place on April 20^th in Brazil.

I’ll be honest, I’ve watched a few of these contests. I remember the first time I watched a Street League event. It was so weird…skaters would do one trick and stop. There was no flow or anything. At least Chris Cole (who I’m a fan of) would keep rolling and do a few more tricks after his attempt. The format has evolved a bit though, with the first section including runs now. This year has also introduced the SL Select series, where the winning skateboarder gets to join the others for the prelims to hopefully qualify for the finals…but do they have any realistic chance at all to win this thing? Think of how tired you’d be.

Anyway, though I have seen some of the appeal of the whole instant scoring feature, it’s not exciting. Why? Many stick to their safe tricks. I don’t really care to watch Sean Malto nollie nosegrind a hubba built in an arena. What else takes the excitement out it? Nyjah always wins. You have to survive the first two parts (the lowest scoring skater gets dropped each round) but the last section is the most important, and it’s all big rails/ledges/stairs: Nyjah’s specialty. If he didn’t win, it’s because he had a bad day, not because someone had a really good one.

The reality is that Street League is all about being flawless. Nyjah won the last one because he’s the only one who didn’t miss more than two tricks in the last section (you could also argue here that the tricks he did put the pressure on everyone else and that’s why they missed tricks, but that’s not what it looked like to me). Is that what skateboarding is about? One could argue a trick is more satisfying after someone’s tried it so many times. Should we be rewarding and glorifying perfection? This requires hours and hours of training in your private park and starts to borderline into the jock mentality of being “the best” (insert comment about the Monster Energy “Dime Squad”- I mean, really, kids? You’re buying that?). Skateboarding isn’t about landing every trick you try perfectly; it’s about the struggle and the progression – two things that Street League doesn’t reward at all.

Call me bitter, but when you’re skating flatland in an empty parking lot, you’re keeping it more “real” and more “street” than Street League can ever be. Forget the points, the qualifying, the strategy, and the big name sponsors. Just go skateboarding.

5:44 pm • 16 May 2013 • 7 notes