Untitled

[wantsomeslaw]

My Fingerboard Journey

I started fingerboarding in September 2012, which was the beginning of 8th grade. As a younger kid I always took a liking to skateboarding, so I had, and still have, a collection of tech deck dudes. My friend came to my house one day with his Roswells complete, which he told me was $60, and his Lowpro complete with BRTs and FF wheels which he said was $130. Watching him fingerboard and doing all these crazy tricks (which were really just treflips and nollie flips) made me want to get a few tech decks myself. So, knowing I had a stash of a bunch of tech decks/tech deck obstacles, I went on the search to find them. I scavenged my basement to find them, and to my surprise, there was something wrong with all of them. Broken wheel, broken axle, missing nuts, etc. But my love of fingerboarding was too great, and I fingerboarded despite all these issues.

Every day my friends would come over and we'd fingerboard on the floor, playing games of S.K.A.T.E consisting of terrible kickflips and ollie 180 reverts. One day, during Hurricane Sandy, my friends were over at my house fingerboarding, and my house lost power. My friends all left quickly, and one of them left his Roswells complete, and I'm ashamed to say I held on to it for about a month. Fortunately we were, and still are pretty close friends, so there were no hard feelings and he ended up considering it almost like he lent it to me. With this board I started filming my first fingerboard video.

Around this time, fingerboarding started to become popular in my school. Most kids would have tech decks, where as a couple had china completes. I remember one boy saying he was sponsored by Star Fingerboarding, which I knew wasn't true, but I never felt like calling him out. When I noticed people were bringing them to school, I knew I needed to buy one with foam grip. I bought one on Ebay that was about 7 dollars, which is actually still being sold (http://www.ebay.com/itm/96mm-Canadian-Maple-Wooden-Deck-Fingerboard-Skateboard-Sport-Games-Xmas-Gift-D42-/350916307478?pt=US_Action_Figures&hash=item51b43dea16) That's the setup I learned, and finished my first video with.

Soon after I started getting into it, my friend who introduced me to it, showed me the team he was on, “Mature Fingerboards.” It was just him, and 2 other kids from the school making little montages and tryouts. Pretty much a media team. This was my new goal. I HAD to get on Mature Fingerboards, and I would spend all my time practicing to get on. I was never put on the team, but at that point, pretty much all of them stopped fingerboarding and didn't put up videos. Let me add, throughout this whole time I always told my friend “I'm never going to get too into it, I can't bring my self to spending $30 on a mini skateboard!” Everything after that is me going to my first Rendezvous, which was Rendezvous 15, and getting super into it from there. I honestly never thought I would be where I am today. Writing for a blog created by members of Flatface? It's still hitting me. There's so much more to my fingerboard journey, and maybe I'll post more about it in another article, but these are the main points that made me who I am.

[wantsomeslaw]

Fingerboarding: It's Just a Toy

If you check out some fingerboarding websites, you may see them write phrases like "Caution: not a toy" or "it's not a toy, it's a lifestyle," etc.

What is a fingerboard? A fingerboard is, essentially, 5 pieces of wood glued together, trucks, wheels, and tape, and the whole point of it is to have fun. Sounds like a toy to me. But what makes a fingerboard different from any other toy is that a fingerboard can really change someone's life.

I've gotten flak for writing about a simple topic and taking it to some sappy/over-emotional level, but in all reality, think about it. Fingerboarding has benefited the lives of so many people, and not just on a minor level. Lives have (literally) changed because of fingerboarding. As an example, I asked David Smith, the owner of Airflo Rails, a question. "How has fingerboarding changed your life?" Here was his response:

"Fingerboarding is a part of skateboarding, and Skateboarding has not changed my life, it is my life. I have been skateboarding since age 5, and found fingerboarding through skateboarding. With my interest in business and building things I wanted to learn how to weld and fabricate rails for fingerboards, which led to me creating a small company, which turned into much more than that. I took this company, and have been selling my products all over the world. More importantly, I have gained friends from all over the country and have been on a few tours setting up fingerboarding events/demos in over 15 cities around the country. I have developed close friendships with a very diverse group of people, and I have enjoyed every minute of it. I also have chosen to further study manufacturing/machining in college because of my interest in metalworking, which originated from fingerboarding. If it wasn't for fingerboarding and skateboarding, I'm not sure what my life would be like."

As you can see, fingerboarding has changed Dave's life for the better. He wants to learn about machining since he developed a passion for it with Airflo, and Airflo was a spectacular way for him to practice and create a portfolio. On top of that, he got lots of experience in owning a company. He also mentions all of the friendships he has made over the years through fingerboarding.

So what am I trying to get at? Fingerboarding is not only a fun hobby to do in your downtime, it can expand your creativity by exploring filming/editing, graphic designing, and business skills. And the life long friendships you can create through fingerboarding are definitely a plus. A fingerboard may just be wood, trucks, and wheels but as you can see, it can bring so much to someone. Fingerboarding does more than I've seen in any other hobby, which is what makes fingerboarding so special.