Attention aspiring action-sport marketing honchos and brand-managers* — some years ago in this web space, Boil the Ocean Canteen and Cookery Unltd. challenged readers to design a caption for a pic of Adelmo Jr and his free-range dreadlocks. Today a more stringent and perilous challenge is posed to all. In years past the industry has ushered in ATVs, ledge-dancers and cellar doors, but somehow a more recent fashion of skating, some examples collected above, seems to have wandered up ledges, over the backs of handrails and elsewhere generally unnamed. The other day I struggled with this and clumsily thought to myself “it’s gotta be fast and powerful. Something like, um, “power skating”, but not so lame.” So I used power skating. Yall can do better I bet, what is this subgenre called?
*read: box-packers able to heed the call of the clock-radio alarm
Tags: Love Day, palatial, perseverance, pizzazz, pod, poncho, porcupine, pow-pow, powah, procurement, punchy, pylon
boil the ocean 
July 13, 2012 at 12:48 am |
I just refer to the “real men of skateboarding”, soulful pioneers of our moving street art.
July 13, 2012 at 9:41 am |
There is something classic/timeless about this approach as well, that sequence of Alex and the picnic table will be sick 10 years from now, more so than say P Rod late flipping out of a nollie crook on a small ledge or Kalis front foot impossible out of a fakie 5-0. This is manly shit, and its appreciated most by older guys, but “man style” sounds sketchy…I don’t see anything wrong with just calling it power skating.
July 13, 2012 at 10:55 am |
it’s just simply “shredding”
July 13, 2012 at 11:15 am |
George is on the right track.
“Man skating” sums it up real nice. This approach to skateboarding is not for the faint of heart.
July 13, 2012 at 11:23 am |
It’s definitely just pure street skating, but “pure street” sounds too commercial primarily for sounding like the X-Games’ or Dyrdek Enterprises’ latest endeavor to try and win our hearts.
It’s puristic absolutism.
July 13, 2012 at 11:25 am |
Keep them knees up.
July 13, 2012 at 12:04 pm |
chest hair gnar
July 13, 2012 at 9:05 pm |
Winner
July 13, 2012 at 1:00 pm |
Man Skating
July 13, 2012 at 1:23 pm |
It’s elite level too, the type of skating that separates the top guys from everyone else. You learn to ledge dance first, then you say hell with it and just ollie the whole picnic table longways and shut down the session instantly.
July 13, 2012 at 1:52 pm |
its all skateboarding. why do we need a name for this “new” style? watch chris senn skate in jump off a building. thats “man style” if ive ever seen it. and thats just one example. people have been skating like this for years and its never been looked at as a sub genre, so why do we have to start calling it something now? i think people are tired of seeing dudes like p rod and shane oneal flip in and out of switch back tails for an entire part. those guys are amazing skaters, but everything they do looks so robotic. i totally would rather watch someone go fast through the streets and ollie over big stuff than watch some ledge monkey do video game tricks, but ill still watch any type of skating because i love skating. any way you look at it, its all skateboarding and its all awesome (unless youre talking about long boarding, then i dont give a shit). you dont need to name it. just enjoy it.
July 13, 2012 at 2:09 pm |
then, would these be “non-robotic skateboarding”?
July 13, 2012 at 2:42 pm |
If this is the opposite end of the spectrum from ‘robotic’ skating then you should probably call this ‘jock’ skating: Bigger, faster, farther …
And probably one of the best and earliest practitioners would be Reese Forbes. And then I guess the next logical assumption is that someone like Tory Pudwill has his feet planted firmly in both camps. Goddamn, I love skating.
July 13, 2012 at 2:54 pm |
I love skating too, especially this type hence my multiple posts. Have to respectfully disagree that this is “jock” skating though. I think that another thing this type of skating as going for it is that in most of those photos, a creative eye is being employed. No one has ollied the table that way, no one had done that wall ride, or gone up that Busenitz ledge. I’d say that training on skatepark ledges and perfecting your switch back tail is much more jock style than this. I would also argue for Sheffey or Hufnagel being an earlier practitioner of this style than Forbes.
July 13, 2012 at 4:19 pm |
Kien Lieu?
July 13, 2012 at 11:31 pm
Wasn’t he mostly just a big ollie guy though? This new crop of man skaters gets tech and creative with it. Its the best trend skating has had in years.
July 14, 2012 at 5:41 am
He is a big ollie guy and so are all the people in the pictures above. Kien definitely.
July 14, 2012 at 8:47 am |
I think that Gonz is actually a better comparison. Because when I think of someone like Busenitz or Jake Johnson I don’t just think “big” like I do with the Donger or Forbes. Its just a part of their skills, they also all go fast big and can get tech.
July 13, 2012 at 8:28 pm |
street barging
July 13, 2012 at 8:59 pm |
Yankoozled!!!
July 13, 2012 at 10:54 pm |
Gigantic skating, for me, a big big love.
July 14, 2012 at 5:40 am |
Ollie pop style? All those tricks require a lot of pop and its a nice homage to one of the originals: HUF.
Also why isnt there any photo of brandon westgate in that set? Hes the current top shelf power skater. also some historical references like natas, chris senn, huf, jeremy wray, ricky oyola, lenny kirk, matt hensley, sheffy, ave. That would be nice.
July 14, 2012 at 9:06 am |
kind of like ‘knees up’
July 14, 2012 at 12:28 pm |
I’m backing that one as well
July 14, 2012 at 12:22 pm |
the Open Air School of skateboarding? Which is to say, guys who shun training facilities.
July 14, 2012 at 9:25 pm |
“keep it simple, stupid” skating
July 15, 2012 at 11:00 am |
ballzout
July 15, 2012 at 9:10 pm |
i’ll second that!
July 15, 2012 at 6:43 pm |
i like “barging”
July 16, 2012 at 5:42 am |
They used to call Huf “Thundercalves” . Let’s call it Huffing.
July 19, 2012 at 10:45 pm |
Huffing is my winner for sure.
July 16, 2012 at 4:43 pm |
Olympian skating. Higher/longer/faster. Completely eschewing technical prowess in favor of pure athletic ability
July 16, 2012 at 5:57 pm |
No way. No Olympic nothing. This is skateboarding.
July 16, 2012 at 6:05 pm |
I have no ‘names’ for you, but this reminds me a bit of Josh Kalis. Can’t remember what vid, but the clip was in his Epicly Laterd series, episode 3. Anyway, 360 flip over a trashcan off of what Jamie Thomas called, ‘the world’s smallest bump.’
July 16, 2012 at 8:23 pm |
Boost Mobile?
July 17, 2012 at 3:23 am |
I sometimes call coffee “brown poop water,” does that work?
July 17, 2012 at 7:35 am |
It’s just amazing skating. And like someone else said, its no thing new. Just watch frankie hills part in ban this from 89, og hucker who should make the list.
To me Chris Cole is like a jock skater rather than your Brandon westgates and grant taylors etc. Those guys have style aswell and don’t have a shitty training regime vibe.
July 17, 2012 at 1:48 pm |
Daryl Angel is not power. He has nothing to offer. If he was a color he would be beige.
July 20, 2012 at 10:52 pm |
daryl fucking rules. his natural style is so effortless and uncontorted that, yes, it may sometimes seem bland and understated in comparison to gilbert’s body spasms (which also rule). if you wanna talk beige, try mikey taylor.
July 23, 2012 at 10:52 am
I agree with the Mikey Taylor thing. Dill mentioned somewhere that he wasn’t cookie cutter – what? No.
The front feeble to tail and his really long crooked grinds are rad, but everything else he does is pretty much the first trick you would think to do at a spot.
July 17, 2012 at 7:50 pm |
“Solid.”
July 19, 2012 at 1:47 pm |
I’ve already been calling it power skating since your previous post.
July 20, 2012 at 12:33 pm |
Space Monkeying
July 21, 2012 at 2:49 am |
As far as I can tell, big ollies aren’t the main point of this post, its the new approach to old terrain. Going up rails and hubbas etc.
I like the term barging.
July 26, 2012 at 8:33 pm |
it ocurred to me that maybe Keegan Sauder helped spark this
July 31, 2012 at 7:57 pm |
Down River Barging
August 2, 2012 at 3:17 pm |
UTE Skating. “Up To Eleven.”
August 10, 2012 at 3:40 am |
It’s called thrashin. just watch the movie Thrashin’
August 15, 2012 at 10:25 pm |
As thee thee would probably agree, its that next level shit
August 20, 2012 at 7:51 pm |
I remember someone calling this breed of skater the ‘new power generation’.
December 15, 2013 at 12:24 pm |
I’m not sure exactly why but this site is loading extremely slow for me.
Is anyone else having this issue or is it a issue on my end?
I’ll check back later on and see if the problem still exists.